Broken Age - Double Fine's Kickstarter Adventure Game

[J1M]

I've only seen one episode of the DF documentary which I downloaded from KS. ("We'll handle it")

I'm not sure how anyone could watch that episode and also fund Massive Chalice.

It is abundantly clear that they have too many artists on the team. It also sounds like they intend to hire more.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

And guess who will be going back to the sanatorium...

Spoiler

Hopefully he'll visit a dentist along the way. After all, he could Kickstart his own dental plan, people are obviously willing to pledge for anything, as long as it has the DF logo.

Now that I look a bit closer, his teeth seem a bit vampire-like somehow.

He does have one of this, at least:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removable_partial_denture

You can see in his KS pitch video for Massive Chalice.

 

[Cowboy Moment]

I've only seen one episode of the DF documentary which I downloaded from KS. ("We'll handle it")

I'm not sure how anyone could watch that episode and also fund Massive Chalice.

It is abundantly clear that they have too many artists on the team. It also sounds like they intend to hire more.

The people who have it worst off are the poor fuckers who didn't back DFA, but did pledge for MASSIVE CHALICE. Boy, are they in for a surprise.

 

[FeelTheRads]

The people who have it worst off are the poor fuckers who didn't back DFA, but did pledge for MASSIVE CHALICE. Boy, are they in for a surprise.

Don't worry, that will be funded through Kickstarter Nr.3: This time it's REALLY an old-school adventure.

 

[dunno lah]

That article where Tim said that he "lost" the money was where I drew the line. Unacceptable.

 

[Pyke]

Im assuming that was satire...although you never know....

 

[J_C]

That article where Tim said that he "lost" the money was where I drew the line. Unacceptable.

What? Where did you read this?

 

[Sensuki]

That was definitely a joke haha.

Schafer has already started a Kickstarter for Broken Age 2 saying, “I know Broken Age and Massive Chalice aren’t out yet, but I figure I should get the money now so I don’t have to worry about it later.”

http://www.p4rgaming.com/tim-schafe...-million-dollars-from-broken-age-kickstarter/

 

[Volrath]

He could have made 25 full throttles for 3 million dollars ffs.

 

[dunno lah]

Joke or not, Tim's doing an outstanding job of abusing the backers' good faith...

 

[J_C]

He could have made 25 full throttles for 3 million dollars ffs.

Yeah, 20 years ago.

 

[buzz]

He could have made 25 full throttles for 3 million dollars ffs.

Actually according to Tim himself, Broken Age (minus the money for backer rewards, Amazon and the documentary) has a budget of Full Throttle adjusted for inflation. But FT also had the action elements so it doesn't really count. The budget's could've easily fit a DotT/Monkey Island type of adventure game. Even if it had some delays or a need for additional money I would be mildly okay with it. But this is getting into ridiculous territory. I've read that in order to release the game without delays, they'd have to reduce the scope of their project by 75%

Here are his tweets about the budgets of his older games

Spoiler

 

[ghostdog]

According to Tim Shaffer and wikipedia :

Day Of The Tentacle had a budget of 600.000 $
Full Throttle had a budget of 1,5 mil $
Grim Fandango had a budget of 3 mil $
Psychonauts had a budget of 13 mil $
Brutal Legend had a budget of 24 mil $

o_O

The moment he started Double Fine the budget for his games skyrocketed. Ok sure, Psychonauts was maybe a more complex game than his Lucasarts adventures, but 13 mil $ is still too much. I think it has something to do with the structure of his company, the amount of people he employs, their salaries, and of course the management of the projects. Brutal Legend seems to be going the same route as Psychonauts, only with this one you have the added cost of buying the songs for the game and for the famous voice actors.

