Kickstarter: ‘Double Fine Adventure!’ Contributions End March 13

Double Fine Productions—the independent game developer best known for multi-platform games such as Psychonauts and Brutal Legend—reached out to fans via Kickstarter roughly one month ago in an attempt to bootstrap a brand new adventure game, Double Fine Adventure!. The campaign helped the company raise more than $2.8 million to use toward producing the game and documenting the process through short films.

Those looking to contribute to this ground-breaking game production process don't have much time left to join the campaign: The Kickstarter page will stop taking contributions on Tuesday, March 13, 8:00 p.m. (EDT).

Soon after the Double Fine Adventure! campaign launched, the sum of contributions set a record by being the first Kickstarter program to raise more than $1 million. The campaign never lost steam after that. The company has been able to generate more than double its original goal, which was just $400,000 ($300,000 for the game and $100,000 to document the production).

Since the fundraising has been entirely fueled by fans, Double Fine is using the extra cash they've gathered to provide better rewards to contributors and include more details in the game. The company has updated the Kickstarter page several times since beginning the fundraiser. Each of the updates includes more details about what to expect from the game, the rewards, the documentary and eventual release.

The first update revealed that Double Fine Adventure was funded in a little more than eight hours after the Kickstarter page was set up. It also made clear that the company will be developing for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.

Double Fine said it will be distributing the game on Steam, the popular digital distribution platform. Eventually, Double Fine will also be offering DRM-free versions of the game. To boot, the company will be creating text in English, French, Italian, German and Spanish to accommodate fans overseas.

The second update revealed that the company had added new Kickstarter rewards to the project. Backers (those who donate) could earn a digital soundtrack of the documentary ($30 donation), a special edition box containing both the game disc and a DVD or Blu-Ray of the documentary ($100 donation) and a Double Fine Adventure Book ($60 for PDF, $500 for physical copy). The company also released a conversation between two Double Fine producers.

The third update outlined how the company hopes to produce the documentary of the game production process, which will be filmed by 2 Player Productions. The Penny Arcade series was used as a comparison to what Double Fine and 2 Player Productions are hoping to deliver.

Double Fine says that every month they'll release a 10-20 minute video that sums up the progress of development. It's likely the episodes will have some kind of theme, like building the engine or designing the characters, says the company in a blog post. You'll also get to know the team behind the game and some history of adventure games along the way. Double Fine also announced that Terence Lee, the composer behind the game Dust Force will be joining Double Fine to produce original music for the documentary soundtrack.

The fourth update revealed a few more surprises for rewards, as well as another bottom-of-the-heart thank you from the developer. The team revealed that the Collector's Edition will be packaged in a cardboard box much like old school computer games.

Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine and narrator of most of the videos, will be signing all of the Double Fine Adventure books ($500 donation). In addition, those who donate more than $100 will get a limited edition T-shirt.

For anyone interested in taking part in this unique game development process, now's our last chance to get in on it. After Tuesday evening, your chance to play an early version of the game (beta) will be lost.