Highlighting the overwhelming sway of a devoted fanbase, San Francisco-based Double Fine studio has successfully used crowd-sourced funding – instead of seeking funds from some bigwig game publisher – for its new point-and-click adventure game.

Turning to the crowd for funds, Double Fine’s well-known game designer Tim Schafer – the man behind games like Grim Fandango, Psychonauts and The Secret of Monkey Island - suggested that the studio set up a Kickstarter page with the objective of raising $400K for a new adventure title similar to the Monkey Island.

With the fans – briefed about the new Double Fine project on Facebook and Twitter – pledging more than $1 million within 24 hours of the funding request, the proposed adventure title is already well on its way to become the highest-profile crowd-sourced game till now.

Noting that in its last three years of operation, Kickstarter. com has managed to raise nearly $140 million for projects like films and games, the site’s co-founder Yancey Strickler said that the notably quick pace at which Double Fine attracted funding would prompt other game publishers of exploring the option of “going directly to their audiences.”

With the Double Fine example clearly indicating that crowd-sourced funding can apparently transform the game-development landscape by giving creative freedom to the developers, M2 Research analyst Wanda Meloni said that the quick response to Double Fine’s funding request showed that “there is a growing pent-up demand for really good, creatively designed games that aren't coming out of the big publishers.”