 

[J_C]

Grim Fandango was released in 1998. Psychonauts in 2005. The increase in budget was widespread among AAA games in the early 2000s. That said, a smaller company could make a Psychonauts level game from less than 13 million. Maybe around 6-8 million.l

 

[J1M]

According to Tim Shaffer and wikipedia :

Day Of The Tentacle had a budget of 600.000 $
Full Throttle had a budget of 1,5 mil $
Grim Fandango had a budget of 3 mil $
Psychonauts had a budget of 13 mil $
Brutal Legend had a budget of 24 mil $

o_O

The moment he started Double Fine the budget for his games skyrocketed. Ok sure, Psychonauts was maybe a more complex game than his Lucasarts adventures, but 13 mil $ is still too much. I think it has something to do with the structure of his company, the amount of people he employs, their salaries, and of course the management of the projects. Brutal Legend seems to be going the same route as Psychonauts, only with this one you have the added cost of buying the songs for the game and for the famous voice actors.

If you watch the pirate bay version of their documentary you will see the problem. This adventure game's team is too large. There are more artists than are needed who are constantly redoing work on an area. They should be just roughing out the whole game so it can be playable and then going back and doing a final art pass. This game probably needs a team of about a dozen people plus testers, but they have 3 producers. When your management ratio is 25% there is a problem. One of whom was brought in because the others weren't able to determine when the game would be finished.

Oh yeah, and they are a year into production but do not have a full script or game design yet.

 

[J_C]

According to Tim Shaffer and wikipedia :

Day Of The Tentacle had a budget of 600.000 $
Full Throttle had a budget of 1,5 mil $
Grim Fandango had a budget of 3 mil $
Psychonauts had a budget of 13 mil $
Brutal Legend had a budget of 24 mil $

o_O

The moment he started Double Fine the budget for his games skyrocketed. Ok sure, Psychonauts was maybe a more complex game than his Lucasarts adventures, but 13 mil $ is still too much. I think it has something to do with the structure of his company, the amount of people he employs, their salaries, and of course the management of the projects. Brutal Legend seems to be going the same route as Psychonauts, only with this one you have the added cost of buying the songs for the game and for the famous voice actors.

If you watch the pirate bay version of their documentary you will see the problem. This adventure game's team is too large. There are more artists than are needed who are constantly redoing work on an area. They should be just roughing out the whole game so it can be playable and then going back and doing a final art pass. This game probably needs a team of about a dozen people plus testers, but they have 3 producers. When your management ratio is 25% there is a problem. One of whom was brought in because the others weren't able to determine when the game would be finished.

Oh yeah, and they are a year into production but do not have a full script or game design yet.

That is sadly 100% true. They treat the game as a AAA game, which is not.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

Welp, I got my $30 back.

 

[almondblight]

If you watch the pirate bay version of their documentary you will see the problem. This adventure game's team is too large. There are more artists than are needed who are constantly redoing work on an area. They should be just roughing out the whole game so it can be playable and then going back and doing a final art pass.

Didn't the December update mention that they were gearing up production? It sounds like they got a big group of people then spent 8-9 months just dicking around.

 

[J1M]

I don't know what happened in december, but I do know that after they ran out of money they hired more people.

 

[almondblight]

Ah, I was remembering toro's summery of a January video update:

- The game development is gearing up to speed. They did not say it directly, but they are waiting for the people still working on The Cave (which will be released probably in February).

 

[toro]

Ah, I was remembering toro's summery of a January video update:

- The game development is gearing up to speed. They did not say it directly, but they are waiting for the people still working on The Cave (which will be released probably in February).

The Cave was released on 23th of January 2013. But it doesn't really matter: they wasted time with Amnesia Fortnight and re-releasing Brutal Legend or the Humble Bundle. They probably did everything else except working on the "dream" game.

 

[Metro]

I'm sure they did that because they ran out of money. All the Humble Bundle promos so close together scream desperate reach for cash.

 

[J_C]

I'm sure they did that because they ran out of money. All the Humble Bundle promos so close together scream desperate reach for cash.

They never told otherwise. They said that the Brutal Legend PC version and the Humble Bundle were means to get additonal funding.

 

[Sam Ecorners]

And even after getting 2mil from both of those, they still couldn't get their shit together. Embarrassing, really.

 

[Metro]

I'm sure they did that because they ran out of money. All the Humble Bundle promos so close together scream desperate reach for cash.

They never told otherwise. They said that the Brutal Legend PC version and the Humble Bundle were means to get additonal funding.

You're supposed to be ignoring me.