Under Microsoft’s ownership, it was probably a safe bet that Double Fine would never get to make a Brutal Legend 2, even in this IP-obsessed world we find ourselves in. However! Microsoft don’t own Double Fine anymore, and so the once again indie developer can more or less do what they want. Which they’re already doing, in fact, as they’re currently hosting a game jam Kickstarter that includes a stretch goal that’ll see them making Brutal Legend 2. If you give them $100 million.
Now, look. I know that they’re not going to reach $100 million. You know that too! The most successful Kickstarter project of all time raised a little under $47 million, and that was for a 3D printer. But if you don’t ask, you don’t get, do ya? So I support Double Fine and their studio appropriate cheekiness in committing to such a bit. The actual Kickstarter does sound worth supporting at the very least, even if our collective dreams of a Brutal Legend 2 are already over before they’ve begun.
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For some context, this Kickstarter is for Amnesia Fortnight, a game jam the studio started way back in 2007 where they spend two weeks busting out some prototypes that may get made into actual games. Games like Costume Quest and the Psychonauts 2 brain world Compton’s Cook-off were even born from this event. And with this Kickstarter, what you’re technically paying for is voting rights.
Pay the requisite funds, and you can vote on a range of prototypes made by the Double Fine team. Of the lot, four will then go head to head, and then you vote again, with the number one winner being turned into a fully fledged, albeit small, game. There’s a playlist you can check out full of 30 second pitches that’ll be turned into prototypes that you’ll be able to vote on. I’m fond of the sound of Emergency Foley Artist, a Jackbox-style party game where you put funny sounds over various scenes, and Uprise, a kite-flying pseudo-kart racer where you take on invading aliens.
Like previous projects, a documentary is being made out of this process too, which I’m personally quite curious about given the whole no longer being owned by Microsoft thing (as well as to see how much, if at all, they address the layoffs they conducted post-reindependence). Worth chucking a few bucks at I reckon!
