The International House of Mojo

In what's likely to be the final update before the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter Campaign ends on Tuesday 13 March, Tim Schafer has announced several additional rewards for backers of the game.

$100 pledges will now get the following additional rewards:

A "Collector's Edition" of the game in an Old Skool Cardboard Box™, just like a real adventure game!

A neato "Double Fine Adventure" t-shirt.

Both of which are exclusive to Kickstarter backers. Plus the existing rewards: Your name in the game's credits, a "Double Fine Adventure" poster (suitable for framing), and a DVD/Bluray of the finished documentary... all of which are also exclusive to the Kickstarter Campaign (well, not the documentary).

And, of course, $100 backers also get all the previous reward tiers, too:

A PDF version of the book of the game (with artwork, scripts, secrets, and more).

The game soundtrack.

Documentary soundtrack.

Exclusive access to the Beta on Steam.

Access to the video series, and access the private discussion community.

*pant*

In short: It seems Double Fine would like you to consider $100 to be the coolest amount to donate...

Unless of course you've got $500, in which case they'd like to let you know that Tim is personally signing all copies of the Hardcover version of the book.

With only 60 hours left to donate, now is the time to help make history!

Source: Kickstarter.com

Reddit's "Ask Tim Schafer Anything" event has come and gone, but the answers to the questions are still there to read.

Double Fine has also posted up 10 videos where Tim responds to the questions, which cover both his LucasArts games and his Double Fine games, as well as those games at Double Fine which were led by others.

Find out what adventure games inspired Tim Schafer's career, what Tim Schafer's favorite puzzles are in his games, how Tim felt about the sales of his LucasArts games, what didn't end up in the games he made, how he felt about Sierra, and much more.

See the answers for yourself in video form right here and even more answers in text form here.

With banana peeling skills like these, you know they'll make a great adventure game!

Source: YouTube

The Double Fine Kickstarter (now at over $2.3 million and counting) page has been updated again, this time by 2 Player Productions, the team who's making the documentary about the project.

They said the documentary will be like their Penny Arcade series. Each month they will release a 10-20 minute or more video that sums up that month's development progress. They also will be making more specific videos that will focus on the "nuts and bolts of the development progress".

The documentary will have original music by Terrence Lee, who composed the music for the indie game Dust Force.

Also, there will be an "Ask Tim Schafer Anything" event on Reddit on Sunday, March 4th, from 1pm to 3pm PST where you can Ask Tim Schafer questions and he will answer them.

The Double Fine Adventure documentary is in it's beginning stages now, and the first video will be out before the end of the month.

But for the meantime, they have released a blooper reel of Tim Schafer's pitch video to give their update that Tim Schafer flavor.

Double Fine registered a trademark with the US Patent and Trademark Office called "The Cave" for "computer game software and video game software."

GameSpot confirmed with Double Fine that it has nothing to do with the Double Fine Adventure:

"While we can't comment on unannounced projects, we can say that Double Fine's Kickstarter-funded adventure game has not been started, designed, or even imagined yet. No trademarks have been filed on its behalf."

There's been some suggestions that it might be the game Ron Gilbert is working on with Double Fine, but really, it's anyone's guess what The Cave really is. Hopefully it has a better fate than LucasArts' Handsome Halibut.

Source: GameSpot

If you want your fill of Double Fine goodness with a classic gaming feel, but don't feel like waiting until Double Fine Adventure begins production, then this album (released last August) is for you!

The Double Fine Action Arcade Soundtrack is a collection of the music by Bert Chang and Razmig Mavlian from Double Fine's flash games Epic Saga: Extreme Fighting, My Game About Me: Olympic Challenge, Tasha's Game, and Host Master and the Conquest of Humor. But wait, there's more! It also contains several whole bonus tracks, including Bert Chang's rendition of Peter McConnell's Meat Circus theme from Psychonauts in 1990's soundcard style!

It's available from iTunes for the low, low price of USD$0.99 a track or for a mere USD$9.99 for the whole album! It's also available at eMusic for half the price of iTunes for those of you with eMusic subscriptions. Don't wait! Buy now!

Double Fine's Psychonauts was one of the first games in Microsoft's short lived Xbox Originals line for the Xbox 360. But while the other games in the line are still available to purchase through the Xbox Live Marketplace, Psychonauts was removed last August without notice.

Tim Schafer explained that the reason it was removed was due to the rights to Psychonauts transferring from Majesco to Double Fine. Microsoft policy is that games without licensed publishers aren't allowed on the Xbox 360 (outside of the Indie Games), so it was removed.

Double Fine is working on getting the game back up, but as of this month they've still been having problems since Double Fine doesn't technically meet the requirements to be an Xbox 360 publisher (most notably due to a lack of disposable cash). So even though the game was one of Microsoft's flagship products in the Xbox Originals line, it's no longer available (and likely won't be available again any time soon) due to bureaucracy and red tape.

Update: Psychonauts is back on Xbox Live Marketplace, now published by Microsoft (bringing the game full circle). I also checked on my Xbox 360 to be double sure, and it is indeed back.

Update 2: It seems the game is only available on the Xbox Live Marketplace in North America (thanks Pedgey). Double Fine is aware of this and is working on getting Microsoft to re-add the game in other territories as well.

Double Fine's Kickstarter has kinda sorta stalled just shy of $2.1 million, although "stall" might be a bit of a negative spin when you take the amount into consideration. So how does one entice more backers? By adding more rewards!

This is how Double Fine is planning to reel in the last few doubters:

• $30: Gets you a digital soundtrack of the documentary!
• $60: Gets you a digital download of a book featuring concept art and other cool stuff from the game! Make it $500 and you'll get a hardcover edition.
• $100: And holy crap, you can get a boxed version of the game and the documentary.

