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