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Introducing FOGTOWN, a Sherlock Holmes-inspired comedy/mystery with finger puppets
Hey all. Remember me? Everyone staying out of trouble? Yeah, me either. 
One of the things keeping me busy post-AG is a brand new project called FOGTOWN, which looks outstanding and deserves its own thread here. (I can say that without bragging, because much of the heavy lifting was already done before I came aboard.)
Actually it’s TWO projects in one: a half-hour TV pilot and choice-driven narrative adventure game. Both are Sherlock Holmes-inspired comedic mysteries with a very special twist… the stars are all finger puppets! It’s an utterly gorgeous hand-crafted FMV production with stunning film quality, and it’s absolutely hilarious, as you’ll instantly see for yourself.
The TV pilot features an impressive voice cast, including Stephen Russell (Garrett from Thief, Corvo from Dishonored 2, and many characters in Bethesda’s Skyrim and Fallout series) and Schitt’s Creek’s star Rizwan Manji. But the game has its own guest stars that I’m sure will be even more meaningful to adventure game fans. As in:
Dean Erickson (Gabriel Knight in The Beast Within)
Lenval Brown (narrator of Disco Elysium)
Rupert Booth (Contradiction, The Shapeshifting Detective and more)
Paul Morgan Stetler (Curtis Craig from Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh
Amazing, right? But here’s the thing…
Since I know you all love it when devs come asking for money, this time I’ll do it on their behalf.
Yes, to fully fund this double helping of awesomeness, the FOGTOWN team has launched a crowdfunding campaign on Seed&Spark;:
What the heck is Seed&Spark;, and why not Kickstarter, you ask? Good questions. (I asked too.) Turns out it’s a highly reputable platform similar to Kickstarter, but much more focused on film projects than games, with a much higher success rate and more actual funds going to the project creators.
The good news is, you don’t even need to register to pledge! (Although you do if you want updates.) The bonus good news is that FOGTOWN is an officially sponsored project of the Portland Art Museum, which means that for Americans (sorry, rest of the world), donations are tax deductible.
Hopefully you’ll all fall in love with the project as much as I did and support FOGTOWN yourselves, but even if you can’t do so financially, you can help us spread the word – social media, podcasts, emails, shouting it from the rooftops old-school-style, it’s all good! Word-of-mouth is crucial, so the more mouths sharing the love, the better.
Later in the month we hope to launch a standalone interactive teaser that mimics how the full game will work, but in the meantime there’s already been a ton of new video updates since the crowdfunding campaign launched, so be sure to check out the team’s YouTube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm3EbJNmM6bQ2hfVqynnrKQ/videos
By the way, FOGTOWN’s co-creator, Sean Parker, is a long-time member of AG’s community, so if you have any questions, fire away!
It looks fantastic! Just the kind of humour I like…
The real problem with reality is the lack of background music.
Knightette of the Order of the Caption
Music is what feelings sound like…
I’ve backed this one. It’s my kind of humor, too, Skeeter.
“Rainy days should be spent at home with a cup of tea and a good book.” -Bill Watterson
I’m waiting for the playable before committing. But it looks like something I would enjoy. I think Jack might want to edit his tag line to include the word “once”. 
For whom the games toll,
they toll for thee.
I like the scenario and the music. Backed it.
Thanks for spreading the word here (and so many places elsewhere), Jack! I knew there was a good reason we invited you in.
I’ll try to keep an eye on this thread and answer any questions that might come in, but for those with Reddit accounts, we’ll be doing a fun Ask Me Anything event all day long starting 10am pacific on August 25th in the r/iAMA subreddit. If you have a question that you might want answered from the puppets themselves (you’ll see!)... you’ll want to save it for that.
Until then, we have a host of videos on the Fogtown YouTube channel that might give some helpful info (or at least be unhelpfully entertaining).
creator of TV series & FMV game Fogtown, a loving homage to Sherlock Holmes (made with puppets)
Are there any real puzzles, inventory based, or dialogue based like in the game contradiction?
Are there any real puzzles, inventory based, or dialogue based like in the game contradiction?
This is what I’d need to know before even thinking of backing it. Watching hours of FMV finger puppets doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I tuned out about 30 seconds into watching the trailer.
AKA Charo
Are there any real puzzles, inventory based, or dialogue based like in the game contradiction?
This is what I’d need to know before even thinking of backing it. Watching hours of FMV finger puppets doesn’t interest me in the slightest. I tuned out about 30 seconds into watching the trailer.
Lol honestly me too.
Puzzles are planned, yep. We’re aiming for a Contradiction-style database of clues that can be brought up in conversation, and I’d also really like to avoid having extended stretches of passive viewing without making frequent choices (even if they’re minor ones).
As far as FMV comparisons go, the complexity of the game will veer a little closer to The Shapeshifting Detective or Gabriel Knight 2 rather than something more simple like Late Shift.
creator of TV series & FMV game Fogtown, a loving homage to Sherlock Holmes (made with puppets)
Puzzles are planned, yep. We’re aiming for a Contradiction-style database of clues that can be brought up in conversation, and I’d also really like to avoid having extended stretches of passive viewing without making frequent choices (even if they’re minor ones).
As far as FMV comparisons go, the complexity of the game will veer a little closer to The Shapeshifting Detective or Gabriel Knight 2 rather than something more simple like Late Shift.
Well that does intrigue me a lot more because I do like some of the humor here, but I don’t want to just watch a movie while selecting a dialog choice here or there, like a late shift. But you do realize Gabriel knight still had inventory puzzles? do you plan to have any inventory puzzles or is it straight dialogue based gameplay?
All I can say about inventory puzzles at the moment is that… they’re a maybe. The game design is definitely “interactive movie first, puzzle game second” but we’ll make our best effort to include some.
Rather than a constantly-available inventory that can be brought up at will (like most point and clicks), it’s probably more realistic to expect a handful of moments where you can obtain certain items—then depending on what you have at key junctures, there will be opportunities where you can choose whether or not to use those items. Deeper than most FMV games, but still not quite at GK2‘s level. And I definitely wouldn’t expect gameplay mechanics where you can combine objects a la Monkey Island.
creator of TV series & FMV game Fogtown, a loving homage to Sherlock Holmes (made with puppets)
That was quite hilarious
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