giant_frying_pan
Member
'Hundreds' means at least 200 per year.
I love Vlambeer, but they do not create 200+ prototypes over 365 days,
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Tim Schafer AMA on Reddit (Psychonauts 2)
- Thread starter Ultimadrago
- Start date
I love Vlambeer, but they do not create 200+ prototypes over 365 days,
Ultimadrago
Member
Yes!
I remember one of them saying that JW makes hundreds of protoypes in a year. Literally little sketches, working on one for a few days or so and then scrapping it. Looking for the quote now.
Edit: Still not sure about my "hundreds" estimate, but here's a post from one of the guys before they started Vlambeer, when it was just him. His first year "properly" making games, and he's got a list of 45 games. That's still a ton, when people in this thread are arguing that any scrapped project is a waste of money. Here's the post: https://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=9011.0
Hindsight is 20/20.
Incidentally, what would you have had him do with all the money they raised but didn't need?
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
They let people know they were doing it well before the funding deadline (i.e. when you could still cancel your pledge) and got across the board positive feedback because why would you prefer a worse game to a better game?
Hi Gavin, Asif from 2 Player here.
We hear that you (and other backers) are curious as to why you haven't received some of your physical rewards yet. It's not an issue we take lightly so I hope it helps to hear some specifics directly from someone on the assembly line.
In short:
The special edition game box can't ship without the blu ray and the completion of the editing of the series (as aired to backers/youtube) is actually only the first step in getting this content ready for a special edition blu ray.
In Slightly Less Short:
There are a lot of time-intensive steps that come after that and there are only 3 of us at 2PP handling the majority of that work (as it has been for the majority of our company's 10-year lifespan). I'm sure you've heard the saying, "Fast, Good, Cheap: Pick Two" before. Because paying more people to help out would be prohibitively expensive and we want to release a product to our standards, we tend to favor Good and Cheap (as much as we'd like consistently nail all 3).
In the case of this blu-ray: that means things like hours of subtitles, re-mastering all the video, and recording 2 sets of commentary tracks for each episode. With the commentaries, we wanted to get as many people as we possibly could to make sure the commentaries felt varied and substantial. Sometimes, that meant waiting until the right combination of people were back in town since not everyone lives in San Francisco. Looking at who we now have recorded, I feel confident it was worth the wait.
As for remastering all the video, that's actually something I'm directly responsible for. Our color correction tools and skills have changed / improved (respectively) over the course of making the doc and it's really important that the entire series look as consistent and high quality as we're capable of making it so that it's worthy of the format. I'd hate to receive a blu ray that just looked like we slapped on something from YouTube without any substantial extras.
Either Way, The Good News Is That:
We really are getting closer to the end! As we near the finale episode, there's less I have to completely re-color from scratch. I'm going to spend the rest of this month hammering away at this and I know others are hard at work on designing the blu ray box and the Broken Age concept art book (looking great so far).
tl;dr: We've poured nearly four years of our lives and creative passion into a project of which we are immensely proud and protective. There is no way in hell we aren't trying to get the best possible end product into your hands. We know you're waiting and we're eager to get it to you once it's ready.
Ultimadrago
Member
Thanks for answering that, Asif. I was unaware that the entire documentary was being remastered from the top. The way I had been hearing it from backers, I thought some got their rewards and others were waiting indefinitely. While I only went with the digital game KS tier for Broken Age, I went for a much higher tier with Psychonauts 2, hence my concerns with physical reward retrieval in the future.
Honestly, I wouldn't have minded a Blu-Ray planned for the Psychonauts 2 documentary, but seeing the immense amount of footage it takes just to get one out, perhaps not a plausible endeavor.
Yes, it's a combination of
1) Double Fine being much more transparent about their practices than other game developers. Most people remain completely unaware of how many problems are encountered throughout the course of a game's development cycle. Double Fine is not uniquely bad in this regard, just more open about it.
2) Lazy reporting by various websites about the situation surrounding Broken Age and other games.
3) Tim's anti-Gamergate statements, which attracted a legion of trolls with too much time on their hands and which spreads lots of misinformation with the intent to harm Tim's reputation.
