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This is just a quick blog post to highlight something pretty cool going on in the games industry.

For a long time now the point and click adventure game has slowly been slipping out of fashion apart from the obscure one here and there that somehow breaks through into the main stream. I think the main reason for the genre’s decline is partially due to why they were made in the first place.

Back in the ‘old days’ technology and programming was in it’s infancy and so the ability of you running round in a 3D environment with use of W, A, S and D keys while looking using a mouse only took place in the dreams of the developers. Still wanting to create fun games, a way around this was to have a static background and a play sprite that moved when you clicked somewhere on the screen (all in 2D of course).

And so the point and click adventure game was born!

Skip forward to today and I can create a “game” (used in the loosest possible sense) where the player moves round a 3d environment with WASD and mouse in around 15 minutes and as such point and click games don’t really get a look-in any more. It’s a little like how we no longer have black & white silent movies any more… but wait. I’m fairly sure there is a new back & white silent movie out at the minute doing pretty well?

This just goes to show that taking something from the past that was obviously entertaining, updating it a little and doing it well can still work and hold our interest.

This is where Double Fine comes in. They are a games studio that are probably best known for Psychonauts and Brutal Legend. They decided they wanted to create a new point and click adventure. But where to get funding for such a project? It’s not like many people play these games any more?

And here is the interesting bit of this. They decided to start up a kickstarter page and ask for donations and the gaming community arrived in force!

The project had a goal of $400,000 which it reached in 8 hours. At the time of writing this it has raised over $1.2 million and there are still 32 days left to donate.

It’s time’s like these I’m still happy to call myself a gamer.

If you are interested in donating they are also offering rewards for various different amounts such as (all rewards include the rewards from the tiers below):

• $15 – a free copy of the game and video series
• $30 – HD download of the documentary with extras, soundtrack and previous rewards
• $100 – Original poster, your name in the credits
• $250 – Poster that is autographed by the whole team
• $1,000 – Mini portrait of you painted by the artist
• $5,000 – Larger original painting of art used in the game
• $10,000 – Lunch with Time Schafer and Ron Gilbert and a tour of the offices

There are also higher rewards if you want to donate more.

So if you’re interested, hit up the button below for full details!

 

Double Fine Kickstarter Page