I’m probably going to regret this, but I’m not going to back the upcoming adventure game 3 Minutes to Midnight. The price is too high for me right now. The price for a big box version that is. The game is already going to happen, with or without the Kickstarter campaign. The campaign is only happening to make the game bigger. Especially now that I’ve recently thrown big amounts of money at obtaining physical editions of old adventure games I’m a bit short on funds. Maybe I can get my hands on a big box later on, just as I’ve managed to do with Thimbleweed Park (and hopefully Broken Age soon).

Another thing that made me hesitate to back the big box edition of 3 Minutes to Midnight is that while it’s nice to have a physical box on the shelf, it’s much nicer if the box is filled with something more than only a manual. That’s the main purpose of packaging a game in a box to begin with. And that’s also what old adventure games were known for. And while the team behind the Kickstarter repeatedly claim that classic adventure games are the main inspiration behind the development of 3 Minutes, they choose to ignore this aspect of the appeal of classic adventure games. Sure, they offer physical additions like a menu, character sheet and a town map, but they only offer it against additional costs. It kind of looks like modern micro transactions. And that’s a shame really.

For the amount of money they’re asking for a big box, I would expect that those physical goodies are already included. And maybe the extra extra special and extra beautiful collector’s edition could contain additional goodies like the t-shirt and the art book, but the standard box should have the main physical goodies included.

I only noticed the Kickstarter for 3 Minutes to Midnight after looking at the campaign for Justin Wack, another adventure game that’s being developed right now. And this one even has a playable demo! Of course I downloaded it and played it for a little bit. It certainly looks fun. The characters are fun, they talk funny and some visual aspects are cool, like when the game zooms in for certain actions. I’m tempted to back this campaign, because it only will get made if the Kickstarter is a success. I’m probably not going for the big box version for this game neither as the developers say that the box is mainly filled with gratitude. That’s nice and all, if the price was a bit lower. But I’m not willing to pay much more than I’m paying for a triple A game for only some gratitude.