UPDATE: The official line from Double Fine is short, appropriately mysterious, and will no doubt leave many speculating for months.

"Tim and Markus are talking," said the company to me in a statement just now. "Who knows what might happen?"

--

Tim Schafer wants to make a sequel to Psychonauts. That’s not news. Schafer has talked about this many times in the past, and mentioning interest during a Digital Spy interview isn't crazy.

The news was Markus “Notch” Persson, better known as the creator of Minecraft, offered to pony up the cash to help make Psychonauts 2 on Twitter. Persson claims he’s serious about it.

“Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen,” he said.

“I’m serious,” he said in a follow-up.

This all happened hours ago, long before Schafer had even woke up in San Francisco. He awoke to texts asking him to check Twitter.

“Man, so many tweets,” he said. “I assume this is all people asking for codes to Happy Action Theater and Rise of the Martian Bear?”

And then came this one:

“Oh wait,” he said. “Hm. This is interesting.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Double Fine Productions has accepted money from a Twitter backer, with Costume Quest for the PC and Psychonauts for the Mac having been funded by fan and XE.com founder Steven Dengler.

Dengler actually chimed in today, too.

“Let's move this discussion offline,” said Dengler.

So far, Double Fine has not issued an official response, but all eyes will remain on Twitter.

UPDATE: The official line from Double Fine is short, appropriately mysterious, and will no doubt leave many speculating for months.

"Tim and Markus are talking," said the company to me in a statement just now. "Who knows what might happen?"

--

Tim Schafer wants to make a sequel to Psychonauts. That’s not news. Schafer has talked about this many times in the past, and mentioning interest during a Digital Spy interview isn't crazy.

The news was Markus “Notch” Persson, better known as the creator of Minecraft, offered to pony up the cash to help make Psychonauts 2 on Twitter. Persson claims he’s serious about it.

“Let's make Psychonauts 2 happen,” he said.

“I’m serious,” he said in a follow-up.

This all happened hours ago, long before Schafer had even woke up in San Francisco. He awoke to texts asking him to check Twitter.

“Man, so many tweets,” he said. “I assume this is all people asking for codes to Happy Action Theater and Rise of the Martian Bear?”

And then came this one:

“Oh wait,” he said. “Hm. This is interesting.”

This wouldn’t be the first time Double Fine Productions has accepted money from a Twitter backer, with Costume Quest for the PC and Psychonauts for the Mac having been funded by fan and XE.com founder Steven Dengler.

Dengler actually chimed in today, too.

“Let's move this discussion offline,” said Dengler.

So far, Double Fine has not issued an official response, but all eyes will remain on Twitter.

Sounds like an excuse to play the first one.

I'll fund Brutal Legend 2 then.

Is 5 bucks enough to get the ball rolling?

Hell yeah.

Interesting.

Would love a second game.

That's freakin cool.

Exciting

I don't know what to think. Isn't it a little early for a news article about this?

Though Shafer's comment seems super interesting...

The plot thickens.

Let's give it more than three hours to develop though, shall we?

Time to play the original, too bad I missed out on the steam sale a few days ago.

Hopefully this turns into something real, but honestly, I don't consider Twitter convos newsworthy.

Good, good. Psychonauts is a gem of a game.

I will forever be in debt to Notch if he follows through.

Yes.

I'm currently playing psychonauts for the first time and I think its a great game so far.

Nice! Crazy happenings are good sometimes...

Good scoop Patrick.

@Atwa said:

I will forever be in debt to Notch if he follows through.

As will I.

I cannot express how much I hope this will come true.

Sounds like a perfect partnership.

Mojang published Psychonauts?

I hope if the sequel is made they make an even tougher Meat Circus 2.0 level.

I hope it happens.

Wait, Dengler? Who the hell's Dengler? He wasn't mentioned anywhere else in the article.

I own like three copies of the first psychonauts. this would be a day 1 purchase for me if it happened.

@Level1Slime said:

I'll fund Brutal Legend 2 then.

Is 5 bucks enough to get the ball rolling?

Gonna need a bit more than that. Like maybe 10 or 15.

I'll fund Brutal Legend 2 then.

Is 5 bucks enough to get the ball rolling?

@Video_Game_King said:

Wait, Dengler? Who the hell's Dengler? He wasn't mentioned anywhere else in the article.

"with Costume Quest for the PC and Psychonauts for the Mac having been funded by fan and XE.com founder Steven Dengler.

Dengler actually chimed in today, too.

“Let's move this discussion offline,” said Dengler."

Consider reading before posting :D

You know what? I'm fucking giddy as all hell right now over this.

Not even just over the possibility of there being a sequel to Psychonauts, but the fact that it could come to fruition in such an amazing way.

@FrenchFriedFool:

I did, though. I searched through the article for the name (although not thoroughly enough, apparently).

We need more inside info on this, you guys need to invite Brad Muir over for lunch.  Then hold him down and tickle him till he squeals.

The only catch will be that all translations of the game have to be crowdsourced in order to save money, and Double Fine isn't allowed to screen them for racial slurs before they put the code out to the public for testing. That's just how Mojang rolls, after all.

I finally got around to playing Psychonauts and, as a platformer, it totally sucks. Great premise and writing, with a neat art style, saved it from being total garbage to me. I guess that's always Double Fine's strength: the humor and writing. That's why stuff like their Happy Action Theater are way more interesting to me than Brutal Legend or Stacking...because they embrace absurdity and go nuts.

But hey, by all means, if they make a decent platformer with that same neat concept and great characters, I'll check it out.

I wonder if he was watching the TNT where Brad said it would take a cartoonish sack of money to make the game?

I know there's a lot of hate for Reddit here, but I'm fairly certain they spawned all of this

Check the thread out, Notch is a very storied Reddit user so it's very likely he got involved because of this.

Also, he has responded in that thread (and some other ones) - you can check his comment history here

Pleasemakethishappenpleasemakethishappenpleasemakethishappen...

Up until now, I've held off on buying Minecraft, but if this actually works out, I'm buying the shit out of it. Notch is amazing.

Summary: Guy A said something on Twitter. Guy B sort of responded. HOT OFF THE PRESS

@evilalfie said:

Good scoop Patrick.

Not really, was on eurogamer hours ago.

Anyone else fear a DNF scenario? Here's a pile of cash, go make something you love.

wow, notch really knows how to make people blow their load on the internet, no wonder minecraft took off the way it did

@radioactivez0r said:

Summary: Guy A said something on Twitter. Guy B sort of responded. HOT OFF THE PRESS

Accurate Non-Reductive Summary: Someone on Twitter made an actual offer he could easily back up, not some fanboy blueskying. Guy B responded by saying they should talk about it less publicly.

Yeah, there's NOTHING there, alright.

This is probably the best bit of news that I've heard so far this year.

Twitter account: Vindicated.

@Level1Slime said:

I'll fund Brutal Legend 2 then.

Is 5 bucks enough to get the ball rolling?

THIS!!!

MAKE IT HAPPEN!

WOOOOOOHOOOOOOO! That is some exciting news!!!

That sure is awesome of Notch. I imagine he's the only one who can independently make such an offer, but at least this opens more opportunities for unorthodox funding in the future.

That is a really cool way to see something like that happen.

Awesome!

Man, Notch is awesome. Dood deserves all the respect (and money) he gets and then some. =)

This has got to be the coolest way for ANY game to move into development :P Even if it's not set in stone or anything...