You're probably legally in a coma if that doesn't excite you.

Now watch this conversation between Tim and Ron, recorded in January, just to get the excitement level up even further.

Let's break out into a happy jig because Jennifer has written a review of Double Fine's Kinect title Double Fine Happy Action Theater.

Go read it!

Double Fine Adventure continues to break records. Today the upcoming adventure game sauntered past $2 million mark without breaking a sweat.

It seems the update posted by Double Fine announcing platforms (PC, Mac, Linux - all DRM free) and languages (English Voice Overs, with French, Italian, German, and Spanish subtitles) did a great job reigniting the previously slowing donations.

Many people had begun speculating if it was possible for the $2 million mark within the time limit, but it now seems that it's anyone's guess what the final figure will be. With 22 days to go, who can tell?

What's YOUR guess?

Source: Kickstarter.com

A year after Jake and Spaff made the trip to Double Fine, Telarium and DJG went to check up on their mysterious new game named Psychonauts.

Will they get to play it? Will Tim be successful in his attempts to score some smack? Read the feature to find out!

Nowadays, not a month goes by without a new downloadable game being excreted by the twin babies of Double Fine. However, back in 2001, the company was just starting up and hiding behind a poop coloured door somewhere in San Francisco. It was to this place that former staffers Spaff and Jake decided to make a trip on a warm July day. Their account of this adventure has been rescued from the Mojo archive and can again be perused over here.

Or here.

In our new poll we ask how much you donated to the worthy case of the Double Fine Adventure. Was it a single dollar or did you see triangles in the distance and pledged a 150 grand? Go vote! (it's all anonymous, but feel free to spill the beans in the comments)

Our previous poll shows that most people own several consoles, if not all of them. Many of you also own at least one current generation console as well as no consoles. People with only old consoles do not exist among Mojo's readers:

What consoles do you own?
All of them! (Well, several current gen. consoles)		13
One current generation console (e.g. PS3, Xbox 360, DS, etc)		12
No consoles. Just my trusty PC/Mac		10
Only an older console (eg. PS2, Xbox, Atari 2600, etc.)		0
Total votes		35

It's easy to forget amidst the Double Fine Adventure madness that Tim Schafer and Minecraft creator Markus 'Notch' Persson are quietly chitchatting about Psychonauts 2 funding possibilities. On this front, there is a particularly amazing quote to be found in this Kotaku post that chronicles the Twitter-based drama that brought all this into the public eye.

"I was like, 'I don't think you can make [it] for a million dollars.' The original game was, I think, $13 million, I think you have to match the original game."

"As soon as I mentioned the amount of money he said, 'Yeah, I can do that.'"Wow. Psychonauts had an unusually large budget for the type of game it was due to its super-sized and calamity-laden development cycle. A few of us have been speculating about how an episodic sequel might work given the assumption of humbler parameters, but if Notch is prepared to give this game the whole-hog budget, who am I to argue?

Man, what a terrible last two weeks this has been for people who hate themselves. I'm waiting for the Earth to be consumed by lava to even out the happy. Oh wait, that's just children playing Happy Action Theater. There is no sunset for this marathon of mirth, I'm afraid.

Source: Kotaku

As I'm writing this, the Double Fine Kickstarter has raised $1,815,940 and 2 Player Productions, the people behind the documentary about the making of the upcoming adventure game, has posted the first video update:

Source: 2PlayerProductions

So reveals this interview with Tim that Giant Bomb published yesterday.Do not settle for that snippet! It's an excellent interview.

Source: Giant Bomb

Not much has been said about what exactly the Double Fine Adventure will be, except that it will be a point and click adventure game made by a small team at Double Fine led by Tim Schafer and with input from Ron Gilbert.

But now we know in what dimension the game will be created. And that dimension is two! That's right, not only will it be a point and click adventure game, it will be a 2D point and click adventure game! A game like that by Tim Schafer featuring input from Ron Gilbert hasn't happened since Day of the Tentacle in 1993!

So what are you waiting for! Support the Double Fine Adventure today! If you've already supported it, then choose a higher tier of support!

Update (February 14, 2012): This is another bit of scraps scrounged from twitter about the game, but we'll take it. Especially since it's a great Valentine's day present full of sweet lovin' sweet music for your ears: Tim Schafer wants music by Peter McConnell for the Double Fine Adventure! So, here's hoping Mr. McConnell takes him up on the offer, as it would make the game have so much more of that old school feel we hear so much about.

Hookshot Inc., a newly-launched website from a group of known game reviewers (congratulations to them and good luck!), interviewed Tim Schafer this past Saturday. In the interview he talks about the Kickstarter-funded Double Fine Adventure game, the possible Notch-funded Psychonauts 2, the Mixnmojo-funded Monkey Island 6 (no) and a bunch of other things you should read the interview to know about. Here's a choice quote:

I can't wait.

Source: Hookshot, Inc.

Not content in raising the budget for their new game in 8 hours and 11 minutes, and then breaking the Kickstarter records for most amount raised in a short timeframe, and then breaking the number of backers for one project, Double Fine have hit another milestone: Raising $1 million in less than 24 hours!

We can only speculate what this might mean for the finished game, but if money keeps pouring in, could we reach a budget large enough to create a game approaching the size and scope of one of LucasArts's classics? We can only hope.

Where will it end? With 32 days left to go, it's too early for anyone to tell!

Haven't pledged any money yet? Go take a look at the Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter page, and make sure you watch the video!

Source: Kickstarter.com