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[Moebius] and MAYBE GABRIEL KNIGHT 4?! Update on the Jane Jensen [KICKSTARTER]
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This is great news all around, though. The funny thing is that we are talking up a storm about GK in here, but everyone just funded a non-GK game. I'm wondering what this Moebius will be all about.
And did they really find the original art scans for GK in a DUMPSTER? Who the fuck thought that was a good idea to throw those away?
Vivendi.
Worst thing that ever happened to Sierra.
I think it shows the bad design of the Kickstarter campaign. They've got all the people who'd sell a kidney to play a new game by Jane. However they've failed to cater to the more casual adventure game fans who might have not played a Gabriel Knight game. Almost 50 000 people (55% of the total) donated $15 to the Double Fine Kickstarter. This project could have used more of them.
I think that's less Kickstarter design and more contemporary relevance (combined with the wearing off of the 'Doublefine did it first' novelty effect of course). Tim has been constantly cranking out the quirky gems since the adventure days and thus will have many younger fans, but all I could find to link to Jane since the GK days was the mediocrely reviewed Grey Matter.
Not having played the GK games (not that I'm a younger fan, just missed it first time around), and therefore not having the hype, I'm inclined to go for the cautious balance and wait and see what they produce rather than sticking my money in now.
If they really do have a GK1 remake on the cards they'd be insane not to announce that before the Kickstarter closes as that has enough of a reputation to get my cash, and then whilst I'm paying I'd probably end up bumping up to the get Moebius as well tier.
WiiU: JamWarrior
If they are really making GK1 HD, they don't need kickstarter money for it, as another studio has stepped in with funding.
Every dime they collect right now goes into their new project, which they already have budget enough for.
This kickstarter didn't fail at all; it succeeded, two weeks before its expiration date.
Yep, and really it comes down to how stuff was structured.
I think Jane and the gang at Pinkerton Road knew going in that they wouldn't have a huge groundswell of backers the way Tim and Double-Fine did, hence the really long lead time (45 days) to get word of mouth going and place it's ending outside the time frame of all the ones that went up in the wake of Double-Fine's cash-in (Wasteland, LSL, Banner Saga, Shadowrun, etc...).
I'm excited to see where this idea of their's could go, and I haven't even pledged yet, will be doing that in about 5 days once I get paid. I'm debating about just going $100 for the packaged DVD version, or man-up for the $224 tier will all the pretty design bibles, decisions, decisions...
The more casual adventure fans who didn't play adventure games in the nineties don't know who Jane Jensen is, but everyone knows Tim Schafer.
Now I'm envisioning a bizarre alternate reality in which Jane Jensen hosted the Spike VGAs.
WiiU: JamWarrior
They... probably have?
At least Jane has already worked out the general concept and writing. Those lines are probably for random comments on objects in the game and other stuff aside from the main path (fleshing out the game)
And the first two reward tiers are pretty specific. What's your problem with them?
Edit: Though the second reward tier isn't all that interesting..
Live orchestra is a sensible pledge. 'An extra 3 scenes' is just a bit meaningless as I would expect them to make as many scenes as they can with the budget and time they have, and to cut or add to the original design document number according to how well it makes the game play rather than some oddly specific promises they made many months back in development.
WiiU: JamWarrior
But that isn't about that. The more money - the more can be done with the game. It's that simple. The budgets all of these Kickstarters are already extremly low so its not like this
doesn't automatically apply. It does. Especially with how low Jane's goal is in the first place (300'000) for an, according to her, full fledged original adventurenonetheless. That was Double Fine's initial goal and according to them was only for a rather small adventure game on IOS.
The tiers presented here are meant to be "At point y we are going to do feature x for certain", not "We do nothing else with the additional money till we reach point y"
To my mind you'd get a better end product by simply saying more money = more stuff, state your aims rather than concrete promises at concrete levels and see how the design evolves naturally. It's just an opinion is all.
WiiU: JamWarrior
So, how exactly is that better or even more specific?
"Well, guys with more money we are aiming to do "stuff".
What incentive does this give me to pledge more in comparison to clear goals? I'm even more likely to end up disappointed. Not to mention this could end up with something like this "What you are asking us about awesome feature x we wanted to do? Well we totally would have implented that if it wasn't for that 1 dollar that wasn't pledged. Sucks" *exaggerated*
Backer reward tiers?
