Inquiring minds want to know!

At least I do!

Please state, briefly if you can, who you voted for and why.

And also, for the ones you didn’t vote for, I assume your reason why is just that you felt “meh” about it. But if you have a more specific reason why you didn’t vote for a proposal, I’d love to know that too.

Thanks,
Tim

Only one I remember voting for was Hack & Slash, because I loved the idea and the execution could be incredibly great.

I voted for Kaiju Piledriver because it looked like the game I’d have the most fun playing.

Then I voted for Autonomous because I wanted to secure its place amongst the top four - the aesthetic and gameplay were the most enjoyable of the most popular suggestions

Kaiju Piledriver. I even did some fan art for it already.

Also JP’s Space Game. His XCOM video with the Idle Thumbs got me to fall in love with an 18 year old game that I would likely have missed otherwise. So, you know, I owe him one.

And FLOCK because… I can’t really tell you why. It just seems interesting and unusual and I dig that.

I voted for ideas based off how fun or intriguing they sounded

Hack and Slash Sounded fun if it would be pulled off correctly

Bragging And Fighting (so sad to not see it get done) Sounded hilarious though I was skeptical about the multi-player aspect. I even thought of a semi story for the game

The Black Lake Sounded like a more serious Psychonauts so I got intrigued.

The white Birch…im a fan of platformers…I never played Ico but i have seen it and if it can capture that atmosphere i can get behind it.

Bad Golf just Revs (lol) fun

The knockover would sound good if you could see the heist played out like you play the cards and then you see 3d models of that characters performing the heist

Autonomous sounded interesting but didn’t quite get to me till later

The others i voted for just sounded fun and got a vote

(am i allowed to comment even if i didn’t vote?  Or is that like complaining about the newly-elected President when you never bothered to cast your ballot?)

I voted for:

-Autonomous:
I love the setting and 80’s tastic neon wasteland idea. I also like the potential for directing robots to attack instead of controlling them, has many possibilities.

-Hack n’ Slash: This has huge potential as a game that changes how you play games. The concept alone is worth investigating.

-Black Lake: Seems very mysterious and folk lore-y, also seems to have a darker mood than most other games today. I’d love to see this explored.

-Spacebase: Aliens, space, hijinks, and again directing simulations rather than directly controlling them.

-Bragging and Fighting: I love the idea of making up this “fish that got away” story, then having to prove it with your skills. Also, the prize is beer, yay beer!

-Kaiju Piledriver: Godzilla style wrecking and corporate business guardians sound awesome. Also, Brian Muir deserves a medal for getting Trenched… I mean Iron Brigade made

-Cloud Prix: very cool concept for a racing game, I like the physics play with magnets and clouds. Very cool.

I decided to keep my voting to about 5 prototypes, since I felt that it would make my votes count more then if I just clicked everyone. Cause while not every single pitch sold their games to me, at least half of them were interesting enough that I would have kickstarted them.

My votes:

1. The White Birch - Cause yes, I want Double Fine to do a more ambient game. Good pitch video.
2. Space Base DF9 - Dwarf Fortress in space is an intriguing idea, and it would be fun to see Double Fine do a strategy game.
3. Kaiju Piledriver- Because Brad said the magic word roguelike, and roguelike influenced games like Spelunky and FTL have been among the most interesting games I´ve played lately.
4. Redbots Adventure - Oliver sold the idea to me through the descriptions of the game in the forums.
5. Autonomous - Good pitch video with a great piece of music, interesting influences, and the descriptions in the forum made it sound like a solid idea. And I always like games trying the be as dynamic as possible.

Shine Run | Battle Bros. | Bragging & Fighting | Spacebase DF-9 = These games would be hilarious/memorable, and more importantly, fun. I think that good writing could take these games over the top.

Autonomous = Sounds great - like the idea of not having direct control, also reminded me of Battlezone.

White Birch | Black Lake = These seem like they would be a great experience. I’ve always admired the amount of work that goes into environments in Double Fine games and think that they would benefit greatly from that.

The Flock = I’ve never heard of anything like this in my life, I think it could be amazing and I’m all for exploring new ideas.

