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Jane Jensen's Pinkerton Road Kickstarter project [Ended, $435K funded]

Jane Jensen said:
Now that we’ve hit our $300K goal (and thank you all for that!), people have been asking what we'd do if we get extra funding. Of course, as a designer, I want to make Moebius as big and awesome as it could possibly be! After all, that's my job.

But, as always, there will be concessions to budget and time that we'll have to make, even though we have creative control over the project.

So my own goal: it would be fantastic to see this kickstarter reach $400K by closing to be able to make the dream as big as it can get. To inspire you, here are some things we can afford with additional funding:

If we get to $350K: We’ll add an additional area (3 screens) and puzzle set I have in mind for Venice that would look awesome and extend gameplay.

If we get to $400K: We’ll add a longer, fully cinematic opening sequence / trailer that will blow you away and help us get people lining up to buy the game, setting the tone for this new Pinkerton Road series.

If we get to $450K: All the above, plus an extra 1000 lines of dialogue to flush out the game and we’ll record the main theme with a live orchestra (Bob is drooling over that one).

I hope you were as inspired by the new art we put up yesterday as I am. Go Team Moebius!

Jane.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects...-road-2012-2013-csg/posts/222828?ref=activity
 

El-Suave

Member
Kicktraq says they'll end up at 412k, don't know how good their trends are though. Still that helps me not getting my hopes up of reaching 450k.
We'd need more backers, the average pledge is already the highest I've seen yet on the game projects I've visited.
 

mclem

Member
Don't forget final spikes, particularly if there's a clear attainable goal in sight. My normal benchmark for the size of a final spike won't work here, though, since the project had a fairly slow start rather than the massive influx of donations in the first 24 hours that some other projects had.

I like the fact that the three stretch goals are very carefully defined; certainly the first one seems to be something she already had in mind for the scope of the project, and a cinematic intro is something that can easily be bolted on; no disaster if it's not there, but wonderful if it is. I'm a little less certain about "More dialogue!", but the orchestral music is certainly enticing.

Also: "Flush out the game?" Whoops!
 

MrBud360

Member
We really need 450K. Will be the best version possible for Moebius. A good way to start a season and to bring more backers to a second one. Let´s go people!!!!
 

Tmdean

Banned
There was a spike leading up to 300k but after that funding slowed down quite a bit. If you extrapolate based on the current post-300k rate they'll reach $370,062, but if you base it on the last 5 days of funding they'll reach $433,306.

1cOrm.png
 

Lissar

Reluctant Member
I hope they can announce the name of the second project before the clock runs out.

I think they said they wouldn't until after it was finished? They also said that people could donate and become a member after the whole thing was finished too, so if people want to get on it later they can (just without a lot of the nifty bonuses us early donators get.) This money is all going towards Moebius anyway, us $50+ers just also get the second game as a bonus.
 

Kiriku

SWEDISH PERFECTION
Interesting interview with Jane Jensen:

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2012/5/7/2999183/jane-jensen-the-return-of-Gabriel-Knight

Especially this part:

Jensen admits that she's pitched executives on a new Knight game twice since 1999. Following a merger with Sierra owner Vivendi, those rights now belong to Activision. With Activision recently opening up the Sierra archives to allow Telltale Games to create a King's Quest reboot, there could be hope for Gabriel Knight once more.

"I have talked to them again recently," Jensen says, "and I think there's a good chance that it's going to work out. It's not going to be ..." She pauses, weighing her words. "I think there's a good chance that we'll be doing something with Gabriel Knight in the future." There's the hint of a smile in her tone. "Just give it a month or two."
 

Bebpo

Banned
Here's the thing. If Activision worked with Pinkerton Road and say...Telltale to make Gabriel Knight Episodic Adventures or something....there's absolutely no way they can give these games away to Pinkerton Road backers. This is Activision we're talking about. So anything GK related that has to go through them is not going to be made for free for backers. So I really doubt Mystery Game X is this.

However I could see something like that happening in the future going by that snippet, which would be cool.

The next 6 months will be interesting to see where Jensen and studio goes with all this. Lots of potential here.
 
Jane Jensen said:
Now that we’ve hit our $300K goal (and thank you all for that!), people have been asking what we'd do if we get extra funding. Of course, as a designer, I want to make Moebius as big and awesome as it could possibly be! After all, that's my job.

