Tim Schafer wants to work on a systems-based game after Broken Age

Double Fine's Tim Schafer has discussed what he might do once he finishes work on Broken Age.

The acclaimed adventure game creator said he is considering a "systems-based" game that changes every time you play, following the more scripted and linear adventure game Broken Age, which is to conclude in the coming months.

"Honestly, doing Broken Age reminded me of how hard [making adventure games] were," he explained after the BAFTA Video Game Awards.

"As opposed to a systems-based game, where you figure out some rules and those rules change in different ways, and they combine with different things together to give you more gameplay - with adventure games you'll work for weeks on something that will take the player 30 seconds to experience.

"Everything is leveraged in the opposite direction - where it's a lot of work for a small [output] and that piece of entertainment will be exactly the same every time you play it."

[AudioEppa]

Can't wait to try out broken age whenever it releases on ps4.

[stragomccloud]

That game will pretty much run on any hardware. Just download it now. If you a game for PC now, you are buying a game that will be playable forever since systems are universally backwards compatible.

[FullmetalRoyale]

Or he can download it on the device that he wants to.

[AudioEppa]

I agree with FullmetalRoyale :)

[stragomccloud]

True. But why buy it on the PS4 someday, when you can buy it now, and then have access to it forever? Buying multiplatform games for a console that can run on any PC is kind of short sighted since you are limiting the amount of time you'll be able to play it. If he or she doesn't have a PC at all, that's understandable. But it's just strange. He/She probably won't be able to play the game again in 5 years. He/She'd have to plug in the ol' PS4. If Sony changes their stance on backwards compatibility that's one thing, but as it is, Nintendo seems to be the only company interested in backwards compatibility.

[Canary]

Broken Age would probably be finished if Schafer hadn't split Double Fine into a half-dozen different teams, each one too small to complete the single project assigned.

[NewMonday]

you cant have all a game development team working at the same time, some cant start working until another group is done with their part and once they are done they just sit there without being productive but still costing salary, that's why they need to move into another project.

[Canary]

Except that's not what Double Fine is doing. They split their entire staff into 5 or 6 different (small) development teams. The idea was to pump out a lot of cheap games quickly, instead of investing all of their resources into a single project (that would then flop and ruin the studio).

The problem is either that these small projects are either way too ambitious for their budgets and staffs... or the development teams are way too small.

Their small games have a longer development time than most AAA releases these days--which is a very, very bad thing.

[Anthotis]

Tim Schafer wants to work on his delivery.

[PixelGateUk]

Will he be requiring yet more money from kickstarter? the man seems to struggle with budgets, which is odd given his experience

[DragonKnight]

Well, he's terrible at math so it's no surprise.

[PixelGateUk]

I honestly did not pay attention to his joke, i was more offended by the fact he used GDC, and awarding someones hard work, as his own soap box.

[DragonKnight]

I didn't think of his joke in the same "he's racist/sexist" way that most people are. I simply cringed because it really wasn't at all funny. Like, only people with terrible senses of humor would laugh at that.

[Godmars290]

Get the feeling that unless he finds a fem-shield who can claim that they were attacked by GG, he's not going to reach his goal.

[garos82]

Lets watch the money burn yet again. screw this horrible person

[KrystofKage1]

So basically never? Since Broken Age will never be finished.

I hope everyone has learned their lesson. Never fund a kickstarter for oldschool game developers that squander away big budgets with poor(or non-existent) results.

[Fireseed]

What are you talking about? The first half of the game was released and was amazing. Sure it may take a while longer for the second half but...

https://youtu.be/0ppaiQ6mhb...

[00]

He was asking for four hundred thousand dollars managed to get 3.3 million yet still could not complete the game, because he can not do math.

1+1+40=50

[KrystofKage1]

Amazing is an overstatement.

There's a reason Bobby Kotick kicked him to the curve. The guy has no clue how to manage a budget. Even Notch backed out from Psychonauts 2 when he realized Tim wanted more than the game is worth.

[Godmars290]

Key point here is that you're talking about the first half of a game which had to be split in half in order to offer something, when the original Kickstarter goal was far exceeded.

Again, people gave more than twice than what was being asked, but only received half of the product.

[carcarias]

Tim is done.

His time is over as evidenced by his badly organised projects, his irrelevancy in modern genres and his out-of-touch views on games, gamers and gaming culture in general.

Goodbye Tim, it was fun for awhile :)

[WizzroSupreme]

That sounds awesome. Tim Schafer's definitely one of the few people I'd trust with the idea.

[fitfox]

he can just suck his sock puppets D1ck for all i care.