The Two Guys passed $300K, so there should be another prototype on the way.

I just saw another point-and-click adventure game called Lilly Looking Through. They're already more than 50% funded only 4 days it, so it looks like a slam dunk to be funded. The reason I'm bringing it up is that beyond the trailer provided, there's a demo you can install and play. If you have any interest in adventure games, I recommend taking a look - the art direction and atmosphere is simply fantastic.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...adventure-game

The creators also sent me a thank you after I pledged, which was a nice touch.

The SQ3 commentary aired today. The audio was archived successfully this time, but there were some video issues early on with the SQ3 promos they had made. You can watch these promos on Youtube, which i recommend doing before watching the commentary.

Space Quest 3 Promo: At the Cinematron

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9slgunoHkU

Space Quest 3 Promo 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLWGIzC1XqI


They also reference this video showing the art for a few SQ3 scenes being "drawn" in high speed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QPVfGq19f8

The music played during the playthrough of the game is mostly Roland MT-32 sound, which was a MIDI keyboard you hooked up to your PC. It provided better sound than even the Adlib sound, which was also a step up from the PC speaker sounds, but not many people had a Roland sound card back then. Here's info on Sierra's marketing effort to get people to buy sound cards, including an audio cassette with the SQ3 theme on it:
http://sierragamers.com/aspx/m/639853

The Amiga version of the game actually had a voice of Roger Wilco saying "Where am I" during the opening sequence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nun5UnaHsZM&t=3m38s

As an added bonus, Ken and Roberta Williams (founders of Sierra) dropped into the chatroom to say hi and show their support for the SpaceVenture project. Ken popped in at about the 1 hour 8 min mark, and he got Roberta to say hi a little later.

SQ3 commentary:
http://www.twitch.tv/andromedaguys/b/320267743



SQ4 commentary tomorrow, Monday 6/4/12 12:00pm EDT:
http://www.twitch.tv/andromedaguys

The Spacventure Prototype, aka "Living Concept Art", has been updated to phase 3. This version works somewhat on Safari and Firefox, but still works best in Chrome:
http://guysfromandromeda.com/living-...t-art-phase-3/

Also, SQ5 commentary today at 12pm EDT:
http://www.twitch.tv/andromedaguys


I played the demo for Lilly Looking Through, and it was really polished and well done, so I donated. I read an article recently that stated video game kickstarters are going to have to have a demo available in order for their projects to be successfully funded, since backers are going to want to see evidence that the developers can actually make the game they're proposing. I don't know if it's an absolute requirement, but it's certainly helpful.

I think there might be less and less blind leaps of faith that is for sure.

But if Chris Avellone says hey, lets do a planescape torment II KS, I'm donating my first born child, without having any sort of demo.

I agree that it is definitely dependent upon the developer's track record. Jane Jensen and the Tex Murphy guys could put up a video that said nothing but, "Give me money!" and I probably would.

But that Lilly game looks like it is going to be a winner.

SQ6 commentary today at 12pm EDT, with special guest Josh Mandel:
http://www.twitch.tv/andromedaguys

Speaking of Space Quest, I did pick up the compilation from Amazon and waiting for them to ship it to me. However, I am concerned that the Kickstarter for Two Guys is not going to make it. At their normal pace, 400-415k looks to be the max....even if it picks up in this last week, I'd say it will probably top out at 450ish (barring any last crazy push). That's really unfortunate, but I hope I am wrong.

Two guys from Andromeda are seriously too aggressive with their updates. I'm getting like 2-3 a day! I'm seriously considering withdrawing my backing.

There typically tends to be an upswing near the end of a Kickstarter, especially if it hasn't reached its goal yet. Republique had the craziest upswing, but there's plenty of projects that did a lot in the last few days.

I've read that the "Remind Me" button on Kickstarter sends people a reminder 2 days before the project ends. This brings in a lot of backers who might've forgotten about the project after looking at it a while ago, as well as others who hold off to the end, possibly only pledging if the project "needs" them to in order to reach its goal.

BTW, For anyone interested, you can play the original Space Quest for free online on this site:
http://sarien.net/

As noted before, the Activision CD and Steam collections contains only the VGA remake of SQ1, so even if you bought the disc collection it may be interesting to play the original. (interestingly, the GOG SQ 1-3 collection has the original SQ1 only, not the VGA remake).

It means they are excited to do it...which I appreciate the heck out of. I have them on remind me (leaning towards $30 for access to the beta and soundtrack), so I get those updates as well. And yeah, they do send out an email when it gets close which reminds me because usually I am pretty busy and have a tendency to forget. (*caugh* Leisure Suit Larry)

Well, they've been announcing the commentaries once a day for the past week, so those are on top of any other announcements they have. Yesterday was the most in terms of updates in one day, with separate updates for announcing the new character, updating the prototype to work on iPad, providing new wallpaper (featuring the new character), and announcing today's commentary.

I do think they could hold back on a few updates and combine them into one to make it easier on the inbox. For example, combining the character announcement and new wallpaper into one update would've been good. On the other hand, they're letting you know about developments as soon as they happen. I do think they're eager to let people know about these developments to help generate buzz.

