Two game developers occupy a whitewashed room in Oslo. One of them steadies a digital camera on a tripod. The other sits across the room in a hard-backed leather chair – legs crossed, eyebrows raised. It takes half a moment’s Holmesian deduction to realise that can only mean one thing.
A Kickstarter campaign is about to happen.
Why, what were you thinking of?
Ragnar Tørnquist’s new studio set up a Twitter account this afternoon. Their first tweet read thusly:
“Production on the #DreamfallChapters #Kickstarter video continues, with Dag Scheve in the spotlight.”
Scheve is Tørnquist’s longtime writing partner. The pair led The Secret World together at Funcom, before leaving to start new independent studio Red Thread Games.
“That’s been the idea for a long time now,” Tørnquist told Eurogamer two months ago.
“We could go to investors, we could go to publishers, but that’s going to tie our hands quite a bit. If we’re going to make the game we want and that everyone else wants, the only way to do that is to basically have the freedom we need, and Kickstarter is a lot about freedom.”
Pre-production has already begun on Dreamfall Chapters. A Dreamfall sequel had been on “indefinite hold” at Funcom since 2009, when the company began work on The Secret World. Early funding has come in the form of Red Thread’s own money and a Norwegian Film Institute grant to the tune of 1m NOK ($175,000).
Tørnquist conceded that the Kickstarter project could fail, but noted: “I think a lot of people want to see Dreamfall Chapters and a lot of people are willing to help out funding that game.”
Here’s more on the continuation of the Longest Journey saga. Are you planning to pitch in?