Amnesia Fortnight 2014

Lore & Background

Amnesia Fortnight 2014 was a public prototyping event where anyone who paid a minimum of $1 could vote on 23 concept ideas from Double Fine employees, and those who paid $7 could vote on one of four ideas from Pendleton Ward. After voting, Double Fine developed the top three employee concepts and the top Pendleton Ward concept into game prototypes, which were made available to bundle purchasers.

Reader's Guide

The significance of Amnesia Fortnight 2014 lies in its innovative approach to game development, combining public voting with rapid prototyping. It produced four prototypes: Little Pink Best Buds (the top Pendleton Ward idea), Dear Leader (led by Anna Kipnis), Mnemonic (led by Derek Brand), and Steed (led by John Bernhelm). The event also included a documentary filmed by 2 Player Productions, available on Blu-ray for $35 donations and later released on YouTube. This model influenced later crowdfunding and community-driven development practices.

Did You Know?

• Little Pink Best Buds was the top voted idea from Pendleton Ward.
• Dear Leader was led by Anna Kipnis and is a narrative game about a despotic ruler.
• Mnemonic was led by Derek Brand and is a surreal first-person noir adventure.
• The documentary was included on DVD with a $35 donation, or on Blu-ray for $50 or more.

A Crowd-Sourced Design Sprint

Amnesia Fortnight 2014 represented a unique experiment in participatory game design. Double Fine Productions partnered with Humble Bundle to host a two-week public prototyping session in which everyday players could directly shape which concepts would receive development time. The structure was deliberately tiered: a one-dollar entry fee unlocked the ability to vote across twenty-three concept pitches submitted by Double Fine employees, while a seven-dollar tier added the opportunity to weigh in on four separate ideas contributed by Pendleton Ward, the creator behind Adventure Time. Once the voting window closed, the studio committed to building the three most popular employee concepts alongside the single highest-voted Ward proposal into playable prototypes. Those who had purchased the bundle received access to the finished builds upon completion. The model effectively turned a small window of public enthusiasm into a concrete development mandate, letting the community's collective preferences dictate the creative agenda of a major studio for the duration of the sprint.

Four Distinct Creative Visions

The four prototypes that emerged from the voting process showcased an impressive range of tone and genre. Little Pink Best Buds, the winning Pendleton Ward concept, tasked players with unraveling the mystery behind a group of small pink characters who all insist on befriending you. Dear Leader, guided by Anna Kipnis, took a darker narrative turn, casting the player as an autocratic head of state steering the trajectory of a republic in the aftermath of revolution. Derek Brand's Mnemonic offered a surreal first-person noir experience in which players sift through and rearrange their own memories to piece together the murder of a beloved woman, gradually confronting the fragility of recollection and the hidden truths buried deep in the subconscious. Meanwhile, John Bernhelm's Steed placed players in the saddle of a hired horse, charged with rescuing a fairy-tale realm populated by bumbling, incompetent heroes. Together, the four projects spanned mystery, political drama, psychological thriller, and lighthearted rescue fantasy, demonstrating the breadth of ideas the community was willing to champion.

Documenting the Process

Beyond the playable prototypes themselves, Amnesia Fortnight 2014 included a behind-the-scenes documentary produced by 2 Player Productions that followed the creation of the four games from initial concept through finished build. This film captured the day-to-day reality of a compressed two-week development cycle, offering viewers an unfiltered look at how Double Fine employees and the Pendleton Ward team translated a single voted-up idea into a working game in such a tight timeframe. The documentary was made available on a Blu-ray disc bundled with the purchase for those who donated at the thirty-five-dollar tier, giving collectors a physical artifact alongside the digital prototypes. Recognizing that not every purchaser would want or need a physical disc, the studio also uploaded the documentary to YouTube, ensuring broader accessibility. This dual-release approach meant that the creative process behind the prototypes became part of the product experience itself, allowing fans to appreciate the craft and collaboration that turned a weekend's worth of votes into four distinct, playable worlds.

A Model for Community-Driven Development

Amnesia Fortnight 2014 stands as a notable example of how a studio can harness public enthusiasm to drive a focused burst of creative output. By tying development directly to a transparent voting mechanism, Double Fine gave its audience a tangible sense of ownership over the project's direction, while the tiered pricing structure ensured that even minimal financial participation carried genuine influence over the outcome. The inclusion of Pendleton Ward's concepts alongside internal employee pitches broadened the creative pool and introduced an external, cross-industry perspective into the mix. The fact that the top-voted ideas were developed into actual playable prototypes—rather than remaining mere pitch documents—demonstrated a commitment to delivering concrete results from the community's input. The project also highlighted the value of short, time-boxed prototyping as a creative exercise, producing four wildly different games in just two weeks and proving that constrained deadlines can generate as much variety and ambition as long development cycles.