I voted for about 6 games. Each of them earned a vote for their awesome ideas, and they are games that I would love to do some work on. (hint hint nudge nudge)

Hack and slash sounds awesome. 1. I love scripting and coding and stuff, and want to know more of it. 2. Slashing things. nuff said

Silent but Deadly: Fart jokes are Hilarious.

Bragging and Fighting: 1. I want to fight a dragon with a flaming rat. 2. I want to lie about it.

Flopulus: I have a soft spot for puzzle physics games (http://imakethegames.com/spectrum.html)

Cloud Prix: FLYING ON CLOUDS!

Milgrim: Everyone wants to be the bad guy at least once.

I voted for Spacebase DF-9 because it just really sounds like something I would love to see made. I love sims / DF-esque games, and setting it up in a spacebase sounds like it could have a lot of potential. Plus the creativity of Double fine seemed like it could really come up with some unique horrible random events for your space colony.

I also voted for KAIJU PILEDRIVER because I love roguelikes, and I love old giant monster movies, so it sounded like a great mix. It’s really what I was hoping Omegalodon was (indie multiplayer game centered around a giant shark monster with arms and legs destroying a city, fun, but very repetitive and you usually don’t get to play as the giant monster)

The only one that I have a reason not for voting on besides it not calling out to me was The White Birch, because it reminded me too much of a lot of “deep” indie platformers out there (nothing against them, there are just a lot of them) and I would personally rather see something with more unique gameplay come out of the Amnesia fortnight.

The White Birch had me sold with the concept art and the comparisons to ICO and Journey, two of my favourite games in recent memory. The concept art also brings to mind LIMBO and even a bit of Bastion, two other great games. The idea of alternate — branching, you might say — endings is also intriguing; it’s a particularly evocative idea in a game that focuses on mystery and exploration. Trying to quantify why this game took my top vote now, though, it actually has a surprising amount to do with the concept art in the pitch. I’m a sucker for games with good art design, I guess?

Black Lake caught my eye for the same reasons. It sounds more in the vein of Shadow of the Colossus, but the concept art also has a LIMBO feel. Like The White Birch, it’s mostly the possibility for atmosphere and lavish art that really excites me about this one. The waking dream aspect also sounds like a fun twist, and could lend itself to some interesting gameplay ideas.

Hack n’ Slash also intrigues me. Listening to the pitch, I felt sort of ho-hum about it; the 2D Zeldalike description didn’t have me all that jazzed up, and the hacking aspect seemed like a silly metagame… until the reveal at the end of the trailer that it would involve actual hacking of the game itself. This is a really interesting idea, and could result in some pretty incredible emergent stuff, the sort of game that people could still be finding new things in ten years down the road.

Spacebase DF-9 sounds like it could be good too. The pitch made me think immediately of RollerCoaster Tycoon, where you’re managing some larger operation on a macro level, but you’ve also got the ability to drill down to individual experiences of it. Spacebase sounds like it would flesh that latter part out quite a bit, and if things really are generated procedurally, it has the potential to be almost endlessly replayable. I know the current urge would be to make this one for iOS or Android, but I think it could be a phenomenal PC title.

As for stuff that turned me off, a big one was games that seemed like someone thought of a really great name, and then tacked a gameplay idea on after the fact. Kaiju Piledriver and Bad Golf are probably the worst offenders here — great names, but the games themselves don’t sound all that intriguing, to me anyway.

I voted for Hack n’ Slash, Milgrim, and The Flock. Hack n’ Slash appealed to me as a fun twist on old gameplay elements, as did Milgrim. The nostalgia factor was definitely influential. The Flock offered something new and unexplored, and seemed to be an avenue left unexplored by game developers.

Things that turned me off from proposals:

-Not enough information - If I couldn’t imagine from the proposal how the game would be played, I wasn’t interested. (Redbot’s Reboot comes to mind.)
-Not enough room to explore - Some of the proposals seem to be already set in stone and just need more time and attention to finish. (Flopulus, for example.) I’d rather vote for a brand new idea and give it legs.
-Low expectations - If the project doesn’t seem like the final game will take more than fifteen minutes to figure out, I’m not a fan. (Silent But Deadly fit this category for me.)
-Overly high expectations - If the project seems like learning to play will require three hours of tutorial, I didn’t vote for it. (Case in point: Echelon.)
-Not enough freshness - I like new ideas and putting twists on old ones. Projects that did neither didn’t grab my attention. (No specific project for this one, but the ones that did have a fresh insight caught my eye.)

