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In an epic 5 page interview with Tim Schafer, it is revealed that Double fine are working on a sequel to their Microsoft Kinect title "Happy Action Theatre".

Of course, what passes for work inside Double Fine might resemble play at other companies. Schafer sidles up to a duo testing what looks like a computerized funhouse mirror. He wiggles from side to side, and the screen shows him rippling like a sine wave. He turns around, and his virtual body corkscrews. They're building the sequel to Happy Action Theater, a "video toy" published by Microsoft this year. It uses Microsoft's Kinect controller, a camera that transforms body motion into videogame action. In a recent meeting, designers spent two hours brainstorming different outlandish sequences for the game, such as one where a fox plays bongo drums on a series of eggs, out of which hatches a miniature version of the player.

There's a lot more to the article of course, Halford vs. Osborne, Kickstarter, growing up, LucasArts... etc. Go read it or crawl back under your rock. Your choice.

Source: SF Weekly

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Hey, wanna see something exactly like that image from/regarding Ron's new game that we just posted? Look no further than this tweet from SEGA's Twitter page dated yesterday. This would certainly make it pretty clear that the game, which I'm assuming at this point is The Cave, will be published by SEGA for platforms unknown.

And lest we forget, Ron's been carrying on about something happening tomorrow, and as sure as ten dimes will buy a dollar it's gonna be this game's announcement. I wonder what genre it will turn out to be?

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For the past few days, Ron "Ronzo" Gilbert has teased us with characters on puzzle pieces. Today, we have the complete image for you to behold:

Source: Grumpy Gamer

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Today's character is known as The Knight and he goes next to The Time Traveller.

Source: Grumpy Gamer

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Predictably, Ron Gilbert has uploaded yet another image of a character from his upcoming game. The Scientist is a character we've seen in earlier concept art as well, though there have been some smaller changes. In the puzzle, the piece fits next to the Hillbilly, meaning there is at least one more character to go.

Source: Grumpy Gamer

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Ron Gilbert has revealed a fourth character on his blog! Since we now have four pieces, we've tried to fit them together. As you can see below, three of them go next to each other, leaving the time traveller out in the cold.

Is Ron Gilbert working on some insane puzzle game? Earlier this month, several game sites (but not us) received a puzzle that when solved turned out to also be a tease for this mysterious game.

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When it comes to Ron Gilbert's new game, we've so far had pictures of a mobster, a scientist, a prize booth thing, and a ceiling mounted laser cannon. Now, behold the hillbilly, the monk, and the time traveller!

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Seems the fine folks over at Kotaku just received a package from Double Fine with a puzzle inside. Putting it together and you get some interesting picture (which, I'm guessing, is probably related to Ron's game).

Source: Kotaku

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The prices of Double Fine's PC games are now at an incredibly low price ($9.99US in a bundle with Psychonauts, Costume Quest, and Stacking, $2.99US a piece for Psychonauts and Costume Quest, or $7.49US for Stacking) at Amazon. As a result, Psychonauts is currently #1 on Amazon's list of best selling video games, and Costume Quest is #4.

It's good to see Psychonauts finally at the top of the charts where it belongs (especially now that there is no external publisher sharing in any profit Psychonauts makes).

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Zipline Games issued a press release today announcing that Double Fine has selected their Moai platform to power their upcoming adventure game.

“We’ve chosen Moai as the technology platform for our new adventure game,” said Tim Schafer, CEO of Double Fine Productions. “Moai’s supposed to be awesome, but since I’m not smart enough to tell you all the reasons why, I’ll just turn it over to the Double Fine developers to explain.”


“We built the first demo of Double Fine Adventure in 2 days using Moai,” added Nathan Martz, Technical Director at Double Fine Productions, “Gameplay changes take seconds instead of minutes because you can do almost all your work in Lua. Then we can build both client and cloud features for the game in the same language.”


“We like to control every aspect of our games in order to bring Tim’s awesome, crazy ideas to life, and because Moai is open source we can change any line of code we need to,” Martz added. “Plus the fans asked for Double Fine Adventure on five different PC, tablet, and mobile phone platforms, and Moai supports them all with a single core codebase. It was the best choice for us.”

I guess SCUMM got rejected. The press release also indicates that the studio is aiming for a Spring 2013 release. Oh, and here's a video:


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Source: Virtual-Strategy Magazine

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"No!", says Jason.

Ages ago, some journo over on CHUD posted a feature saying Tim Schafer should make other stuff and Jason replied with this.

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In a news story that will likely go down in history, gaming entrepreneur Markus "notch" Persson has announced his successful purchase of Double Fine Productions.

Earlier in the year, the independent game developer, known for his successful game "Minecraft", announced tentative plans to help fund a Psychonauts sequel. Since then all has been quiet, overshadowed by Double Fine's successful Kickstarter project.

Today "notch" broke his silence and announced his successful acquisition of Tim Schafer's company, only to immediately shut down the company.

In his statement made to press, Persson said: "I knew they were worth at least $3.3M from the Kickstarter donations, so I made sure I paid less than that. Now I get to keep the difference!"

Double Fine Productions ceased business at 12am PST this morning. Rumours that they'll resume normal operations on Monday 2nd, April, are so far unfounded.

Source: News

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Grim Fandango Deluxe, the fan project to update the graphics of Grim Fandango, has taken a step forward, releasing an early prototype.

