Space Quest?

Alright, this is getting pretty crazy. It seems the Two Guys from Andromeda have reformed and are looking to make a game this year. At the moment, there are no guarantees that it's Space Quest (they don't own the rights) or that it's Kickstarter based, or that it'll even come in a big box. But I have a feeling...

If you want to check out the promotional video they made, plus tonnes of other cool stuff, visit:

http://guysfromandromeda.com/

Jane Jensen's Pinkerton Road

Wow, what a month for Kickstarters! Jane Jensen's mysterious countdown was indeed a countdown to a new Kickstarter. Check it out here. She calls it Community Supported Gaming (CSG). It's not just a single game you're backing, but the chance to vote on one (or maybe two depending on funds raised) of three different projects that Jane will undertake in the next year. Wonderful idea. Oh, and there's a big box at $200. A little steep, but if you look at it as the possibility of two Jane Jensen games over the next year, it's not such a bad proposition. I didn't think anything would convince me to donate more than $100 through Kickstarter, but here we are :D.

Leisure Suit Larry and Maybe Jane Jensen

If you haven't already, please check out the new Kickstarter from Al Lowe and Josh Mandel to remake Leisure Suit Larry. The big box pledge is at the $100 mark. It's not just a remake, Al and Josh are looking at revisiting the jokes, updating them, adding new content and more depending on how much funding they get.

Over at http://pinkertonroad.com/, Jane Jensen has a mysterious countdown officially expiring in about 2 hours. I have it on good word that she plans to launch your choice of one of 3 different game ideas (one of which is a sequel to Gray Matter) via Kickstarter. Stay tuned for that one. Let's hope it has a big box.

That's all for now, bye!

TAKEDOWN

The recently renamed TAKEDOWN has just added a boxed version of the game to its list of rewards. It's a self-proclaimed hardcore, tactical shooter. Check it out if you like that sort of thing. The boxed version is available at the $75 mark and the special edition at the $125 mark. Doesn't say anything about the size, but I think we can assume it's a traditional box as that's what backers of the project have been asking for.

Project Fedora

So it's official now! A new Tex Murphy title is in the works and it's going to be funded through Kickstarter. The folks at Big Finish are gearing up to "beg for money on the Interwebs" starting on the 15th of May. You can check out more about the announcement here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GodOPoyNIYg

Obsidian + Kickstarter?

It's in no way official yet, but for some time now there's been a post on Obsidian Entertainment's website taking suggestions for a Kickstarter campaign. Normally this wouldn't be worthy of a mention, but the thread was started by Chris Avellone, designer on games like Fallout 2 and Icewind Dale. It's far from being a kickstarter project at this point, but worth keeping an eye on as it definitely has the potential to come in a big box.

A Round Up of Current Projects and Rumours

Double Fine Adventure

By now I'm sure you've all heard of Tim Schafer's success with Double Fine Adventure. Their stated goal was to raise $400,000 to produce a classic point-and-click adventure game and a documentary about the process of making it. By the end of the campaign, through Kickstarter and private donations, they raised about $3.43 million.

This was a huge success story for Double Fine. Adventure gamers celebrated — the genre they constantly proclaim as dead might just rise again after a brief reanimation for Jane Jensen's Gray Matter last year. Double Fine's success also marked the most successful attempt yet to revive a bygone of 20th century computer gaming: the big box!

This is exciting for me. As a child, I wrecked my game boxes, but as an adult, I want to collect them. It's also a really unique angle of approach when talking about crowd-sourced games. For the purposes of this blog, I'm interested in games that:

• Offer a big box version of the game as a reward or final product
• Prioritise creative vision over a purely market research driven approach
• Tend to genres that have been neglected (adventure is the poster child of genre neglect)

I've also become a bit of a Kickstarter addict of late, so this blog will probably begin with a rather heavy focus on Kickstarter.

So... with Double Fine Adventure fully funded, and all of the backers eagerly awaiting their documentary episodes and the final game, what other projects should you be looking out for?

Wasteland 2

Launched during the Kickstarter campaign for Double Fine Adventure, inXile's Wasteland 2 looks to be the next major focus of RPG fans, and I presume some adventure fans too. It promises to be everything you'd expect from a classic Interplay-style RPG and more. Brian Fargo, head of inXile Entertainment, also worked at Black Isle producing games like Fallout and Fallout 2. The original Wasteland is often considered a spiritual predecessor of the Fallout game series. Interplay were also responsible for the Icewind Dale series and the massively successful Baldur's Gate.

With such an outstanding legacy, Brian Fargo and the Wasteland 2 team (including some of the original Fallout developers) are destined to produced a game truly worthy of the big box in which it resides. If you'd like to know more, head on over to the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter page. Just $15 will get you a copy of the final game and $50 ($65 for overseas customers) will get you the boxed version.

Untitled Tex Murphy Project

Warning: This is no more than a rumour — actually it's a brief suggestion by Chris Jones. It's possible that in the next week or so, we might get a firm announcement. If you head on over to the unofficial Tex Murphy website you can read a post by the series creator that suggests a new Tex Murphy game is on the way. Most interestingly, it suggests that the fate of the new game is uncertain. Could it be? Another crowd-sourced title on its way? We'll find out either way on the 20th of March. The Tex Murphy series has always used big box packaging as is visible at the top of the unofficial site.



Well, that's all for now. I'll be back with more fast breaking news stories as they happen.