Let me say that I don’t dislike any of the proposals! However, some of them showed more promise than others to my eyes. If I voted again tomorrow, I might come up with three different games, but those are the three that caught my eye.

I voted for lots of the prototypes! I really wanted Brad Muir’s piledriver concept to get in the top four, because I love his energy.

Hack n’ slash is really interesting because I’m surprised it hasn’t been done already. I imagine that’s because it’s really challenging to surfaces all that to the player. Good luck with that!

I like White Birch and Black Lake because I’m a sucker for atmosphere.

But I love all the ideas and I know whatever comes out of this will be crazy and inspired!

(sent from my wii u game pad)

In order of preference, I voted for:

Autonomous
Because cobbling together machines from bits of stuff lying around, and then seeing what they do sounds super fun!

Milgrim
I like the idea of being the villain.  I like the idea of killing the goody two shoes hero…over and over and over again!  Take that cheesy role-model character!  Die die die!

Also the gameplay looks fun

Spacebase DF-9
I love space and I love sim games.  I’m a bit reserved about this in that it would take a lot of time and effort to make a good game of this kind and do it well.  But it sounded cool, so I voted for it anyway.

The Knockover
I like card games, and who hasn’t fantasized about robbing a bank?  The idea of using different characters, plotting it out and then seeing how it turns out sounds fun!

Primordial Slime
I think the words “physics puzzler” sold it for me really.

************

I tried to judge these games based more on the description and imagining how the game might feel to play, and less on the cool atmospheric music and super awesome paintings that some of the teams had, which seemed to me to be an unfair advantage.

Tim: I am also interested in what you would have voted for.  I hope you’ll share when the voting is over!  Edit: Ooh, I guess it’s not called voting when you’re the only one who gets a say.  Which would you have picked?

Bragging and Fighting - a bizarre but brilliant concept with a lot of personality. Seems like the perfect fit for Double Fine - .

Zumbi Chained - An aesthetic that should be vibrant and not all that familiar to games along with another intriguingly odd concept. There’s not a lot of info about the gameplay itself but I can imagine something pretty fun could be developed from the chained capoeira idea.

There were a couple of others that I threw down votes for, but those were the ones that really grabbed me.

Space Base:

I played Rollercoaster Tycoon for over 200 hours when I was 12 to 13. I don’t think I even got very far in unlocking levels, I just wanted to tool around and be creative and watch the simulation work and respond to what I did. Sim City 2000 was one of the first games I ever played, I loved Dungeon Keeper to death. I miss, terribly, something even in this genre. I don’t often play adventure/puzzle games, and yet I want something that doesn’t involve killing a million dudes every once in a while.

The White Birch:

Because the puzzle games I do play are Fez, Limbo, and Braid. I vastly enjoyed all 3, even though I never beat Fez. This sounds similar, Gimme!

Black Lake was my number one choice. An open world Double Fine game with that great art style and double fine’s characters with a world in the vain of Okami. Someone stop my drool!

I voted for KAIJU PILEDRIVER because of pro wrestling maneuvers, sticking it to the corporate man, and playing as a rubber suit monster is hilarious.

I also added to the tally for The White Birch because Andy Wood sounded like a guy with a vision, and the games he alluded to in the pitch video were some heavy hitters.

Bad Golf sounds ridiculous and like it would be a blast with friends, so I voted for it as well.

Finally, I also voted for Autonomous because the 80s sci-fi thing is dope and building automatons and seeing what happens sounds fun.

I voted for:

1. Spacebase DF-9

because the pitch made me look up Dwarf Fortress, which I didn’t knew before. If this game reaches some of the complexity of Dwarf Fortress, but combines it with the amazing Double Fine Art style, it will be great!

2. Black Lake

because it has such a strong idea behind it and the concept art really made me believe that it could be something special.

3. Hack n’ Slash

because I love the genre of Action Adventures and played all low res Zelda games. I’m really interested in double fines take on the genre. I also have very fond memories of hacking my Pokemon Red with a gameshark. :D

4. The Flock

because Greg seemed so passionate about it and it sounds really unusual. The more you think about this idea, the more you want to see what it actually would look like in reality.