But, as always, there will be concessions to budget and time that we'll have to make, even though we have creative control over the project.

So my own goal: it would be fantastic to see this kickstarter reach $400K by closing to be able to make the dream as big as it can get. To inspire you, here are some things we can afford with additional funding:

If we get to $350K: We’ll add an additional area (3 screens) and puzzle set I have in mind for Venice that would look awesome and extend gameplay.

If we get to $400K: We’ll add a longer, fully cinematic opening sequence / trailer that will blow you away and help us get people lining up to buy the game, setting the tone for this new Pinkerton Road series.

If we get to $450K: All the above, plus an extra 1000 lines of dialogue to flush out the game and we’ll record the main theme with a live orchestra (Bob is drooling over that one).

If we get to $500K: Full spell checking for the entire game script!

I hope you were as inspired by the new art we put up yesterday as I am. Go Team Moebius!

Jane.

Heh.
 

mclem

Member
Yet another Pinkerton update... detailing the schedule for future updates.

Update #22: Schedule for the "end times" for our kickstarter
Posted 27 minutes ago

We're getting close to the 'end times' my friends, the last days of our kickstarter campaign! I will keep this Update #22 current with the latest info. Here's the schedule of events:

THURS, May 10

-- Moebius T-shirt, Moebius block, T-shirt poll

FRI, May 11

-- Laura's 24-hour GK marathon starts at noon PST, 3pm EST

Time and date clock for this event: http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/fixedtime.html?iso=20120512T07&p1=22&ah=23&am=55

To watch and chat, go here: http://www.twitch.tv/laurakat07

I'll be on live for at least the first hour on Friday.

SAT, May 12

-- 7-8:30am PST / 10-11:30 EST -- Laura's GK marathon continues. I'll be on at this time hopefully to catch the end of GK2 and start of GK3.

-- 11:30 am PST/ 2:30pm EST -- I'll check in with Laura as she's finishing up her all nighter! and then...

-- noon PST/3pm EST -- I'll be on the Double Fine Game Club playthrough of GK1

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/double-fine-game-club

SUN, May 13

-- 3pm EST - Bob and I do a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" live chat. Please come by and ask us something! I'll post the link in comments when we're live.

THURS, May 17 (?? date to be confirmed)

-- An extra special treat! Will Binder (director), Dean Erickson (Gabriel), Peter Lucas (Von Glower) and I will be having a chat session to shoot the shit about the GK2 production. How cool is that? We're going to be recording it earlier in the week and it may be podcast on the 17th. Still waiting for final confirmation on the podcast, but we WILL be doing this chat session and you WILL get to hear it this week!

SAT, May 19

-- Countdown to close of campaign -- stay tuned for details

Jane

They've really got a hard-crafted promotional plan going on with this whole Kickstarter venture, I'm very impressed.
 

szaromir

Banned
Now I'm 100% sure their initial KS pitch concept was a wrong idea - befuddling and not attention catching. Space Venture got $100k out of the gate... and I refuse to believe Space Quest is more remembered than Gabriel Knight. They should have pitched Moebius from the very beginning and with hindsight they'd probably do it that way.
 

Lissar

Reluctant Member
Now I'm 100% sure their initial KS pitch concept was a wrong idea - befuddling and not attention catching. Space Venture got $100k out of the gate... and I refuse to believe Space Quest is more remembered than Gabriel Knight. They should have pitched Moebius from the very beginning and with hindsight they'd probably do it that way.

Space Quest is DEFINITELY more remembered than Gabriel Knight. Every time point and click adventures are brought up I see tons of people say it's the only good one Sierra ever did.

I prefer Gabriel Knight though. :<
 

SparkTR

Member
Now I'm 100% sure their initial KS pitch concept was a wrong idea - befuddling and not attention catching. Space Venture got $100k out of the gate... and I refuse to believe Space Quest is more remembered than Gabriel Knight. They should have pitched Moebius from the very beginning and with hindsight they'd probably do it that way.

Yeah it did seem to be a bit convoluted, I'm sure plenty of people still don't understand what the CSG model is and what it aims to do. On the other hand, they've supported their kickstarter much better than anyone else I would say. Lots of community events and involvement, roadmaps, tidbits like new concept art and tons of updates.
 
