According to founder Tim Schafer, Act 1 of the game wouldn’t be ready until July 2014, which would delay the entire game til 2015. That delay would be costly, forcing the developer to cut 75% of the game.
Rather than the ignominious option of returning to Kickstarter to try to raise more money, Double Fine chose the alternative.
“Going back to Kickstarter for it seemed wrong. Clearly, any overages were going to have to be paid by Double Fine, with our own money from the sales of our other games. That actually makes a lot of sense and we feel good about it. We have been making more money since we began self-publishing our games, but unfortunately it still would not be enough,” apologized the developer.
“Then we had a strange idea,” noted Double Fine, ”What if we made some modest cuts in order to finish the first half of the game by January instead of July, and then released that finished, polished half of the game on Steam Early Access? Backers would still have the option of not looking at it, of course, but those who were sick of waiting wouldn’t have to wait any more. They could play the first half of the game in January!”
Backers of the game won’t have to pay again. Instead, they’ll gain access to an even earlier beta in addition to Steam Early Access and the full game.