- Double Fine Productions
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Double Fine Productions 
Type Private Industry Software & Programming Founded July 2000 Founder(s) Tim Schafer Headquarters San Francisco, California, USA Key people Tim Schafer, founder and game designer Products Psychonauts, Brütal Legend Owner(s) Tim Schafer Website www.doublefine.com Double Fine Productions is an American video game developer founded in July 2000 by Tim Schafer after his departure from LucasArts. He started Double Fine with Programmers David Dixon (Ocean of America, Capcom, LucasArts) and Jonathan Menzies (LucasArts) in what was once a clog shop in San Francisco. After several months of working on the demo for what would become Psychonauts, a mixture of personnel from the Grim Fandango development team and other new employees were slowly added to begin production.
The name "Double Fine" is a play on the Golden Gate Bridge being a "double fine zone" as Schafer drove from place to place around the Bay Area to meet with possible publishers for Psychonauts. The company is based in San Francisco.[1] The official Double Fine website is also host to five webcomics, which are created by members of Double Fine's art team and are collectively referred as the Double Fine Action Comics.[2]
Contents
Projects
Double Fine's first completed project was a multi-platform game titled Psychonauts. Critically praised, it was released for the Xbox, PlayStation 2 and Microsoft Windows. However, despite its acclaim, it did not sell well initially. It was later re-released on Xbox 360 under the Xbox Originals banner, as well as for Microsoft Windows via GameTap and Steam.
Double Fine's second project was Brütal Legend, a hybrid real time strategy, action-adventure game following roadie Eddie Riggs as he is transported to a fantasy world in which demons have enslaved humanity. The game appears to have been inspired by Nordic mythology and heavy metal music. Brütal Legend was published by Electronic Arts and was released in North America on October 13, 2009 for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360.
During the development of Brütal Legend, publishing issue arose as Activision, having acquired the rights to the title through its merger with Vivendi Games, decided to drop it and forced Schafer to locate another publisher, eventually signing a deal with Electronic Arts. During this period, around 2007 to 2008, Schafer boosted the company's morale by engaging the team in an "Amnesia Fortnight". For a two-week period, the employees were split into four groups and tasked to develop a game prototype for review by the other groups. Each of the four ideas were successfully created and praised by the whole company. The process was repeated later near the end of Brütal Legend, providing an additional four prototypes. Schafer credits the concept of the Amnesia Fortnights to film director Wong Kar-Wai; during the long, three-year filming of Ashes of Time, Kar-Wai had taken some of his actors and film crew to Hong Kong to shoot footage for fun, but ultimately resulting in the films Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, which Schafer noted were some of the director's more famous films.[3]
These Amnesia Fortnight periods proved fortuitous, as Schafer considers these to have kept the company viable.[3] Upon completion of Brütal Legend, Double Fine had started work towards its sequel, but was told to stop development shortly after as Electronic Arts decided against publishing the sequel. With no other publishing deals lined up at the time, Schafer turned back to the eight game ideas developed from Amnesia Fortnight, believing they could be developed further into short complete games. Schafer also looked at the success of smaller focused games like Geometry Wars on the various download services, realizing the potential market for similar titles.[3] Schafer and his team selected the best four, and began shopping the games to various publishers, and successfully worked publishing details with these.[4] Two of these games, Costume Quest and Stacking, were picked up by THQ and released digitally on the Xbox Live and PlayStation Network storefronts; both games were considered successful and THQ has expressed interested in helping Double Fine produce similar titles in the future.[5] Trenched (Iron Brigade in Europe due to trademark issues) was developed as an Xbox Live Arcade with association with Microsoft Game Studios, and similarly received positive praise from journalists.[6] A fourth game, Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, is to be published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in association with the Sesame Workshop for the Xbox 360 using the Kinect controller; though initially not a licensed title, Schafer and his team found it to be an ideal fit for their first licensed-property game.[7] With these additional games, Ron Gilbert, Schafer's former collaborator at LucasArts, was hired by the company to work on the new titles, as well as a future title that Gilbert has envisioned.[8]
Double Fine's website features several free minigames. The most recent of these, Host Master and the Conquest of Humor, is a pastiche of Schafer's LucasArts games, and features Schafer himself as the protagonist.