The idea might have been confusing, but I´m glad that they stuck with it, since I like the idea of the whole concept. They might have suffered from it now initially, but will probably gain from it in the long run. They seem to have a far better plan for how they´re actuall going to make the games then 90% of the other kickstarter games projects.

And I think that once you read it and know that you get Moebius for $16, then there is no reason for anyone to dislike it.
 
Yeah it did seem to be a bit convoluted, I'm sure plenty of people still don't understand what the CSG model is and what it aims to do. On the other hand, they've supported their kickstarter much better than anyone else I would say. Lots of community events and involvement, roadmaps, tidbits like new concept art and tons of updates.

Yeah, I've been impressed with all the updates they're doing. I love checking my e-mail and seeing, like, three new ones added lol
 

jimi_dini

Member
Interesting interview with Jane Jensen:
Jensen admits that she's pitched executives on a new Knight game twice since 1999. Following a merger with Sierra owner Vivendi, those rights now belong to Activision. With Activision recently opening up the Sierra archives to allow Telltale Games to create a King's Quest reboot, there could be hope for Gabriel Knight once more.

"I have talked to them again recently," Jensen says, "and I think there's a good chance that it's going to work out. It's not going to be ..." She pauses, weighing her words. "I think there's a good chance that we'll be doing something with Gabriel Knight in the future." There's the hint of a smile in her tone. "Just give it a month or two."

If they ever do another Gabriel Knight, they have to get Tim Curry and Mark Hamill as voice actors (again). Pleeeeeaaassseeee.
 

Bebpo

Banned
Depending on if Hamill has nostalgia for the Mosley role, he might not be too demanding in price, especially since it seems like he's kind of retiring from voice acting.

Then again, it's not like they need Mosley in future GK games. If they could just get Tim Curry and the person who played Grace, they'd be set.
 

MrBud360

Member
Hey guys!!! Help Jane Jensen(Gabriel Knight, King Quest 6, Police Quest 3) Kickstarter campaign too!!! We just need more 116K to reach 450K and get the premium version of Moebius (with more dialogs, more puzzles, scenes and orchestra). Backers with 50$ tier, gets 3 games from Jane! 2 new adventures like the Double Fine one, and a Kids Games!!! We need your help, 7 days left!!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1005365109/jane-jensens-pinkerton-road-2012-2013-csg
 

firehawk12

Subete no aware
Depending on if Hamill has nostalgia for the Mosley role, he might not be too demanding in price, especially since it seems like he's kind of retiring from voice acting.

Then again, it's not like they need Mosley in future GK games. If they could just get Tim Curry and the person who played Grace, they'd be set.
The person who played Grace in GK1 is living off TV syndication money. For better or for worse, that seems to be the position of all those GK voice actors.

(Remember, Michael Dorn was in GK1 too!)
 

mclem

Member
Hey guys!!! Help Jane Jensen(Gabriel Knight, King Quest 6, Police Quest 3) Kickstarter campaign too!!! We just need more 116K to reach 450K and get the premium version of Moebius (with more dialogs, more puzzles, scenes and orchestra). Backers with 50$ tier, gets 3 games from Jane! 2 new adventures like the Double Fine one, and a Kids Games!!! We need your help, 7 days left!!!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1005365109/jane-jensens-pinkerton-road-2012-2013-csg

Um. I'm not sure this is the most appropriate place to post a plea introducing the kickstarter to people.
 

jimi_dini

Member
I doubt they can afford them.

Sierra could afford them back in the days. And at least Hamill would probably even do it for the fans for less. And yes, get the voice actress for Grace too.

Anyone knows, how much the budget for Gabriel Knight 1 was? Gabriel Knight 2 seems to have been 3 million. Actual cost was around 4 million. And that was FMV, so GK1 must have been way cheaper.
 

fov

Member
EDIT: Actually, seems like Jane Jensen is chatting right now.

She was, and she said she'd be back again later. She's also going to join in at the beginning of Double Fine's GK playthrough tomorrow (details are in their forum if you're a DFA backer).
 

