First, the latest update from Double Fine and its Kickstarter project: the game is coming to PC, Mac, Linux, and select devices for both iOS and Android. Oh, and there's a DRM free version for backers.
Additionally, it'll feature (English) voice acting, and the subtitles will be translated into French, Italian, German, and Spanish.
Elsewhere, there’s sort of an update on Psychonauts 2.
Markus “Notch” Persson had the best and worst timing when he proposed funding for Psychonauts 2 over Twitter last week. Coming just days before Double Fine launched its Kickstarter, the Minecraft creator reignited speculation about a possible Psychonauts 2.
Persson and Double Fine founder Tim Schafer are planning to meet at the Game Developers Conference early next month in San Francisco, Persson noted in a new blog post called “Hype!”
The Psychonauts 2 talk hasn’t died down a bit amongst fans, despite all the goings-on with the Kickstarter project, and Persson appears worried his own shenanigans have already created too much expectation for the idea.
“I have NO idea if this is actually going to happen,” said Persson. “The kickstarter stuff obviously changes the playing field a lot. Investing that incredibly high amount of money also requires a lot of planing and discussion, and I’ve never done anything like that before, but I do have contacts and advisors to help me out.”
“All I know,” he continued, “is that IF the numbers work out and IF they still want to do it and IF they don’t decide to self fund a sequel by doing more crowd funding (which is honestly what I would’ve done if I were them), I would be most interested in doing this type of investment.”
It sounds like we're in for a long wait before any real movement on Psychonauts 2. The cat is already out of the bag on that one, so I'd expect fans and press will continue pestering Persson, Schafer and anyone who will listen.
Meh.
In anticipation to this, I actually went and played Psychonauts. Now I finally understand the reverence for that game...Tho fuck the meat circus....
I wonder what percentage of backers are Whiskey subscribers.
cool. :]
God man, it's so cool to see all of these unconventional sources of financial backing potentially flowing into Double Fine.
How crazy would it be to see DF working on a crowdsourced adventure game, and a Psychonauts sequel funded by the Minecraft guy.
Wonder what the over/under is on how many posts it'll take before someone complains about too many Double Fine articles and Giant Bomb's "close relationship" with the studio being the cause. I'm setting the line at... 30 posts from now. Place your bets!
In a world where the guy who made Minecraft has the cash to fund Tim Schafer because he needs the money just to fund a game, I kinda want to hang myself because I clearly live in bizarro world.
Glad there may be a Psychonaughts 2 though.
@Matiaz_Tapia: Did you play the Steam version? I know they went and updated some things about Meat Circus to make it a little less awful when they did the Steamworks/Mac port, but I haven't experienced any changes myself.
If you did play the Steam version, it's a bummer to hear that level's still a pain :/
Notch proving yet again he's clueless when it comes to business. Not that he's a great programmer either, but... After the Minecon clusterfuck, I don't know how that guy is anyone's boss. This turn of events is unsurprising.
@TzarStefan said:
Thanks for the insight.
@Kevin_Cogneto said:
I'm going to say we've already crossed that line.
Double Fine has raised almost 2 million over kickstarter, while Nauts 2 requires at least 20 million as a budget. Raising that much money from kickstarter is not a possibility.
Rock Band for the blind...
This video game-based Kickstarter is not as cool or mainstream as the DoubleFine one, but it is still deserving, even if you only donate $1. And I didn't know computer / video game engineers looked like this either.
There's two people who backed $10,000.
Man, I wish I had their money.
I'm curious how well Psychonauts has sold so far. I'm glad people are excited for it but could it just be a vocal minority that wants the game? If so is the large investment worth it?
@Batmeng said:
More than that. Notch also gave them $10,000 -- but he chose the custom painting/portrait because he is already going to have lunch with Tim at GDC.
Also, -- stop stealing my forum posts and turning them into news articles! (I kid, I kid. I like that you are following all of this as enthusiastically as I am.)
@Yiggly said:
extremely small
@Masha2932 said:
I'd say that if you're game savvy enough, then you've probably bought a copy of Psychonauts one way or another... it just took a lot of time.
@13p said:
No one will donate. Doesn't have a big "name" or "cult icon" behind it, which is a fucking shame.
@13p said:
This absolutely deserves to be funded. I've already chipped in, hope they make their goal.
Oh Notch, yet another fumble that makes you look like an idiot. Might be time to start looking for some new "contacts and advisors to help." or maybe you could just stop blogging everything you are thinking all the damn time.
@ThePilgrums said:
Clueless? Schafer stated that, in order to make another Psychonauts, he would need "a few million". It sounds like Notch reasonably took that to mean that three or four million dollars would do it. Tim only stated that it would take $13m some time after that. Perhaps you could assert that Notch should have known a Psychonauts would cost well over $10m to make, but Tim didn't say how much it would cost, in that interview, to make. He said that's how much money he needed.
When Tim said it would be $13m, Notch apparently also said "Yeah, I can do that." (source: http://pcper.com/news/General-Tech/Just-how-much-money-down-mine-anyway-Mojang-Psychonauts-2-could-need-least-13M-Not)
I doubt Notch needs to be the sole investor. If he invested the three or four million he expected in the first place, it wouldn't be impossible to get another investor or two. Or if this whole adventure game project works out, Notch could fund a third, the crowd funds a third, and one other investor funds a third.
Of course, it would have been less risky and more rational, to have approached Tim via a direct message or email or a phone call than in front of the world via Twitter, until he had been assured that what he took Tim's interview comment to say was what Tim really meant/needed.