Wait – people are willing to just THROW money at you?
Okay, so I already sort of knew this thanks to such local celebrities as that guy who plays recorder on the sidewalk and the guy who stands outside the Safeway with a paper cup. But that’s chump change compared to what a well-earned reputation can get you.
Take Tim Schafer for example. I’ve blogged at length about the guy many times in my ongoing effort to get people to play “Psychonauts” and “Brutal Legend” and he’s at it once again. Only this time, he and Ron Gilbert are going back to their roots and making an old-fashioned adventure game. But the catch? No publisher will give Double-Fine Productions money because people don’t buy adventure games. So they came up with an alternate solution to raise money: go on kickstarter.com and ask their fans to help them raise $400K in one month.
So far, the internet his given them $2 million.
To his credit, I think very few people could bring in that kind of fan-funding. If Joss Whedon asked for donations on “Dr. Horrible 2″, he’d probably bring in enough to fund a full-length movie. In Tim’s case, he hasn’t even pitched an idea yet, so his fans are basically just giving him money to exist.
A few people have already sent me e-mails telling me to jump on this bandwagon, but I’m still iffy about the legal ramifications of getting donations to make more fan-games or especially “Ducktalez 7″. I still wouldn’t mind seeing how much money people throw at it, though. The average Kickstarter project normally brings in around $10K, and before now, has gone as high as $1.4M, so I can’t say I wouldn’t be interested.
Hmmm… I do have a novel in the works. Anybody interested in throwing money at that? I promise I won’t stop you.
For now, check out Double-Fine’s adventure pitch video. It’s pretty awesome.
I’ve been waiting almost twelve years to make this blog entry. From the humbling beginnings back in high school where this existed as a crudely-designed fan-project, to the revival spent making the first couple rooms on my laptop in 2006, to the four years spent animating battle sequences on my couch while juggling work between “Vohaul Strikes Back” and “The Silver Lining” to my move to Vancouver where I spent several months programming and beta-testing my fingers off and swearing never to make a project of this magnitude ever again. At the cost of my sanity, the game is finally here. You can go download it. You can go play it. You can come back and tell me it sucks – I don’t care. It’s finished, and that’s what matters.
I keep expecting some Highlander-type Quickening to happen to me, but so far, it’s a no-go. I’m pretty sure I’m out of shape and have very poor social skills, though. Is that a prize?
Most people would probably use an announcement like this to toss out a generic “special thanks” and describe the game… but I think on my own blog, I’m entitled to just spill my real feelings. This is huge for me. This is a right-up-there-with-#1 moment for me. Disneyland, being a best man at my brother’s wedding, Samosa Night with Nick, New Years 2006, DucktaleZ 3, the train ride to Toronto – I can add ” finished Incinerations” to the list.
And the people to thank – right off the bat: I won’t embarrass him on any other forum post, but Frederik Olsen stuck with me through to the end. He made a great soundtrack, we stayed up late discussing the games, he’s very passionate about his work and committed to see things through.
And Team VSB – Andres Kalle, Patrick C. Johnston – I’ve learned so much from working with them. The game wouldn’t be possible without their input and know-how (actually, it WOULD be possible, but it would be crappier.) I’ve thrown so many requests their way, and they’ve always thrown back quick and easy results. It’s just mind-blowing to me.
And I know I give “The Silver Lining” crew a lot of flack for having driven me completely up the wall at times, but Cez Bittar and Rich Flores – they helped make this game possible. They pushed me further than I’d ever pushed myself and once I built up speed, I just kept adding things to SQInc that was never in the plans. Would I work with them again? I would hesitate, but yes. Richard’s a talented and hard-driving animation director, and Cez flat-out knows how to run a team with that golden tongue of his – I swear I quit TSL about five times, and he still kept pulling me back in somehow. I don’t think anyone besides Frede stayed with SQInc’s team for more than 2-3 months, so I respect anyone who can manage a 40-person+ team of volunteers like that.
And of course, respect to the original developers and then some. Scott Murphy. Mark Crowe. Josh Mandel. Ken and Roberta Williams. Al Lowe. Daryl Gates. Corey and Lori Ann Cole. Not household names these days, but these people are my childhood. The Sierra family created something unique and wonderful with their games that holds the same kind of sway over their fans that Disney, the Looney Tunes and the Muppets hold over the world. “King’s Quest 6″ alone is as big to me as “The Lion King.” I think a big part of me just needed to share back the love they gave us in their own games.
The most embarrassing part about completing this game is just the whole “adventure” and “fan-game” aspect of it. I feel like I’m living in an environment where there’s only two types of games: shooters and Skyrim. And even trying to explain my game to my family at Christmas just met with a lot of confused reactions. A lot of people I talk to either don’t understand what an “adventure game” is, and they understand even less the concept of “letting people play it for free”. So support from my peers has been a very mixed bag when making this.
But to see this game finally finished, it feels like I’m reaching some undefined closure in my life. I’d be lying if I didn’t say the original SQInc’s failure didn’t hit me hard. People kept telling me to give up back then saying it was impossible, and they were right at the time. Nobody gets anything huge done at 17. That might have been what was driving me all these years. The Ducktalez cartoons, the Monkey Island games, The Silver Lining, Vohaul Strikes Back… sometimes, a little piece of your past just won’t rest until you’ve proven it wrong. It’s one thing to make a game for the fans, but it’s another to make a game for more than just the fans. This is for my inspirations, this is for my family, this is for my friends, this is for my friends’ friends, this is for everyone who believed and everyone who didn’t, and this is for myself.