I hope you don't cancel your pledge because of the updates. In case you don't know, you can always turn off notifications of updates for a specific campaign you're backing in your settings:
https://www.kickstarter.com/settings/notifications



A recent Kickstarter has cause a small amount of controversy:
Sam Suede in Undercover Exposure

As this article points out, this Kickstarter originally very prominently promoted Al Lowe's name on it, which upset Replay Games, who's making the Leisure Suit Larry remake.

It looks like they've modified the kickstarter, removing references to LSL and making it clearer the amount of involvement Lowe had in the game. Al Lowe has also made a statement regarding the project:
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/30/le...own-exclusive/

The SQ6 commentary just ended. An interesting bit that came up was that Josh Mandel designed the SQ6 demo to have completely separate story and puzzles from the full game, so that those who played it weren't "spoiled" when they played the full game. I never played the SQ6 demo, so that's something I'll need to check out. You can get it here:
http://www.spacequest.net/archives/sq6/demo/

You can view all the previous commentaries here, as well as get a transcript of SQ3 the commentary with Ken and Roberta Williams chat texts:
http://guysfromandromeda.com/space-q...uys-andromeda/

Cute pic of Roberta Williams:




They're going to be doing an interview with voice actress Ellen McLain (GLaDOS) at 3:00PM EDT:
http://www.twitch.tv/andromedaguys

You would be surprised, some people like to wait until the end to join in the 'rush' People start to up their pledges when they notice something might not get made etc.

If I remember correctly, titles such as Police Takedown, Starflight Inception and Republique, all rallied with in the last 2-3 days to make it. I think Starflight Inception actually made 35% of its total in the final 24 hours. And Grim Dawn made 130k in the last couple of days to hit its stretch goals.

Is there no way to turn off updates without withdrawing funds?

As I posted earlier, you can turn off notifications for all kickstarters, or just a specific kickstarter, in your settings:
https://www.kickstarter.com/settings/notifications

Kicktraq doesn't have info on Takedown, but Starlight Inception made $77,891 in it's last 3 days, about half its budget. Republique made $256,437 in it's last 3 days, again, nearly half its budget. Grim Dawn earned $124,553 in its last two days, despite already being over their goal.

So it depends on the amount of support they get, but they still have a solid chance of getting funded.

I am guilty of that myself. I hope it jumps and it does seem to be trending upwards, so there is hope attached to that.

JayG:
Cute picture of Roberta, hard to believe she's near 60. I think I'm getting old if I start to think girls in their 50's can be cute.

She's aged extremely well. I think she's always looked younger than she is.

Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe are doing an AMA on Reddit tomorrow (6/7) at 12pm EDT
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/


There's now a fan made single room adventure game called "Pledge Quest" that's promoting the Two Guys Kickstarter. You can download it for Windows and Linux:
Windows - alt
Linux

Walkthrough here in case you get stuck:
http://www.spacequest.net/index.php/...to-support-r41

It's pretty impressive, since they manage to pound out the game in about a week and a half:
http://www.spacequest.net/index.php/...e-spaceventure

The Two Guys Reddit AMA is on now:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment...tt_murphy_and/

Looking at the schedule, Tex Murphy creator Chris Jones is set to do one tonight at 10pm EDT:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/

The All Games Radio kickstarter (allgames.com/kickstarter) is down to less than 2 weeks and 40k under the goal. Almost 2 dozen indy podcasts are working to create an online network. More rewards have been added (signed books and cds for example) and hopefully E3 will give it a boost.

D

Tex Murphy has passed it's goal, with 8 days to go. Their Reddit AMA is on now:
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comment...nners_the_tex/


The Two Guys have released a video featuring one of their new character, Cluck Y'egger, who has a very familiar voice:

http://youtu.be/d92HS_4Vp-o

Live interview with Ken Williams this morning about Space Quest and the Two Guys:

7:45am PDT / 10:45am EDT
http://justin.tv/andromedaguys

Two Guys hit almost 30k yesterday, so the legs are certainly coming now. If it keeps that momentum, it should make it.

This looks pretty good:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/...e-survival-rpg.

Zombie survival RPG.

Some good pedigree:

DoubleBear Productions is an indie RPG developer founded by Brian Mitsoda (formerly of Black Isle, Troika, and Obsidian - writer/designer for Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines) and Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda (Obsidian, Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir).

We’ve assembled a team that has come from the indie (part of our team comes from Iron Tower Studio, creators of Age of Decadence - a turn-based RPG)

The Two Guys Kickstarter broke $400K last night, which means another phase of their prototype should be released soon. They're only about $80K away from their goal now.

The Ken Williams interview can be seen/heard here:
http://guysfromandromeda.com/ken-wil...nterview-6812/

They also had an interview with voice actor John Patrick Lowrie (Team Fortress 2, Half-Life 2, Left 4 Dead, etc.) yesterday. You can see that interview here:
http://www.twitch.tv/andromedaguys/b/320792121

Author Neal Stephenson has a sword game kickstarter.

Video is pretty epic!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/260688528/clang