It's not overreach, it's incompetence, plain and simple. If a company cannot make an adventure game with 3 million in 16 months, they're incompetent.

I know this is merely tangential, but I am constantly amazed by it, so let me just state it here and now:
People from Black Forest Games ended their Kickstarter on the last day of August. They had worked their asses off, not neglecting to run a livestream every now and then, and delivered their game near the end of October. This remains a stellar example of how a Kickstarter SHOULD work. If anyone were to disagree and mention that they already had quite a bit of the game ready at the very start, while DF merely had a vague idea... that's NOT helping the DF side of the argument at all. Hell - people bashed Brenda Brathwaite's project for being too vague and in too preliminary of a stage. Well - even having vague ideas is better than to have no clue :|.

You people are overreacting and making very elaborate reasoning on the basis of very limited information.

The facts are these:
- Double Fine has received an unexpected amount of money;
- Broken Age will be more beautiful and larger than initially anticipated;
- Broken Age will be more expensive and take longer than expected to be programmed properly.

So what? DF is broke and they kickstarted a fake project to survive? I think this is a bit too much.


Anyway, welcome to the world of publishers :)

They have not burned though over 3 millions. And you seem to assume that they only work on one area at a time and that making the engine and the UI takes not time at all. And simplistic graphics? What the hell are you smoking? The lighting alone is worlds beyond simplistic.

Then, I would imagine that they will get the money through other means. Maybe sack some people or take a loan. It's their business.

If you were a backer and saw the updates and documentaries you'd already know what was happening. This is all a shitstorm from people who aren't backers, who are getting limited parts of information to fuel internet rage.

Apologies if this has already been said, but when I got that update I was mostly struck by the comparison between Grim Fandango and Full Throttle as if they were both equally comparable. FT is pretty short, Grim's quite lengthy and about right for me for an adventure. I've now no idea what length Broken Age is supposed to be.

I don't actually mind the delays but the money management is worrying. I'd rather a few flashy bells and whistles were going to be cut back on first rather than any of the core gameplay and story, but it sounds like the opposite is happening from what Tim says there.

On the other hand there's more than enough goodwill from Psychonauts and Grim Fandango for me to still be massively looking forward to this; I just hope it does happen and is a decent length, proper adventure game. It really should be given the amount of funding it's taking! ;)

But then, this is all a big part of Kickstarter. Some of the finished projects will please us, some won't, you take your chances when you back. I'll judge this one on the final game and in the meantime hope that there hasn't been unwise budget management.

Except that they licensed MOAI and didn't build their own engine from scratch. And an adventure game UI costing that much money, are you insane?

In addition, you're ignoring the point. Do you think it takes this long to make a point-and-click adventure game on their budget? Why do you think it is that InXile who got even less funding than DF are on track for an October release of an open-world RPG, while DF could barely make one area in alpha, probably not even puzzles or dialogues implemented?

The issue is still why do you trust these people with your money when they are so inept at using it? Who would give them money after they have publicly demonstrated they are incompetent handling money? Certainly no investor/lender with any sense.

Did you not read your own opening post or something? They already stated that with some modest cut backs they can finish half the game with what they have, not just one area.

You also seem to keep repeating 3 million when they had more like 2.4 or something after physical goods were deducted (according to someone in the thread at least)

Tim's Twitter:
"Double Fine is NOT asking for more money. We are fine, financially. We are using our OWN money to deliver a bigger game than we Kickstarted."
https://twitter.com/TimOfLegend/status/352471341552762881

Unfortunately in these 16 months they've apparently only managed to produce a beautiful first act that's not broken. I'm not sure I'd have taken the broken beta instead.
It was a little over $2.2m according to the figures given after the Kickstarter project ended. Might have been enough for a Full Throttle type game but I guess Tim in his enthusiasm wanted to do something big. Not that I think that's good, but people should keep some perspective.

Except that modifying that engine to their needs still takes time. And UI takes time to develop as well -- no matter how dismissive you are of adventure game UI's, it's still a complex piece of work that takes programmer and artist time. Not to mention all that other stuff like getting production pipelines ready, working out the concepts and designing things. Time=money in development. It's not just the matter of churning out areas.


You are making quite a lot of assumptions. I would suggest you stop pretending to be an expert on game development. Especially when you have not been following the production updates on this project.

Because I've seen what they can make with it. It is amazing.

It's a UI, it ain't rocket science champ. Many, many other smaller developers do this on budgets 1/10 of DF's and don't fail so hard. Nice dodge there, but you didn't answer any of my queries. Really? What amazing P&C adventure games have DF made? Or are you referring to Schafer when he was at LucasArts?

well... i want it to succeed. day one purchase from me no matter what (as long as it is released). both brutal legends and psychonauts went over the budget. they had publishers tough so no biggie.
running over budget for this game does not sound really promising.

Also why is using more money then the kickstarter amount bad. They are using more of the own money to make a bigger size game.
And seen he prob means the parts in the documentary which look amazing.
They are now creating a grim fandango size game(that game took 4 years and 3+ million dollar to make would be allot more with inflation.)

The assumption that they have failed is only in your head. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Like I'm going to divulge private backer information. All I can say is that you are wrong when you claim that they have only managed to bring one area barely to alpha.

I'm referring to Broken Age actually.

Well, I want it to succeed too, I haven't liked any DF game I've played but I thought Grim Fardango had some of the best writing and story design I've ever seen in an adventure game. But if a project can be funded on Kickstarter to the tune of 800% and only make half the game, something is wrong with that company.

It's not just about DF either, it's also about the perceived legitimacy of crowdfunding, events like these attract negative publicity and make it even harder for less known indies to crowdsource funding.

Even Brian Fargo said in an interview that he understands the pressure of delivering a good product on time because it's not just them who are damaged if they and other "big" video game kickstarters mess up, it's all the other indies wanting to crowdsource.
No offense, but you talk like a self-important, pretentious little prat. Come down from that high-horse when you want to treat with the adults and not behave like you're above everyone else for having backed a Kickstarter.