Sorry for the long post, but I think I’m coming to the end now. This last stretch has been such a long one. The game was playable last December – and it still took a full year to get it ready for everyone. And how crazy is it to see “Vohaul Strikes Back” and the “Space Quest 2 Remake” all coming out at the same time? This is a very emotion-heavy time for me. I wish I could be putting as much effort into my schoolwork as I am into this blog post right now. But at least I feel like I can move on for a change. That I can put this behind me and start a new chapter in my life.
It’s a game ten years in the making, and follows 16 years after the cancellation of the original Space Quest series. And out of the dozens of Sierra fan-games made over the years, it’s the first actual full-length sequel (TSL doesn’t count because episode 5 isn’t finished yet. So we win!)
In this game, you help space janitor Roger Wilco sort out another bad case of his girlfriend, the planet, and the galaxy needing saving. Along the way, he learns some very important life lessons, escapes death-defying situations and makes some hairy new friends. It’s loaded with clever puzzles, tons of original characters, over a hundred beautifully-painted backgrounds, awesome music, hilarious dialogue, and lots of half-assed Flash animation from myself. Also: monkeys.
In the following weeks, expect to hear a lot more Space Quest-related news from me. In the last six years, this has been one of the top three things to eat up all my time and it’s FINALLY DONE. I’m in a self-promoting mood right now, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for any positive reviews or mentions on popular sites. Not to mention VSB is just the beginning when I consider what’s around the corner…
Truth be told, I haven’t even started writing “Ducktalez 7″ yet. But in the meantime, here’s a guy who wrote lyrics for the moon theme in the Ducktales Nintendo game. It’s pretty awesome.
At long last, it’s over. I just flew back in from Edmonton last night, my brother’s married, I’ve got a couple new sister-in-laws, and Term 3 is now beginning. There was this crazy misadventure in which the airport lost my luggage, and at least two people’s cars broke down resulting in my brother being late to both his rehearsal and reception. But then there was also an awesome limo ride, a fine Ukrainian meal, and I got access to a karaoke machine for a better part of the night. So all in all, a good weekend.
And Brittany, even though you’re at Disneyland, I have an additional wedding present for you. You will laugh.
Ooh. And here’s an additional video I just remembered starring the happy couple from way before their marriage, back when the worst thing in their lives was Jayme eating crackers:
I’m sorry, internet, but you can’t throw a video like this at me and expect me to stay quiet about it. It’s just not feasible. I have to say something.
The video in question is Rebecca Black’s “Friday.” Chances are, you’re sick of hearing about it already. If this is your first time hearing about it, I have posted her video right here. Watching it is completely optional because the song has been known to make some people’s ears bleed.
Me on the other hand… I love this song to death. For reasons explained later.
Now the major dealie going on is that people are unanimously calling this “the worst song ever written.” I refuse to agree with that statment because this song doesn’t contain any instances of the word “slizzered,” and I refuse to acknowledge that Katy Perry’s “Firework” or Bruno Mars’ “Grenade” are acceptable alternatives.
What I like about this song is that Rebecca Black has unwittingly written what could otherwise be considered the perfect satirical take on modern pop music. All the worst of cliches are in here – the auto-tuned voice, the pointless rap sequence, the “party all the time” mentality, and best of all, the lack of lyrical symbolism, where she’s literally singing about eating cereal and wondering where in the car she’ll sit. I can’t listen to this song with a straight face. I just have a big dumb grin through the whole thing. I want to live in her world and follow her around and watch what she says about everyday things, like “Look, there’s a mailbox. The mailman puts the mail in the mailbox. That’s how we get our mail.” Awesome.
Now granted, she’s 13, and I blame both her parents and the record company for any pain she’s suffered at the hands of this song. I mean, come on – putting your 13 year old daughter in the position of becoming the laughing stock of the internet should be considered child abuse. They had every chance to stop this before it started – all they had to do was tell Rebecca “we’ll get you some singing lessons and find you a better writer” before deciding she needed her own label.
But the interesting thing about seeing someone so young write a song like this is seeing what kind of musical influence is going into children these days. Everything about this song seems like a parody of Justin Bieber, Ke$ha, and The Black-Eyed Peas – only it’s meant to be an homage. She has picked up on the worst of everything and turned it into inspiration. Much like how The Black-Eyed Peas used to rhyme the days of the week with the other days of the week, Rebecca Black has taken it one step further: she explains that Sunday comes after Saturday, which comes after Friday. Something about that makes me clap my hands like a seal, and yet dread what kind of music we’ll be hearing throughout the next decade.
So, yes, it’s a terrible song, but it’s just so bad that it’s good. For a song that has no poetic craft, it’s open to so many interpretations. It’s a statement about music, about society, about children, about fame – you can turn it into a statement about everything in life except… ironically… parties. We learn nothing new about parties from this song.
Interesting things happen in life. This was one of them.
My friend Brittany pointed me at a possibly new favorite show. It’s a BBC series that aired back in 2002 as a bunch of ten-minute shorts called “Look Around You,” where they spoof 80′s-style educational videos about science and whatnot. For the first couple minutes, I was convinced that this was a real video back then. And then I saw the jar of wafers on the shelf.
Anyhow, this particular video was killing me with laughter by the end, so check it out if British comedy is your thing.
All these years of watching the same reruns and seeing the same clips over and over again, and not once did I ever realize that we kept catching snippets of the same McBain movie. “Simpsons,” you’re the gift that keeps on giving.
