Double Fine to offer Broken Age early access to help finish game

Double Fine's Broken Age Kickstarter campaign was one of the most successful to date, generating nearly ten times its budget (of $400,000) with a total of around $3.3 million. Despite that, Tim Schafer, head of the company, has reached out to the community to explain that the game's development has run away with them a little bit and they need more money to finish it. In order to not madden the original backers by doing another Kickstarter or doing a deal with publishers, Schafer has announced that the first half of the game will go on sale on Steam Early Access.

He added that original backers will still have beta access and would get it before those buying into the game's early access, which will operate in a similar manner to ARMA III. To him, it seemed like the lesser evil than cutting the game up too drastically, even if it now will be split into two separate pieces.

Despite Schafer's candor and his unwillingness to dishonour the original Kickstarter however, this still has some gamers worried. The question on most of their lips is, how did a game that was supposed to cost just $400,000, end up not being remotely finishable with over $3 million?

What this project needs, is real leadership

Shafer's response? He designed a way bigger game than he expected it to be. “I think I just have an idea in my head about how big an adventure game should be, so it's hard for me to design one that's much smaller than Grim Fandango or Full Throttle,” he explained (via Eurogamer).

“There's just a certain amount of scope needed to create a complex puzzle space and to develop a real story. At least with my brain there is.”

The question now, will be whether Broken Age's audience is big enough to generate enough through early access to fund the second half of the game and whether in-fact, early access to a point and click adventure game is as worthwhile as many other titles with more replay value?

KitGuru Says: I backed the original campaign, one of the few games I have done and while I understand that people are annoyed, very few people complained about the Telltale business model of episodic gaming, with the previous chapter buy-ins funding the next ones. This isn't an ideal situation and perhaps better production planning should have been made, but Schafer isn't some faceless executive who doesn't care, he'll come through.

And the Kickstarter sky isn't falling people, relax. Double Fine might have had a big campaign, but it isn't Kickstarter.

Become a Patron!