Double Fine Opens Prototyping Process to the Public

Today, the folks at Double Fine Productions (Psychonauts, Brutal Legend) announced that their annual Amnesia Fortnight Project would be open to the public this year. This prototyping process has given rise to complete consumer games like Costume Quest and Once Upon a Monster.

In the past, Amnesia Fortnight was held in private at Double Fine's San Francisco headquarters. During a two week period, the developers would split into smaller teams and each make a game during that time. "I wanted to have the company have other voices besides mine, making games," notes Double Fine President and CEO Tim Schafer in an interview with IGN.

Previously, the team leaders of these prototypes were selected by Schafer himself. This year, however, you can vote on your favorite pitch from the various teams and contribute to the project on the Humble Bundle website. You can pay whatever you want, and you can even divert some of your payment to charity.

If you're interested in time traveling bro brawlers, space station simulators, or physics-based blob puzzlers, this is a project you may want to look into.

Once the winning projects are selected, 2 Player Productions will document the development process for two weeks. Once Amnesia Fortnight ends, contributors (That's You!) will receive all the prototypes, as well as two historical prototypes for Costume Quest and Happy Song (which inspired Once Upon a Monster). And perhaps one of the prototypes will even evolve into a complete consumer product! But Double Fine can make no promises of that. "It could all crash and burn," Schafer warned us with a laugh.

When asked if the team would be interested in keeping this process open to the public in future years, Schafer simply mused "once we open the doors to the chocolate factory, it's really hard to close them again."

To contribute and vote on your favorite pitch, head over to the Humble Bundle website now.

Ryan Clements writes for IGN and finished Halo 4 yesterday. He was impressed. Follow him on Twitter at @PwamCider.

Source : ign[dot]com

PAX: Tim Schafer and The Making of Double Fine Adventure

Double Fine Productions has a problem. Well, more like 3.3 million of them.

Since launching arguably the most well-known and successful video game campaign in Kickstarter history, the quirky developers of beloved games like Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, and Brutal Legend, are on the hook to make Double Fine Adventure (DFA), quite possibly the most talked about adventure game in the last decade. The real trick will be making it the most played, and Double Fine briantrust Tim Schafer knows it.

Discussing the making of DFA at the Double Fine Adventure Adventure panel at PAX 2012, the President and CEO, alongside Double Fine producer Greg Rice, laid his process bare, making a hall-full of friends in the process.

That's a 834% fund rate right there, folks.

If you've ever put something off, changed your idea in the middle of a thought (because you lost it), or considered tossing out plans wholesale for fear that no one will like them, you probably have a lot in common with the self-deprecating developer. Turns out the studio didn't have everything ready to go when the seconds counted down to zero and corks popped. $3.3 million dollars funded, now it was time to make a game. That's actually when that process began - by design - explained Schafer, onstage and throughout the 25-minute showing of the Double Fine Adventure Documentary that filmakers 2 Player Productions have begun shooting for their throng of Kickstaer backers.

His process is as fascinating as it is overwhelming. Thumbing a stack of notebooks evoking John Doe's journals from Se7en, Schafer shows how his games spend their infancy slow-cooking in the deep pages of his scrawled manuscripts, alongside non-sequitur ramblings and complaints about his poor memory or girls he'd loved and lost from the sixth grade. This is not a senselessly scatter-brained man, just proof that extremely-functional attention deficit disorder pairs well with game design. Once his ideas take form, Schafer talks himself into doing what sounds like the part of the process he like least: telling someone about the idea for the first time.

Pitching his good friend and partner in Double Fine crime, Ron Gilbert (best known for Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games), the industry vet speaks adorably in fits and starts, flush like a boy talking himself into asking a girl for a first dance. Schafer's not lacking for confidence, but he wants to hear that his ideas are good, naturally. And if they'er not, he wants to find better ideas. Because he cares so much, nothing matters to him more than getting it right.

