So what is going on here? A new Double Fine Kickstarter? To Kickstart a tactical strategy PC game? Called Massive Chalice (Kickstarter)?
Well, don't read this; go read and watch the Kickstarter instead! The game, which you can Kickstart, is aimed for a September release for PC, Mac, and Linux, and is helmed by Brad Muir.
Kickstart it! At the time of writing, the project has been Kickstarted up to $9,791 of its $725,000 goal.
The latest Humble Indie Bundle is all about the Double Fine.
Pay what you want, and get Costume Quest, Stacking, and Psychonauts for PC, Mac, and Linux as DRM-free downloads (and as a Steam key if you pay more than $1 USD)! Pay more than the average (currently just under $8 USD), and you'll also get Brütal Legend (also for Windows, Mac, and Linux DRM-free and with a Steam key).
If you have the money, you may also pay $70 or more, which will net you an exclusive Humble Double Fine Bundle T-shirt (available in black or cream).
Like all Humble Indie Bundles, a portion goes to charity (Child's Play and the Electronic Frontier Foundation), and there's a slider available which you can decide how much of your payment goes to which charity, how much goes to Double Fine, and how much goes to Humble Bundle. If you haven't picked up these games yet, want to get a Steam key for the games, want to support charity and/or Double Fine, or just want to get them again for whatever reason, the Humble Double Fine Bundle is for you.
This means that Double Fine's "music driven score challenge game", Dropchord, has also been pushed back, as it will be a launch title for the device. There are also plans to release Dropchord on smartphones and tablets, but no specific platforms or release dates have been set for those versions as of yet.
Source: Polygon
Game Informer's print preview of Broken Age has been out for a while but it has only just been made available online.
It's a good long read, but if you're determined to go into the game knowing nothing at all, it may be best to steer clear - it does go into some details of the early plot of the game. In fact, it reveals more than has even been available to backers so far, though nothing I would regard as a big spoiler. To me, reading it recalled poring over those old LucasArts previews in the 1990s, trying to glean as much information as possible because we were so excited about this new thing. I've got a good feeling about this one.
If you want to get a good feeling too,Source: Game Informer
The Steam Database once again proves itself useful in finding out future releases. Accoring to Brütal Legend's entry in the Steam database, versions for Linux and OS X should be coming soon.
If that's not enough Brütal Legend for you, you may be pleased to know that the Team Fortress 2 items that were available for pre-order are now available to purchase through Double Fine's Steam Workshop items. Those who pre-ordered (and who are concerned about such things) need not worry though, since only the pre-order items are marked with the "Genuine" quality.
Eurogamer managed to get their hands on Dropchord, the upcoming "rhythmic score action game" from the same people who brought you Kinect Party. The game is based off the Leap Motion Controller, which you can use without actually leaping. I'd tell the lazier among us to leap for joy at this revelation, but we're too lazy.
The article touches more on Leap than the actual game, but give it a read anyway, or watch a teaser for the game here.
Source: Eurogamer
Remember the original Host Master? Of course you! Benedikt Hummel and Marius Fietzek have created a sequel that you can now play for free over at the Double Fine website, so go play and see if you can get Tim to the stage in time to deliver this year's speech!
Double Fine Adventure is now called Broken Age.
It's a story of a boy and a girl living parallel lives. The girl has been chosen by her village to be sacrificed to a terrible monster--but she decides to fight back. Meanwhile, a boy on a spaceship is living a solitary life under the care of a motherly computer, but he wants to break free to lead adventures and do good in the world.
If you missed the kickstarter, the game can be pre-ordered from its website. You can either preorder the game (DRM free) for $15 for Windows, Mac, and Linux and get access to the beta once it's available. Or pre-order for $30 to become a backer. Backer status includes the game, private backer-only discussion forums on Double Fine's message boards, all past and ongoing episodes of 2 Player Productions' documentary series following the development of the game, a wealth of development materials from the Double Fine team, a digital soundtrack, and beta access once available.
Ronzo "Ron" Gilbert announced yesterday on his blog that he's leaving Double Fine as The Cave is now completed. He also shared the image on the left of the complete map from the game.
