The Double Fine Adventure Kickstarter project, which aimed to raise $400,000 to create a next-generation example of the almost forgotten point-and-click genre, has ended its fundraising round with a whopping $3.3 million under its belt.

Launched by Double Fine founder and adventure game enthusiast Tim Schafer and fellow LucasArts alumni Ron Gilbert, the project sought to tap into the power of crowd funding following a failure to gain financial backing for a game type many had considered dead and buried. With the original goal of $400,000 having been reached in a matter of hours, it's fair to say the experiment has been a success.

As the project closed, it had raised a whopping $3,336,371 through the Kickstarter crowd-funding platform. Although this figure will be reduced by Kickstarter's fees, it's still a hefty chunk of change - and significantly more than Shafer and Gilbert had originally requested.

The project saw thousands of people pledge money in exchange for various levels of reward, from DRM-free copies of the game for PC, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android to high-definition behind-the-scenes documentary footage, T-shirts, autographed posters and even lunch dates with the development team.

'All money raised will go to make the game and documentary better,' Schafer explained of the excess that has been generated following the eight-hour period in which the project hit its target. 'Additional money means it can appear on more platforms, be translated into more languages, have more music and voice, and an original soundtrack for the documentary, and more!'

The stellar success of Double Fine Adventure's crowd-funding model has, naturally, led others to consider the same route. In particular, Interplay founder Brian Fargo has launched a similar appeal for funding in order to create a sequel to Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic role-playing game which spawned the Fallout series following its launch in 1988.

At the time of writing, Fargo's funding has reached almost $560,000 of his more ambitious $900,000 goal. While not growing at quite the same rate as Double Fine's attempt, the level of support suggests Fargo won't have any trouble reaching his goal before the pledge drive closes on the 17th of April.