KestrelPi

I'm definitely enjoying the dungeons a lot more than in either P3 or P4, as they actually seem to have a bit of puzzle and exploration to them, which only happened pretty rarely in P4. I'd welcome more involved dungeon exploration in P5, like this.

As for the combat difficulty, I played for a while on normal, and that was fine, a bit tougher than I'm used to, but okay. But after a while I realised that I'm enjoying the exploration way more than the combat (even though it's more interesting than Persona) and over time I've bumped it down to Safety. It still feels like enough is going on that the combat isn't just -trivial-, I still need to try to exploit weaknesses and use buffs and debuffs for the tougher encounters, but I'm happy enjoying the story and the dungeon exploration without worrying too much about losing progress from dying.

I'm glad there's a range of difficulty modes to suit all tastes.

@fminus: The only people who have a reason to be mildly upset over this (and only mildly, because it was stated from the start that development would last as long as funding allowed it to, and no features were set in stone) are the Early Access buyers, who should have been told earlier what the situation was, for sure, and maybe could have expected more frequent updates.

But having played 1.0 (it's no longer Early Access), I can report that it is, indeed, a game. It's not a simulation of the level of depth that everyone wanted with more development, etc, but it's certainly a game where you can build a base in space and fill it with people who have various needs and desires, and try to keep it going for as long as possible against a variety of internal and external threats.

The price was lowered on release, quite significantly, to reflect the fact that it's not as big a game as they wanted to make, but I don't think it's misleading to say that there is a game here for people interested in this sort of thing. It's not the best thing Double Fine ever put out, for sure, but it's no more unfinished than any other game released on Steam that didn't quite meet its full potential. There are some bugs, but they've been actively supporting the game since release (I think it's 1.06 now).

Are we suggesting that whenever a game is released that is smaller in scope than originally intended, it should be pulled from sale? Because I think you'd be surprised at the number of things that would get pulled.

Consistent how? People say this, but it doesn't actually seem to measure up to reality - only on hearsay which tends to crumble on scrutiny. I'd say we'd need at least 3 solid, unequivocal recent examples of this to credit the idea this is a pattern.

So let's look at their recent history... most recently is the release of Massive Chalice on early access. It's scheduled to be done in spring, which is consistent with their original target of I think October 2014 after you factor in the extra budget because it made more money than they asked for. That game has always been on budget and they're funded right up until release, and general backer concensus is that spring is a good target to aim for given the close-to-done state of the game. No credit.

Spacebase was definitely an error in communication, and probably in judgement about how much game needs to exist before taking something to Early Access, for a successful launch. So that's one credit. But we're hardly seeing a consistent pattern, yet.

Before that, Costume Quest 2. Release on time, obviously - and on almost every platform! (except for Sony in Europe who they submitted to on time but for some reason aren't certifying the game despite it being done ages ago in America)

Before that, Hack 'n' Slash. Another Early Access project which was much better scoped for early access, and released in a complete state (and in my opinion one of the hidden gems of Double Fine).

Then there's Broken Age. People focus on the game being split into two parts, but ignore the fact of what that enabled them to do. Also, it's not true that act 2 was entirely funded by sales of Act 1, Act 1 sales just enabled them to extend act 2 development beyond what would otherwise have been possible. Furthermore, when they announced the split, in July 2013, they said act 1 would be out in January, and it was. So this is the only time that the game has slipped from an announced release date (the original Oct 2012 doesn't count as they pretty much said on day 1 of the kickstarter that it was clear this was a bigger project now). If I'm being really generous, I'll say this is a half credit.

Before that, The Cave, a couple of Mobile games, and other indie games, all of which were developed behind closed doors but none of which show any particular signs of being rushed out of the door before time, or blowing their budgets.

So, that's 1.5 credits. Hardly a pattern, is it?

The mood on the Backer forum is good, by the way. Backers who have been following the documentary have known for months there was a possibility this would get pushed to early next year, and they've been very open about that on the forums.

People are excited that Part 2 looks like it'll be about twice as long as part 1, and harder, and basically want them to take the time it needs to get it done.

Most of the people moaning about it seem to be getting angry on our behalf.