His next project will be a game for iOS that he's developing with DeathSpank co-creator Clayton Kauzlaric called Scurvy Scallywags in The Voyage to Discover the Ultimate Sea Shanty: A Musical Match-3 Pirate RPG. We're supposed to see some screenshots appearing over the next few days.
bgbennyboy, owner of Quick & Easy Software and creator of several explorers and the famous USB ejector, has released a new program called DoubleFine Explorer. As the name suggests, you can use it to explore the innards of various post-Psychonauts Double Fine games and extract titbits you may find useful.
Source: Quick & Easy Software
Only a week after their last one, Rock, Paper Shotgun hit up Tim again to discuss all things Brutal Legend. The resulting article reads like a dense post-mortem of the game, and I don't think the bevy of behind-the-scenes dirt Tim reveals is entirely retread, so do dig in.
Tim also conveys the oft-told story of how the uncertain aftermath of studio's last massive scale release led to the more experimental approach we've enjoyed from them in recent years:
“We wanted to do smaller games for a lot of reasons, but it’s hard to get that started when you don’t have to,” Schafer admitted. “Those resources always get sucked into the big game. We were like that kid sitting on the edge of the pool going, ‘Uh, I want to get in, but it looks cold.’ Then some big bully kicked us in, and then we were really happy. It all worked out. We’ve done Amnesia Fortnight ever since them. We did it publicly this year.”
“When you’re strapped to the front of that giant rocket, you don’t have much control. It’s an exciting ride, but you aren’t steering anything. That’s one of the reasons I started the company, for control. I was part of a big publisher in LucasArts and I could do a lot of things that I wanted, but there were still bigger entities that controlled what I did. Not that I control every single game and everything that’s going on here. Other talented people are controlling things as well. But we control our own destiny. We can choose what we do and what we don’t do. That’s been great.”
Source: Rock, Paper Shotgun
The game is Dischord -- "a music-driven score challenge game" -- and the "odd thing" is the Leap Motion controller which looks pretty cool if it actually works as advertised.
Dischord will be available to play at SXSW and we assume more information will be available on the game's official site soon.
Source: Bosweid on the Twitters
There's another interview with Dan Connors that talks about Telltale's upcoming Fables game, this time at Game Informer. In it, the protaganist is revealed to be Bigby, Fables' big bad wolf. There's also a hint as to how the choice based gameplay that was featured in The Walking Dead might work in Telltale's Fables game:
"Fables is coming along really well. We’ve gone back in and really tried to take a lot of what we learned from The Walking Dead and get that integrated into the story with Bigby and the characters that he meets. We want to make it a real interesting battle for Bigby between: Should he give in to the wolf side, or should he try to get along and keep everybody safe? There’s a lot of work in trying to make that work."
Also, Polygon posted an article with an image from the PlayStation Meeting 2013 showing all the third party companies that are committed to making games for the upcoming PlayStation 4. They mentioned Double Fine by name, but intrepid viewers can also spot the LucasArts and Telltale Games logos among those companies listed.
In an interview with Rock, Paper Shotgun, Tim Schafer reiterates his desire to eventually make Psychonauts 2 (and maybe I'm too sanguine, but at this point I feel like that one's just a matter of time), but also spares some optimism for a continuation of Double Fine's heavy metal saga:
Make no mistake, however: Double Fine still very much wants to make a Brutal Legend 2. But, as with Psychonauts 2, it’s a matter of waiting for the planets to align on a scale that even prog rock album covers couldn’t dream up. Then again, this is Double Fine we’re talking about. The same Double Fine that kicked off gaming’s obsession with Kickstarter and recently managed to sell a game jam. Crazier things have happened.
“I mean, it’s been longer since Psychonauts and we wouldn’t have to do any music licensing,” Schafer pointed out. “So we could probably afford to do it more if we got some funding. I feel like a Brutal sequel would cost twice as much as Psychonauts. It’s easier to imagine Double Fine doing a sequel to Psychonauts. But for creative reasons, there’s no preference of one over the other.”
