About 6 hours ago, Doublefine launched a Kickstarter project to source funds for them to make a new adventure game (seeing as they've been bringing the classic LucasArts team back together this could be interesting).

In under 6 hours, they've raised 300,000 of their 400,000 goal.

Turns out no one cares about adventure gaming any more folks. Put a fork in it, it's done.

Who knows if the game will turn out to be good, but I've supported a few things through Kickstarter now and am interested to see how it works with a relatively major project from a high profile group. Could be an interesting new game, could be crap. But I'm willing to back it, because I am a fucking hopeful doe eyed dreamer at times.

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What is Project Zohar?

Has Double Fine made a good game in the last five years? Signs point to no. Anyone - literally anyone - who gives money to a squad with their track record is an idiot.

Explain all this nerdery to me please.

Double Fine is a company run by Tim Schaffer, a guy who made a bunch of adventure games before the dinosaurs were killed by rogue Daleks. The company is so terrible at management that after the failure of a recent game they didn't have enough capital to make a proper game, so made 4 smaller, less ambitious ones... all of which sucked. They have a reputation because of name-recognition, and not results.

These guys are now apparently asking for money to make an antediluvian point-and-click adventure game in the vein of Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle.

Yeah, it's one of those cases where you go: "and this is why creatives don't run companies".

But like I said, naive hopeful doe eyed optimism.

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What is Project Zohar?

Brutal Legend bombed so badly. The only reason people don't make fun of it more is because Tim Schaffer is supposed to be some kind of god of video game design or something. He's just a testament to the fact that creativity and ideas on their own don't make a game. More often than not it's execution, and Brutal Legend was executed horribly. It was hideously boring.

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Best care anywhere.

What is Project Zohar?

Research indicates that Trenched, Once Upon A Monster etc were all actually conceived during a period in Brutal Legend's development where it wasn't clear that they could get the game published. I think when it gets down to it, Double Fine has only actually made three home console releases: Psychonauts, which ruled, Brutal Legend, which didn't and Once Upon A Monster, which is fucking great if you're six. Its Arcade releases aren't great (Trenched was inevitably going to be shit from the first trailer), though I like Stacking.

I dunno, I'd agree that they don't shit gold and they've only made one truly great game, but I think most of their releases have just been average, as opposed to really awful.

Stacking was probably the best game from that period, but it isn't a Tim Schaffer, Brilliant Designer game.

And dude did you PLAY Trenched? Functionally inferior to almost every tower defence game available for free on phones and popcap. Nerds loved the marketing though, nf I think that's the real key to the Schaffer magic.

Man there was no way I was actually going to play Trenched. Brutal Legend was bad, but at least it was visually and conceptually interesting, while Trenched is just plain ugly, conceptually stupid and lazy. It would literally have to be the best tower defense game imaginable to even bother with it.

In the end it's true that Schaffer's success largely stems from name recognition, but at the same time I can't totally fault a studio which does cute and whimsical stuff like Costume Quest, you know? That got old pretty fast, but in an staid industry full of no ideas it was nice. I mean ideally you'd match fun ideas with an actual good game, but, you know ...

I love Once Upon A Monster.

My son is still *just* too young to understand that the Kinect can't see him directly in front of the tv.

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What is Project Zohar?

Tim Schafer ON Twitter:
$955k! Guys, I'll make you a deal. If we hit $980k I'll add RTS elements to the game! And if we hit $1M, I'll take them back out!

It'd be funnier if he was joking.

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What is Project Zohar?

*sigh* I retract my previous assertion that Double Fine was secretly developing an AMAZING Brutal engine game and was going to drop an awesomebomb on us all at E3.

All of this is without going into the Notch (minecraft guy) offer to fund Psychonauts 2.

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What is Project Zohar?

Its funny cause nerds self-identify as smart. Is it 'smart' to see a 'creator' make a good game once and then ignore all the stinkers they make afterward on a consistent basis?

Some people are just born victims I guess; trained by a gaming 'community' into an orthodoxy that serves nobody but their corporate overlords.

Oh and Tim Schaffer.

Chards, what made you think they had the resources to make a game like that? They are literally reduced to begging. And man Notch the retard giving them money would be priceless - they'd make Psychonauts 2, it'd suck complete anus, and maybe the ballad of Tim Schaffer would finally be over.

In the music industry, we readily identify 'one hit wonders'. In the gaming industry, we enshrine these people forever.

You mean like the whole of id Software?

And, it's over 1,000,000. In under 24 hours.

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What is Project Zohar?

Its really just sad that you think that means anything. If they reach 10 million, will Tim Schaffer become an actual good game designer? :rolls:

Just keep worshipping at that altar, pal. It'll rain one day, and you can say you were right all along.

For reference, could you name some 'actual good game designers'?

It was more about going: "well, fuck. 1M in <24hrs".

I kind of hope that the doco ends up somewhere on the middle of "The Trip", "Some Kind of Monster" and a Ken Burns obituary to a dead art. Eulogising self destruction.

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What is Project Zohar?

Do the guys who give money get the eventual game for free? Is it Tim Schaffer promising something or is it treating nerds as a venture capital pool at zero cost?

The kickstarter page has full details, but a $15 pledge (or whatever) gets you the game on Steam when it's done and access to the doco online.

30 gets game, soundtrack and HD download version of doco.

Etc. Etc.

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What is Project Zohar?

So its not even fundraising, its just blind pre-orders.

Blind faith is good, right? :V

Well it worked out okay with Sovereigns of the Stars 2 :v

Then again, it's a point and click adventure game. I mean that's a genre Schaffer can do ... you just have to like the genre lol

I can't like it when I'm so bad at it.

Maybe they'll get the Gabriel Knight 3 guys and Roberta Williams in to fuck it up for old times sake?

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What is Project Zohar?

Saw an amusing comment: "Nerds say that they want innovation, but pay a million dollars to someone to bring back a dead genre."

I can certainly agree, but the fact is that you had two of the genre's leading figures saying "we'd like to revisit it, would you pay us?" It's not often you get that opportunity.

I was going to use a film analogy of "imagine if some director who'd made some awesome stuff in a genre you loved said that he wanted to go back and make a new movie in that genre that hadn't been supported" and then realised that the closest analogy for it was fucking Lucas. THIS CAN ONLY END WELL.

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What is Project Zohar?