Double Fine launches $400K Kickstarter for Schafer-led adventure game

Psychonauts developer Double Fine announced on Wednesday a $400,000 Kickstarter campaign that aims to crowdfund development of an "honest to goodness adventure game" led by designer Tim Schafer. It's a surprising move for an established studio with major releases under its belt to turn to crowdfunding, but Double Fine said an old-school adventure game doesn't exactly make traditional publishers run for their checkbooks. Before games like Brutal Legend and Psychonauts, Schafer, founder of San Francisco, CA-based Double Fine, was known for LucasArts adventure games such as Full Throttle, Day of the Tentacle and Grim Fandango. He's not the only adventure game talent at the studio these days. Fellow ex-LucasArts adventure game guru Ron Gilbert, creator of Monkey Island, is also at Double Fine. "With this project, we're taking that door off its hinges and inviting you into the world of Double Fine Productions, the first major studio to fully finance their next game with a Kickstarter campaign and develop it in the public eye," the Kickstarter page reads. If the studio can raise $400,000 for the project, development will go forward and Double Fine gets the funds. If the campaign misses its target, Double Fine gets none of the money pledged. Surplus funds would go towards further development of the game and towards a planned documentary, filmed by 2 Player Productions. "Crowd-sourced fundraising sites like Kickstarter have been an incredible boon to the independent development community," the campaign description states. "They democratize the process by allowing consumers to support the games they want to see developed and give the developers the freedom to experiment, take risks, and design without anyone else compromising their vision." "It's the kind of creative luxury that most major, established studios simply can't afford.  At least, not until now." The game is slated to release this October. All backers will receive Steam codes for the game's beta, and are eligible for rewards. Mac and iOS versions are also a possibility if the campaign raises enough funding. [Update: After just eight hours, Double Fine reached that $400,000 funding goal, and continued to receive more pledges from supporters. The Kickstarter campaign has so far received more than $650,000 in pledges, and will continue for 33 more days.]