5. The White Birch

because it promised a good story aspect and reminded me of Limbo, The Journey and Dark Tower by Stephen King. Kinda.

I can’t wait for it all o unfold - if one of the five makes it to final production, I’ll be a happy double fine customer.

Hack N’ Slash - The premise sounds like how I basically grew up with computer gaming. Once I had finished the game I would perform interesting computer enthusiast related task to see what was behind the curtain and if I could make it better or at least more interesting the next time I played through.

Spacebase DF-9 - I have been a fan of simulated environments ever since mucking around with Little Computer People on the Commodore 64. It will be interesting to see it played out on a larger scale to see where things can possibly go.

The White Birch - As soon as I saw that the game would be along the lines of Ico I immediately hit the vote button. That was all I needed to know about the game.

KAIJU PILEDRIVER - I am a huge fan of the old style man in a rubber suit Godzilla movies and the game Rampage. The concept sounded like an excellent blending of the two.

The Knockover - I love “heist” type movies and games. Seemed a natural thing to vote for the game.

Echelon - This game was right up my alley. It reminds me some of Uplink. I would have liked to see how the implementation of the game would have progressed.

Black Lake definitely evoked Okami for me in a good way. I also voted for The White Birch and Bragging & Fighting. They all sound great!

I voted for Spacebase because one of my absolute favourite games growing up was StarTopia. And a DF take on that game would be gold.

I figured if four is the limit, four is what I’m voting for. There were still many I liked and didn’t vote for because making difficult choices is part of this process.

The Flock - Instant decision. I am a huge fan of Journey’s cooperative, noncombative approach to multiplayer and this pitch resonated along those lines. I also like the concept of simply being an animal going on about its business. I’ve hoped to see more games like this.

White Birch - My next choice. The high-concept here caught my attention first, and then I read Andy’s pitch doc. The atmosphere reminds me of old school platformers, predialogue aplenty. Austere, without explanation. You’re simply here and you need to get to there. Then there’s the challenge of it. What can DF do with a game not initially focused on interaction between characters? Would it be like a quiet walk in the woods? Or a conversation with the wind and trees?

Hack ‘n Slash - I was torn between Redbot and this. I’m decidedly untechnical in my thinking when it comes to video games. I’m all black box. The final product, a player’s point of view. So the idea of playing a game from a programmatic standpoint was really fascinating. I can’t cross a gate. Does that mean I code my own ladder? Alter the jump height parameter? What if I don’t know jack %#$@&! about either of those? How will the game teach me to do what I’m inherently wary of doing? It’s breaking down the rules to rewrite them. I’m happy to see that one of them made it through.

Autonomous - This fourth spot was the toughest. Black Lake is cool but was too much like White Birch to me. The puzzle fighter pitch seemed like it’d be a really fun MP game, but wouldn’t really leverage the story-telling power of DF’s staff. Kaiju Piledriver had the potential for crazy action, but not quite something I’d personally play. And on it goes. So, after reviewing all the remaining docs, it had to be this. The promise of 80s music and notions of sci-fi from that era opened up a whole world of possibilities. I was impressed with Lee and co’s attention to detail in Stacking, so I’m confident they’d handle that aspect of it well. The gameplay is a bit more fuzzy to me because what does the player do with a bunch of willful robots running around? The chaos of that creates a dynamic I just can’t fully process. But I believe the potential is there.

Hack’n'slash - the idea intrigued me so much that I had to give it a try.
Battle Bros - I sympathized with the idea of trying to create a deep brawler. It’s a genre I love and I’d want to see a DF swing at it.
The Knockover. - I love unique twists on strategy. Having to learn character’s strength and weaknesses to create bank heists seemed like a great, solid idea.
- And White Birch just because I really dig that style and want more of it.
there were other ideas I liked but the concept was so vuage that I didn’t understand what the end result was like Autonomous or Kaiju Piledriver

Hack n’ Slash - Really unique core concept, interested in seeing how well it works in practice

KAIJU PILEDRIVER - Easy to picture in my head as a compelling finished product that fits in with the house style

Spacebase DF-9 - Simulation games are great. Also, aliens and space

Bad Golf - Want to play a Double Fine take on golf

The Knockover - Looks achievable and replayable, something for iOS