One of the top five most funded Kickstarter gaming projects has hit a speed bump as the prospective game makers have run out of funding cash. However Double Fine, the developers of 'Broken Age', aren't asking for more money to top up the $3 million plus they raised earlier, they have pledged to fund and complete the game with their own money.
Broken Age, formerly known as Double Fine Adventure, raised US$3,336,371 with a goal of only $400,000 on Kickstarter in March last year. Due to the enormous amount of funding they received the developers added stretch goals, sought to expand the game and have also therefore had to push back expected release dates. Now it seems like they might have stretched a bit too far as the funding cash pot is empty. However in a backer's only blog post project manager Tim Schafer has announced that no more funding will be required. On Twitter he summed it up; "Double Fine is NOT asking for more money. We are fine, financially. We are using our OWN money to deliver a bigger game than we Kickstarted."
Tim Schafer has an impressive adventure game pedigree, his project lead debut was on the classic 'Day of the Tentacle' in 1993, so it was not so surprising that his Kickstarter project was a roaring success. Schafer explained the current financial situation as follows "Even though we received much more money from our Kickstarter than we, or anybody, anticipated, that didn't stop me from getting excited and designing a game so big that it would need even more money". He added that after working on projects such as Grim Fandango or Full Throttle previously he finds it hard to think small "There's just a certain amount of scope needed to create a complex puzzle space and to develop a real story."
Now with the game needing more money and expected to be released some time in 2015 Schafer has committed to using his own money to finish it. Also to sooth impatient backers the game is going to be released in instalments. Using Steam Early Access users should be able to play an initial "finished, polished half of the game" in January. As a pre-release the game can have more content added and updated at no extra cost to purchasers.
Schafer ended with an upbeat progress report by saying "... the game looks, plays and sounds amazing. It's just taking a while because I designed too much game, as I pretty much always do. But we're pulling it in, and the good news is that the game's design is now 100 per cent done, so most of the unknowns are now gone and it's not going to get any bigger."
The Steam Early access idea could help out a lot with the game's funding as new people can 'back' the project that way. Also CNet points out that Double Fine have already added to the funds by selling the game as part of a Humble Double Fine Bundle in May.