Games
- 2005 Psychonauts – PC, PlayStation 2, Xbox
- 2009 Brütal Legend – PlayStation 3, Xbox 360
- 2010 Costume Quest - PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade (THQ), Microsoft Windows
- 2011 Stacking - PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade (THQ)
- 2011 Iron Brigade (formally titled Trenched) - Xbox Live Arcade (Microsoft Studios)
- 2011 Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster - Xbox 360 with Kinect (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
- 2011 Happy Action Theater - Xbox Live Arcade with Kinect (Microsoft Studios)
Double Fine has also produced a few flash games, developed by Klint Honeychurch and showcased on its website.- Epic Saga: Extreme Fighter - A low-res 2D fighting game, complete with moral victory quotes.
- My Game About Me - Three minigames focused around Olympic 'events': Eating, Sleeping and Surfing.
- Tasha's Game - A platform game in which players use a cat to collect platforms to help Tasha progress through the level.
- Host Master and the Conquest of Humor - A point-and-click game in the style of Monkey Island in which Tim Schafer must find jokes for his speech at the Game Developer's Conference.
Awards
- 2006 Game Developers Conference: Best New Studio
Psychonauts Awards
- British Academy Video Games Awards 2006: Best Screenplay
- GameSpot Best and Worst of 2005: Best Voice Acting, Best Graphics Artistic, Funniest Game, Best Game No One Played, Best Platformer
- IGN 2005 Awards: Best Platformer, Best Game No One Played
- EuroGamer: Overall Game of the Year 2005
- PSM: Buy or Die award in issue #100, #5 on Top 10 Games of 2005 list, Best Characters
- Electronic Gaming Monthly 2005 Awards: Best Game No One Played
- 6th annual Game Developers Choice Awards: Best Writing
- PC Gamer magazine 2005 Awards: Best Game You Didn't Play, Editor's Choice Award
- E3 2002 Game Critics Awards: Best Original Game
- GameShadow Innovation in Games Awards nominee (Best Game, Innovative Visual Effects, Best Narrative)
References
- ^ http://www.doublefine.com/news.php/about
- ^ http://www.doublefine.com/news.php/comics
- ^ a b c "Tim Schafer: Amnesia Fortnights saved Double Fine". Edge. 2011-08-26. http://www.next-gen.biz/features/tim-schafer-amnesia-fortnights-saved-double-fine. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
- ^ Parkin, Simon (2010-07-15). "Develop: Double Fine's Schafer On 'Amnesia Fortnights' And The Pitfalls Of AAA". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/29450/Develop_Double_Fines_Schafer_On_Amnesia_Fortnights_And_The_Pitfalls_Of_AAA.php. Retrieved 2010-07-15.
- ^ Robinson, Andy (2011-02-14). "THQ wants more from Stacking dev". Computer and Video Games. http://www.computerandvideogames.com/288681/news/thq-wants-more-from-stacking-dev/. Retrieved 2011-02-28.
- ^ Langley, Ryan (2011-07-19). "In-Depth: Xbox Live Arcade Sales Analysis, July 2011". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/35958/InDepth_Xbox_Live_Arcade_Sales_Analysis_July_2011.php. Retrieved 2011-08-26.
- ^ Graft, Kris (2011-02-23). "Capturing The Spirit Of Sesame Street". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6295/capturing_the_spirit_of_sesame_.php. Retrieved 2011-02-23.
- ^ Alexander, Leigh (2010-09-27). "Gilbert Rejoins Schafer At Double Fine For New Title". Gamasutra. http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/30631/Gilbert_Rejoins_Schafer_At_Double_Fine_For_New_Title.php. Retrieved 2010-09-27.
External links
- Official website
- Trip to Double Fine from The International House of Mojo
- Return to Double Fine from The International House of Mojo
Tim Schafer LucasArts games Double Fine games Psychonauts • Brütal Legend • Costume Quest • Stacking • Iron Brigade (Trenched) • Sesame Street: Once Upon a MonsterCategories:- Double Fine Productions
- Video game companies of the United States
- Video game developers
- Webcomic syndicates
- Video game publishers
- Privately held companies based in California
- Companies based in San Francisco, California
- Companies established in 2000
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