I'm entirely thinking about the quality of the end product here, not maximising fund raising. I agree that this way is likely increase bids, I just think that comes at the risks to the game and future public relations I outlined above.
WiiU: JamWarrior
And it does this how?
Public Relations won't be affected if questions come up on how additional money is spent and theres no real answer? Especially if something is barebones/out of place or whatever?
And as I mentioned before I disagree with the quality standpoint too. Again, this are extremly low game development budgets in the first place. What if the game turns out really barebones and due to the low budget couldn't be fleshed out which is going to percived as low quality?
Maximizing pledges here MEANS more quality. We are nowhere NEAR a budget at which you can think about cutting things to hold up quality. You can only do so much with it in the first place.
The studio working on the project is ALSO working at reduced rate for money on the backend.
300k could very well perform like 500-750k depending on how much money they have to put in and how kind the contract with their studio is.
Also, the second game is being funded by another publisher entirely, who may see the benefit in assisting in the funding of Moebius to promote the other project, if it comes to that.
All I'm saying is that in my opinion it's a risk to make such concrete and granular content promises this early in game production. Many game ideas seem great at the start of the design phase but don't pan out how the developers expected and end up being dropped part way. With the way a lot of these kickstarters are making their tiered promises, they can't drop them without going back on their word.
It's also not a subject I feel strongly enough about to get into an internet debate on. It was a comment was all.
WiiU: JamWarrior
Wow. It sounds like it is best just for someone to take the assets home at the end of some of these projects.
We're getting close to the 'end times' my friends, the last days of our kickstarter campaign! I will keep this Update #22 current with the latest info. Here's the schedule of events:
THURS, May 10
-- Moebius T-shirt, Moebius block, T-shirt poll
FRI, May 11
-- Laura's 24-hour GK marathon starts at noon PST, 3pm EST
Time and date clock for this event: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20120512T07&p1=22&ah=23&am=55
To watch and chat, go here: http://www.twitch.tv/laurakat07
I'll be on live for at least the first hour on Friday.
SAT, May 12
-- 7-8:30am PST / 10-11:30 EST -- Laura's GK marathon continues. I'll be on at this time hopefully to catch the end of GK2 and start of GK3.
-- 11:30 am PST/ 2:30pm EST -- I'll check in with Laura as she's finishing up her all nighter! and then...
-- noon PST/3pm EST -- I'll be on the Double Fine Game Club playthrough of GK1
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/double-fine-game-club
SUN, May 13
-- 3pm EST - Bob and I do a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" live chat. Please come by and ask us something! I'll post the link in comments when we're live.
THURS, May 17 (?? date to be confirmed)
-- An extra special treat! Will Binder (director), Dean Erickson (Gabriel), Peter Lucas (Von Glower) and I will be having a chat session to shoot the shit about the GK2 production. How cool is that? We're going to be recording it earlier in the week and it may be podcast on the 17th. Still waiting for final confirmation on the podcast, but we WILL be doing this chat session and you WILL get to hear it this week!
SAT, May 19
-- Countdown to close of campaign -- stay tuned for details
Jane
Hah, Tim Schafer seems to be rooting for JJ.
http://www.reddit.com/user/JaneJensen
2 t-shirts added for $115+ tiers.
388'000.
62'000 left for last stretch goal.
Let's get pledgin'
414'000+
450'000 last stretchgoal
http://forum.pinkertonroad.com/showthread.php?55-Kickstarter-Countdown-Party-Thread
100 minutes to go
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1005365109/jane-jensens-pinkerton-road-2012-2013-csg/comments
423'000+ (with paypal)
Considering its only 10'000 short we may still be getting the rewards of the last stretch goal of 450'000.
Also, anyone here donate $250+? I ended up donating $265. I'm looking forward to the open house.
Technically, no. I donated $249
(That's the $239 tier plus $10 international shipping. I'd probably have gone a touch higher for the open house if there was any way I could realistically have made it to there.)
WiiU: JamWarrior
IT is in the hands of whatever publisher is brokering a deal.
Mind you, in a recent interview Jane said she had opened up conversations with Activision, and she wants to do stuff with Gabriel Knight, and we would need to wait a couple months for more news.
Then she did the Mystery Game X announcement and shut up real quick about it.
Consider me... cautiously optimistic.