El-Suave

Member
Jane and Pinkerton Road got a nice shout out in the latest update of the Doublefine Kickstarter. That should help raise awareness.
 

~Kinggi~

Banned
Really hope this kickstarter gets more funds. Id love for Robert to have an Orchestra and shit. Hope the game can be good at just 300k.

Anyone have any idea what the budget for Gray Matter was? I really liked that one but i have a feeling it was much more than 300k.
 
Really hope this kickstarter gets more funds. Id love for Robert to have an Orchestra and shit. Hope the game can be good at just 300k.

Anyone have any idea what the budget for Gray Matter was? I really liked that one but i have a feeling it was much more than 300k.

Gray Matter's development was very long and involved shifting publishers and developers. It was probably A LOT more than 300k.

And remember the $300k isn't the full budget of the game, also that the development studio Jane is working with is working for cheap in exchange for a piece of the profits.

Tim Schafer talked a bit about the budgets of his games during the Double Fine Adventure kickstarter:
Grim Fandango was $3 million in 1998
Full Throttle was $2 million in 1995
Day of the Tentacle was $600,000 in 1993
 

szaromir

Banned
The updates are beginning to annoy me a little bit. Everything is focused around Gabriel Knight and not Moebius itself.
 

El-Suave

Member
Yeah, I kinda see what you mean. GK4 being mystery game X confirmed.

It would be a bit stupid to "hide" a new GK game and not capitalize on it to raise funds. If they plan to do another CSG season next year, GK should be the banner game for that. If they did a normal campaign for a true GK sequel I could see that raising 500k.
 

mclem

Member
The updates are beginning to annoy me a little bit. Everything is focused around Gabriel Knight and not Moebius itself.
I assume that's her asserting her credentials.

It would be a bit stupid to "hide" a new GK game and not capitalize on it to raise funds.
Depends on the terms of the agreement. If they *legally* can't talk about it yet, they're in something of a bind.
 

Lissar

Reluctant Member
"The original plan was that GK3 was his 'third task' and that in GK4, because he'd done all that was "fated", the stars are long longer watching over him and he can't do anything right. But we'll see if I stick with that plan."

We'll see, hmm?
 

MrBud360

Member
Guys, 3 days left, we need 90K to reach the 450K!!! So we get the complete premium version of the game!!! Let´s go NeoGAF, this is the final coutdown!!!
 

mclem

Member
48 hours, I think 400k and even 450k is possible with a decent spike, but I'm thinking there might be a bit of a backlash if they did a Republique-sized blanket promotion.

Anyhoo, the podcast promised earlier is now out; Jane, Will Binder (film director), Dean Erikson (Gabriel) and Peter Lucas (played von Glower) talking about GK2.
 

Lafazar

Member
The updates are beginning to annoy me a little bit. Everything is focused around Gabriel Knight and not Moebius itself.

Well, you're not gonna like this, then:

Project Update #29: Talking About the Beast -- GK2 video said:
Hi, all! I promised you a special treat for the end of our Kickstarter campaign and I think this qualifies! I got on skype with some of the team from Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within -- Will Binder (film director), Dean Erickson (played Gabriel) and Peter Lucas (played von Glower). We recorded an hour-long chat talking about the production and it was put together with behind-the-scenes stills provided by Bill Crow.

Thanks also to Emily Morganti who provided audio backup and Lucas Fox of Just Press Start for audio clean-up.

Jane

PART 1:
http://youtu.be/m37Fz_e8x24
 

MrBud360

Member
390K 21 hours to go! Almost reaching the 400K! I hope she can reach 450K, Moebius gonna be spetacular!!! I bet will be Jane's best Adventure Game ever!!!
 

epmode

Member
I really wanted this to hit 450k for all of that extra voicework. I love adventure games with lots of flavor text.
 

mclem

Member
I really wanted this to hit 450k for all of that extra voicework. I love adventure games with lots of flavor text.

Well, there's still the Paypal option behind the scenes, we don't know how much that's got in the coffers; I'm not expecting it to be *that* much, but it should at least be enough to push the project past $400k right now, and maybe the final KS numbers plus Paypal plus later funding (That is, other projects have tended to leave the Paypal option up to donate at the most basic get-the-game tier after the close of the KS and this may be the same) might just tick it over. Keep hoping!
 
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