Either way, Double Fine apparently has ambitions to expand the original game with more downloadable content - for the multiplayer campaign, anyway. From small enhancements to entire factions, the studio was forced to cut a number of features from the game that they could resurrect if the PC release proves successful enough. Recall that the company had even begun work on a full-fledged sequel before EA was all like, "Psyche!" - one imagines that there's a ton of vaulted ideas for Eddie Riggs' future just waiting for the disinfecting sunlight of capital investment.
Source: Rock, Paper Shotgun
25% off the usual price at the moment, so get on over to steam now!
Source: Facebook
Here's three Mojo tidbits for the new year:
Firstly, Did you miss the first public Double Fine Amnesia fortnight? If so, you still have a chance to redeem yourself for your misdeeds. Head to Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnight page where you can still buy the games in digital form for $10 USD. If that's not enough for you, for an extra $20 USD, you can now pre-order a collector's package that comes with a DVD with all five Amnesia Fortnight prototypes (plus the bonus prototypes Brazen, Happy Song, and Costume Quest), the 15-track Amnesia Fortnight 2012 Soundtrack, and a Blu-Ray disc of 2-Player Productions' Amnesia Fortnight documentary footage. If that's still not enough for you, for an extra $15 on top of that, you can have the package include a collector's edition cover featuring art of one of the five 2012 protoypes signed by the project leader for that prototype. If you're still not satisfied with these awesome options, feel free to pay $70 USD for a collector's package featuring covers with art from all six prototypes, all signed by each project leader.
Secondly, Telltale's finally openly talking about their upcoming announced projects, but it's not Fables or King's Quest. Instead, they're talking about The Walking Dead Season Two (which should surprise no one). In an interview with Polygon, Telltale CEO Dan Connors talks about the next season's pre-production story meetings. It seems the next season will feature at least some of the same characters as season one, since according to Mr. Connors:
"We're talking through different scenarios, though I don't think we've talked through one where we just start with a new set of characters."
Another interesting bit from that interview is that Telltale is open to the possibility of having the game characters meet the television show characters. It will be interesting to see if they can work that out, since it seems the television show and comic book are handled by two separate corporate entities (judging by the Terminal Reality developed shooter based on the television show that's coming out next month, and the fact that Telltale's game got no publicity from AMC, the network that produces the show).
Lastly, do you remember the Wallace & Gromit's Musical Marvels show at the BBC Proms last year? The one that Mojo covered because it was Ben Whitehead's (of Telltale's Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures) first official credited appearance as Wallace in plasticine form? Well, the good news is that if you missed it last year, you still have a chance to see it live since it's proved popular enough to now become a full touring show. It just premiered yesterday at The Plenary in Melbourne, Australia, and will be touring elsewhere later this year (with the short A Matter of Loaf and Death screened at each performance as a bonus). You can view a list of the full touring locations at the Wallace & Gromit's Musical Marvels website.
For those of you, who, like me, would need to look it up, Ouya is the Kickstarter-funded, Android powered game console that will made be available to its backers come March (and hit the streets this summer). The main bullet points for Ouya are its Open Development Kit (no licensing fee - anyone can make a game!) and the requirement of every title to have some sort of free-to-play aspect.
This makes the platform sound like a rather good fit for an independent studio like Double Fine, and... well gosh-a-roonie, what a co-inky-dink!
During her talk at DICE 13, Ouya founder Julie Uhrman announced that both Double Fine and Words With Friends creator Paul Bettner are planning titles for the Android-powered console. Uhrman claims that over 450 titles are coming to the console.
Double Fine will be bringing the recently-released The Cave and the Kickstarted Double Fine Adventure to the Ouya. Uhrman also revealed that the Double Fine Adventure is currently code-named Reds. Bettner is creating a brand-new, self-funded studio, Verse, to focus on Ouya development.
Both The Cave and REDS (code name just revealed, apparently) already confirmed? Sounds like the studio is fully supporting Ouya going forward. The pinball machine ports remain an open question.
Source: GamesIndustry International
Remember when Notch said he'd maybe fund a Psychonauts sequel last year and then nothing more came of it? On Saturday, he revealed that the actual cost for such a game would lie in the vicinity of 18 million dollars, far beyond the "couple of million" he initially thought it would cost.
Source: Digital Trends
