01752: Double Fine Committment


Today marked the beginning of the Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnight 2014, which is their two week game jam where they challenge themselves to come up with some pretty innovative and crazy ideas as part of their on-going innovation efforts. For those of us not inside Double Fine, we're given the chance to participate by donating money to the project, which in turn gives us access to the eventual prototypes of the finalists and voting rights leading up to the final product. And as has become the Double Fine habit, they'll also document the effort with the help of 2 Player Productions, the same group that has been handling the documentary behind the Double Fine adventure game Broken Age. And this year, Pendleton Ward (of Adventure Time fame) is one of the project leads for one of the prototype games!

At the same time, I finally gave in and signed up for the Steam Early Access for Spacebase DF-9 through the well-timed Humble Weekly Sale also featuring various Double Fine games. Ironically enough, I already had copies of most of the games in this bundle safe for Spacebase and Brutal Legend. But it was cheaper to get the bundle than to purchase Early Access directly on Steam (despite my $5 discount for already having at least one Double Fine game on my Steam account), plus I'd also get soundtracks for the other games. Its a pretty cool deal.

At this point, it's pretty clear that I'm become more than just a Tim Schafer fan. I am now heavily invested in practically everything that Double Fine Productions is creating. The only game that I haven't supported is Massive Chalice, their second Kickstarter project, although this is no to say that I'm not open to getting the game in the future should it go on sale. And I know why I've become to dedicated to this game studio - the 2 Player Productions documentary series has really helped me get to know a lot of the different personalities involved in their games and that's really done something. I really like how they run their business and how they do their best to continue to foster creativity and innovation in their ranks. Participating in the forums helps me feel like I'm part of their development process, even if only a little bit. And of course there's all the fun that happens on social media.

I'm still proud to be a bit of a Double Fine Productions fanboy. Sure I don't necessarily buy their games at full price (except for my PS3 copy of The Cave). but I still invest in their games as opposed to trying to pirate them. And blog posts like this just continue to demonstrate what an advocate I've become for the brand. And that's just how life goes.

So what are you passionate about? What companies do you feel you can put your trust in loyalty in? You have to admit that there aren't too many of them out there. And so I'm pretty proud that I have at least one.
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