And getting it right means uncertainty, and not having all the answers all at once. But he's okay with that. Walls pasted with sticky notes, "art jams" - long sessions that bring all the artists together to concept the art direction - and asking hard questions about story continuity alongside Rice; each is an inexcahngeable part of a vulnerable but self-assured process. That and the pizza orgies.

Once a Double Fine game is playable, schafer traditionally gathers a group of people to marathon of game testing and crowd-noshing by the slice. If the art jam is how the team finds out how the game should look, the pizza orgies are where they find out how the game should play.

By the end of their PAX panel, Rice simplifies all of this with a rosy-scheeked Cheshire aside, affirming the core "how-to" of good game making. "Look for good ideas, ignore bad ideas." Ricean megascience.

If Double Fine Adventure Adventure doesn't work out, perhaps they'll create  Pizza Orgy: The Game, one attendee offered during a lively question and answer session as the panel wrapped.

When asked if Pizza Orgy: The Game would be a "party game" in genre by another guest, Schaefer simplay said, "That depends on who you invite. Sometimes its really sad."

Casey Lynch is Editor-in-Chief of IGN.com. Hear about his love for PAX , metal, and Dark Souls on IGN and Twitter.

Source : ign[dot]com

Psychonauts Coming to PlayStation Network

Double Fine Productions has quite the following these days, what with cult hits like Brutal Legend, Costume Quest and Stacking. But the studio’s very first game – Psychonauts – holds a special place in the hearts of gamers.

So PlayStation gamers in particular will be excited to know that Psychonauts is set for release on the PlayStation Network as a PS2 Classic. Launched on Xbox and PlayStation 2 in 2005, Psychonauts will come to PSN in North America on August 28th. There’s no word yet on its release date in other territories, and no price for the game has been confirmed, though all other PS2 Classics cost $9.99.

Excited? Good! While you wait for August 28th to roll around, why not check out our original review of the game?

Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.

Source : ign[dot]com

Taken Director Takes The Hitman's Bodyguard

Pierre Morrel (Taken) is currently in negotiations to direct The Hitman's Bodyguard, a new action film from David Ellison's Skydance Productions.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, financing is expected to go through Paramount. Tom O'Connor (Fire with Fire) has written the screenplay, which centers on "a protection agent who is forced to escort to the Hague a hitman awaiting his chance to testify against a war criminal and ex-head of state of an Eastern European country."

Morrel was previously attached to helm Bastille Day for Vendome Pictures and Anonymous Content, but the director has since passed on the project.

Source : ign[dot]com

Slender: Source in Development

Did you play Slender by Parsec Productions? You know, the one that takes about five minutes to reduce even the most composed adult into a whimpering pile of cowardice? This one:

The upcoming Slender: Source will be a new take of the Slender mythos and will feature multiplayer elements.

The team currently working on the mod is hoping to provide frequent updates on the mod db page and have a full release ready by February or March 2013. So far they’ve addressed concerns that the multiplayer elements of the game will reduce the potency of the horror.

“We've seen some people explain that they think the addition of multiplayer may take away from the horror experience that was well known with the Slender game on Unity, since you won't be alone but with friends. We currently have the game set at 4 player limits, but we've been discussing lowering it to around 2 players. This is still up for discussion, and we'll constantly be thinking about how we're going to work around this.”

Slender: Source will also feature disturbing porcelain dolls that can be collected. “We feel that the collecting of dolls will add to the gameplay, instead of just hunkering down in multiple locations, and waiting for the Slenderman to appear. This will encourage players to explore the map, find hiding spots, and give them better chances at avoiding the Slenderman. Staying in the same spot, or splitting off from the group will lower your chances of survival down to almost nothing. However, after release we plan on adding another game-mode, which we're keeping secret until then.”

While you wait, you can play Slender again. Or not.

Charles Onyett is an Executive Editor at IGN, leads PC game coverage and used to think Pugna was his favorite Dota 2 hero, but recently decided it was Disruptor. You can follow him on Twitter and My IGN.

Source : ign[dot]com