As for being angry about DF in general, I guess I just don't get it. Broken Age is coming along great, even if delayed (and Oct 2012 is irrelevant, that was their deadline for a 400k game and they said from the start it would be a much longer project). Spacebase was a big disappointment, and a big mistake in the way it was communicated too, sure. But lately we've also had Hack 'n' Slash out of Early Access, which I adored, and Massive Chalice which after playing for 40 hours hasn't disappointed me one bit. And Costume Quest 2!

Sure, let's not ignore the negatives, and there are some (well, one) but I think that they're continuing to release a bunch of quality stuff! I'm only sad about the recent news of layoffs, which mean that that's one less game.

Speaking of which, this is a studio that tends to make niche games, has never scored a big hit, but has managed to staff ~50 people in San Francisco for 14 years before they got into the situation so many studios have to go through at some point, i.e. layoffs. I find that curious, when everyone is in a hurry to accuse them of being bad with money.

Generally speaking, the larger the starting budget, the harder to predict the scope, the more scope/budget changes are likely as the project continues. So... yes.

Wow, what a nasty little patronising point of view.

Yes, I'm a fan of Double Fine. Yes, that means I'm more likely to give them the benefit of the doubt. But that doesn't mean I never disagree with them and it doesn't mean I don't know my own fucking mind, and it doesn't mean that I'm totally blind to stuff I don't like. I haven't always agreed with their approach but I HAVE been paying attention, and as far as I can tell this was the best of a series of less-than-optimal options.

Yes, they could have planned it all out correctly in the first place. But they didn't. I can forgive them for that, planning this particular kind of game is REALLY hard to do accurately. They're not alone in this, it's just that we don't often get to hear about it. So given that they didn't, they're doing the best thing they can do to make the best game they can make.

A few of things worth noting here:

1) Massive Chalice is being developed on a very mature engine and toolchain which Double Fine have made several games with in the past. In contrast, Double Fine had to develop their 2D process and tools (based on an existing engine that they had never used) at the start of development of Broken Age, which is a big additional cost. Costs are always cheaper in principle when starting with a mature engine the team has experience with.

2) Broken Age has a much bigger voice acting budget because of all the dialog

3) Broken Age is being released on Mobile platforms as well, this adds to the cost

4) A lot of Broken Age's Kickstarter budget was taken up by physical rewards and the costs of the documentary. They have managed the costs of these for Broken Age a whole lot better, from experience, so a lot more of the initial money will go into the actual game.

5) Massive Chalice has more complex gameplay for sure, but Broken Age probably has much greater art costs than Massive Chalice will have, because as an adventure game it will probably feature a lot more unique assets that need to be concepted, drawn, painted and then individually animated.

There's probably some stuff I'm forgetting, too.

Hey Patrick, I just wanted to say well done on the reporting on this. It's a bit of a shame that this statement got out at all because it was intended for backers who have the context of the documentary series to know what's been going on. I'm sure that they wanted to announce it to the public without some of this backer-only baggage. Nevertheless, it's a story now and must be reported. With that in mind, here's some things you did right: Posted the full, unedited statement, with a summary of the main points. Led with the headline that they were splitting the game into two parts, rather than the misleading one being posted elsewhere that implies that they might be asking backers for more money. Explained the changes in full, and in a logical order.

This is not as big a story as other sites are making it out to be. The headlines are:

• Broken Age is out in January
• But just a Steam Early access version, the rest of the game comes out later in the year
• Backers don't have to do anything different
• Non-backers now get to pay to play part 1 in Jan, then get the rest later for free.
• The reason they're releasing it this way is to secure funds for development earlier.

That last point is a little controversial, granted, but it's perfectly in line with other strategies DF have employed so far to finish the game with their own funds: e.g. sales of Brutal Legend PC, and the Humble Double Fine bundle.

LucasArts meant so much to me growing up, it's terrible what happened to them in the space of these last 15 years.

Thanks. My background is philosophy (in combo with music, weirdly enough) and I did a fair amount of philosophy of language among other things. While I enjoyed philosophy, I grew to sense increasingly that many so-called problems in philosophy spring from philosophical definitions being used to question everyday understanding. Much later I discovered that this was sort of in line with some of Wittgenstein's ideas.