4) Groupthink prevalent among many gamer circles, so that even people who were indifferent or hostile to Gamergate find themselves repeating lots of the same misinformation about Tim and Double Fine.
1) Double Fine being much more transparent about their practices than other game developers. Most people remain completely unaware of how many problems are encountered throughout the course of a game's development cycle. Double Fine is not uniquely bad in this regard, just more open about it.
2) Lazy reporting by various websites about the situation surrounding Broken Age and other games.
3) Tim's anti-Gamergate statements, which attracted a legion of trolls with too much time on their hands and which spreads lots of misinformation with the intent to harm Tim's reputation.
4) Groupthink prevalent among many gamer circles, so that even people who were indifferent or hostile to Gamergate find themselves repeating lots of the same misinformation about Tim and Double Fine.
??? Scope for the game at or around that amount? What money raised and not needed are we talking about? The slacker backer stuff? Eh. That shouldn't redetermine your scope. Features? Maybe.
Because a better game is not what we got. Then again, maybe all formulations of the game were just as mediocre.
This is not a 20/20 hindsight statement, only one regarding production. Re-scoping later on almost never yields better results, and backers shouldn't influence you to do so one way or another. Frankly I don't think anyone wants a two part game without a lot of guarantees, something no developer can deliver. Thus it's a much riskier proposition for both parties than Schafer lets on.
Haunted
Member
boom
Tim Schafer and Doublefine continue to be awesome and transparent. It's fine to see the industry as a cynical and cold place sometimes, especially when it comes to the business side, but this is one of the few companies you can't help but root for.
Doctor Ironic
Member
If Schafer had delivered the original promise of the Kickstarter - which is to say, a short example game that took an hour to complete - then everyone absolutely would have lost their shit, and I'm willing to bet you would have, too. Broken Age had already been pegged as "the revival of point and click adventures!" so Double Fine was damned if they did, damned if they didn't.
Everyone who paid for Broken Age got Broken Age. You can argue about whether or not you enjoyed the final game or not all you want, but there's literally no controversy to be had in terms of people getting what they paid for. If you don't like the final game, then join the boat of everyone ever who has pre-ordered a game and been disappointed by the result. And if your problem is that it took longer for the full game to come out than expected, then what you've been pissinng and moaning about this whole time is that the game dared to get delayed, and I have no idea how you've managed to like video games this long without having an aneurysm if you get THIS shitmad about delays.
So some people keep bringing up the fact that Tim increased the scope of Broken Age to match the unexpected funding they got. As if it's a negative, and they shouldn't have done that.
One example:
I've asked this question directly to people who have mentioned this before, yet have never received an answer:
How do you think people would have responded if Double Fine received $3.3 million, spent exactly $400,000, and pocketed the rest as pure profit?
How would you have felt?
Considering that this is almost exactly what happened with Anita Sarkeesian and her Feminist Frequency Kickstarter, it's pretty easy to guess how well that would have gone over.
Separately, if "the result speaks for itself", that's pretty awesome! Because Broken Age was one of my favorite games of 2015. Woo!
One example:
I've asked this question directly to people who have mentioned this before, yet have never received an answer:
How do you think people would have responded if Double Fine received $3.3 million, spent exactly $400,000, and pocketed the rest as pure profit?
How would you have felt?
Considering that this is almost exactly what happened with Anita Sarkeesian and her Feminist Frequency Kickstarter, it's pretty easy to guess how well that would have gone over.
Separately, if "the result speaks for itself", that's pretty awesome! Because Broken Age was one of my favorite games of 2015. Woo!
You mean Broken Age, a game my fiance and I both enjoyed to pieces and played multiple times?
... What a great result then!
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
It feels to me like what your actual complaint is that you did not like the game, and that complaint is being dressed up in a technical argument about project management. It's OK to just say you don't like the game and you don't think he has the capacity to make a good game as a result. At least that's a very clear argument.
It's not "re-scoping later on", it's "scoping during pre-production based on investment" [deciding during the Kickstarter that they would use all the money on the project and it would thus take longer and be larger than the initial pitch] and then, just like every project ever, "making decisions about ability to execute on scope based on ongoing revenue sources and milestones in development" [deciding to make available part 1 before part 2 was complete and fund continued development using the company's money]. You are painting the impression of a company that is randomly flipping switches and seeing what happened but I don't think that's supposed by the evidence.