For the first time, fans can actually play with a hi-res version of Manny for themselves, although there are still many bugs to be ironed out (Manny's facial animations are missing).

You can download a file that allows you to see the new model ingame for yourself here:

The Official Grim Fandango Deluxe Blog

Source: GrimFandangoDeluxe Blog

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In our continuing quest to report on two week old news, here is a two-part interview Tim Schafer did with The PA Report a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks to reader Nojan for notifying us of this.

Clicky and more clicky!

Source: The PA Report

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Do you remember Marius Fietzek, the German adventure aficionado who won our hearts, not to mention a Telltale internship, along with his cohort Thorsten Fietzek with those "I Wonder What Happens in Tales of Monkey Island" flash videos? He's back to secure another dream job using another unconventional portfolio woven from the fabric of awesome.

Sensing that the success of Double Fine's Kickstarter campaign would translate into a need for new hires, Marius has submitted a resume to Tim Schafer's studio - an interactive one, taking the form of a brief, Monkey Island-cognizant flash adventure game (playable here) in which you're a Double Fine HR goon named Clark who is interviewing Marius, his skill set revealed via dialog tree.


Marius' method is brilliant, and functions either intentionally or unintentionally as homage to the very same technique Tim Schafer himself employed when he sent a resume to Lucasfilm Games in the form of a text adventure game depicting the happy ending to his job search. Hopefully Marius' creativity pays off - he seems to only be after a brief internship, and unlike Schafer he has the advantage of not inadvertently revealing to his prospective employer that he pirated one of their games. I don't know what happens next, but I hope someone will make a speculative flash video shedding light on the subject. I want this to get so meta that it consumes itself helplessly into a black hole.

Source: In-game

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Clicky!

Update: If you missed it, you can watch the final 12 minutes here. (Thanks to Jones Jr for sharing the link.)

The final total raised (including money from premium backers) was: 3,446,371! Woo!

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Source: Ustream

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In a final (final) update, DoubleFine invites fans and backers to watch the last minutes together:

It's less than 24 hours until the end of our Kickstarter campaign, and we're rapidly approaching $3,000,000. This is cause for celebration! Please join us tomorrow as we count down the final minutes until we embark on this crazy adventure. It all begins at 3:00 pm PST right here: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/double-fine-adventure

They also ask that you don't keep refreshing the Kickstarter page in the final two hours, so the site doesn't go down again.

Finally, Tim has posted one last video. This time on how to donate if you're not American or don't have a credit card:

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Here's the link you need if you want to donate: http://www.bit.ly/DoubleKick

Update: THEY DID IT! THEY HIT $3 MILLION!

Source: Kickstarter.com

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It's hard to believe that it's been 33 days since the news of Double Fine's Kickstarter Campaign eclipsed news of notch possibly funding Psychonauts 2... but here we are! A mere day away from production officially starting on the first Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert adventure game in over a decade!

With only 24 hours to go, the funding total stands tantalizingly close to the $3 million mark ($2,874,158 million at the time of writing), and you can't help but wonder: Will they hit $3 million?

Time will tell, but one thing's for sure: This is your last chance to Tweet, Blog, Facebook about the campaign, or to increase your funding to the most you can afford!

So get to it! : http://www.tinyurl.com/DoubleKick

Whatever happens, it's been a fun ride so far, and it's only the beginning!

Update: Tim Schafer has posted details on how to become a backer if you don't have a Credit Card. His instructions can be found here! Hurry!

Source: Kickstarter.com

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The technology news website VentureBeat has unearthed shocking photos of what Tim Schafer is really doing with the unexpected extra Kickstarter money...

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Eagle-eyed readers will the whiteboard in the background, displaying Schafer's plans to cut costs on the project: "Hire orphans = cheaper".

And that's just the tip of the iceberg... See the rest of the photos at VentureBeat's article.

Reminder: Only 50 hours left to go if you still wish to support Double Fine Adventure!

Source: VentureBeat.com

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In an interview with Eurogamer, Tim made an interesting comment about how he intends to balance nostalgia and freshness with the Double Fine Adventure Project:

It's not going to be an adventure game that apologises for being an adventure game. It's not going to be trying to be something else and have a bunch of action elements or something like that.
But it's not a museum piece or just a nostalgia piece. It's going to be fresh and feel modern and feel like what the next game would have been if I'd made one straight after Grim Fandango.

Here's why I find this interesting: I have a hard time believing that, had Tim followed up Grim Fandango immediately with an adventure game, it would have been a 2D point 'n clicker as Double Fine Adventure has been described from day one. If you look at Tim's projects up to Grim Fandango, you can see a relatively natural progression to the interface-free, direct control scheme of that game that Tim was never slow to defend. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Tim from 1998 would have told you that the idea of making his next adventure game in 2D and point 'n click would have represented taking a step backwards. Certainly, the Double Fine Adventure is a cede to tradition in some pretty specific ways, not just in the fact that it's a graphic adventure.


Which is no problem with me. The idea of Tim revisiting this sort of game is irresistible, welcome (to no fewer than 73,856 and counting!), and I'm sure something he genuinely came around to being passionate about during the fifteen years it's been since he's played in his original sandbox. Nonetheless, it'll be very interesting to see how much the team looks back as they craft an experience that is "fresh and modern."

Source: Eurogamer

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