UPDATE: Well, they did it. In a single night, Double Fine's Kickstarter campaign earned a whopping $597,036, with 14,372 fans dedicating an average of $41.50 to the project. Many of the top tier donation categories had multiple donations, and the sole $10,000 donation available actually went relatively early in the evening.

As with all Kickstarter projects, the page will remain live for the duration of the planned fundraising period (in this case, another 33 days), so theoretically you can still donate if the mood strikes you. But with the original donation budget now well-exceeded, you seemingly no longer need worry "if" this new adventure game will come to fruition, but rather when.

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Just days after Minecraft creator Markus Persson began talking with Double Fine Productions about funding a sequel to Psychonauts, the studio has announced something equally crazy: it’s raising funds via Kickstarter to produce an adventure game from Tim Schafer.

Double Fine is hoping to raise $400,000 in 33 days, and with that number going up by the hundreds just minutes after the announcement, it seems pretty likely Double Fine will be able to hit that number, and probably have much more to play with.

“Crowd-sourced fundraising sites like Kickstarter have been an incredible boon to the independent development community,” reads the description. “They democratize the process by allowing consumers to support the games they want to see developed and give the developers the freedom to experiment, take risks, and design without anyone else compromising their vision. It's the kind of creative luxury that most major, established studios simply can't afford. At least, not until now.”

The game will be developed over six-to-eight months, with the target being a PC release over Steam in October.

A “small team” will be working on the game at Double Fine under the leadership of Schafer, and getting in on the ground floor--a copy of the game and early access to the beta, access to an ongoing documentary and private discussion forum--requires a donation of $15.

Mac and iOS versions of the game are under consideration, but only if they collect more than $400,000.

“For fans of adventure games,” said the studio, “this is a chance to prove that there is still a large demand out there for a unique medium that inspired so many of us.”

$8,404 and counting.