Edit: It seems to be that your primary objection is the final year of development between Act 1 and Act 2 and not the initial decision to make a $300,000 project into a $3+ million project. This is common in game development. You are approaching a milestone build. You recognize that between your budget (in terms of time, which is money) and your scope (including level of polish), something has got to give. Sometimes this is because you are running behind schedule, other times it's a sort of stochastic, not easily predicted thing where you play what you have and you think it's not quite there yet. In a publisher-developer relationship, the publisher either authorizes additional development time (and thus money) to get things right or makes the decision to finish the project with the remaining resources only (i.e. potentially rushing the project). This applies to maybe two thirds of all game projects ever, including games you like.
Your position appears to be that shortly before the release of Act 1, when Double Fine was deciding whether to invest additional time into finishing the game or finish it quickly but sacrifice polish, they should have chosen the latter. I'm not sure most backers would agree with you about that, and I think most people would agree with something resembling the Miyamoto quote about delaying games.
Does it surprise you that although you guys are admittedly the holdup (understandably, and please don't think this is me complaining to you!), people are accusing Tim and DoubleFine of being scammers refusing to deliver the project?
I'm not sure it's a loose definition but, regardless, DF also used other income to fund Broken Age themselves.
Doctor Ironic
Member
Double Fine also used the income from the PC port of Brutal Legend to fund Broken Age.
As a fan of Brutal Legend, I am shocked and appalled. That money should only go towards Brutal Legend-related projects. As soon as Double Fine raises the other $20 million needed for Brutal Legend 2's budget, they may start work on Brutal Legend 2 and Brutal Legend 2 ONLY.
As a fan of Brutal Legend, I am shocked and appalled. That money should only go towards Brutal Legend-related projects. As soon as Double Fine raises the other $20 million needed for Brutal Legend 2's budget, they may start work on Brutal Legend 2 and Brutal Legend 2 ONLY.
piratepwnsninja
Member
This is a very inaccurate statement, especially when applied to game development. This happens often. Generally early, but often.
Psychonauts was DF's first game...
Tim still seems to be answering questions today, this is a really good AMA.
Here's a cool reply where Tim breaks down his writing process
This one is great! Someone asks
Here's a cool reply where Tim breaks down his writing process
To put it super simply: First I make character charts of all the characters. That's a page that describes all of their basic traits, like a social media profile. Age, race, religion, hobbies. Then I do freewriting about their backstories and think about where they were raised and what their parents were like. Then I think about what the main character wants most in the world. Then I think about the antagonist and what they want and how that opposes the protagonist. And then I try to set up an interesting set of conflicts between the two, with ever-increasing risks.
Slap a couple explosions on the end a bam!
This one is great! Someone asks
He replies
It's free to all. The 1080p versions are exclusive to backers.
Didn't take it as a complaint at all; your understanding is appreciated!
Does it surprise me that people say those things? No. This is The Internet and uninformed conjecture comes with the territory (in gaming, politics, movies, whatever). It just breaks my heart a bit on a personal level because educating the public about the realities of game development is the core, load-bearing pillar of 2PP as a company. When Double Fine opened their doors to us to give us that exact opportunity, some people reacted as though they were the only studio in the industry that faced those hurdles and decisions.
Consumers are welcome to have whatever opinion they like about the quality of Broken Age and Massive Chalice as finished products, but calling them "scams" is just disingenuous. There has to be some distinction between the two crowdfunded games DF has released (+ the forthcoming physical rewards) and scenarios where people literally spend the collected donations on something completely unrelated. While we're at it, same thing goes for calling them "failures." There are actual Kickstarter failures out there that ran out of money and never got released.
I feel like I could write about this until the end of time, but I should get back to work. All I'll say is this: if you think you know what happened during the making of Broken Age or feel like Double Fine is full of scam artists, but_haven't_watched the documentary yet, I implore you to do so. It's all out there for free on our YouTube channel so I'm not saying this to line my pocket with your money. We care deeply about the work we do sharing these stories with other gamers so all we ask is that you take a moment to listen: Double Fine Adventure Playlist