Review
Broken Age and the adventure of growing up
There is a subversive message behind Double Fine’s gorgeous parable.
Tag: Tim Schafer
Article
Exhuming Grim Fandango’s Mexican folklore inspirations
Asking questions of a game about exploring the unknown.
News
Film noir/Mexican folk-lore classic Grim Fandango headed back to computers, too
Grim Fandango, Tim Schafer’s stone-cold-classic first-ever 3D game, will also becoming to the PC, Mac, and Linux. First announced by Sony during E3 as an exclusive, Schafer has revealed that the not only will the game come to the home computers, but will do so on the same day as PS4 and Vita. Schafer hasn’t gotten to spend much time with Grim Fandango in the 15 years since he left LucasArts and founded Double Fine. “As soon as we brought these two crazy elements together, film noir and mexican folklore,” he says in the making-of below, “it was just one…
News
Watch Tim Schafer get wistful about one of his nearest dearest projects
This mini-documentary of a raspy Tim Schafer talking tenderly about Grim Fandango is just great. It has everything a fan of that classic, soon-to-be-revived, adventure game featuring martini-sipping skull-faced rakes could want. There’s 15 minutes of old photos of the gang at LucasArts; props and design docs and behind-the-scenes ephemera; and Tim wearing a Pixies shirt. But the best part is it closes with a personal oath that DoubleFine is going to do this remastering right, which gave me the impression that it will receive more than a beautiful visual overhaul. This one is Schafer’s baby, after all.
News
Grim Fandango lives again on PlayStation. Viva la Revolución indeed!
Who saw this one coming? A shiny, new remastered version of Grim Fandango—the legendary game to feature a tux-wearing, Pall Mall-dragging skull man—is on its way to PS4 and Vita. For the uninitiated, Grim Fandango is an old, famous adventure game (from 1998) that carries an air of mystique for a couple of reasons. One, it has a hyper-imaginative Mexican noir scenario that could be described as a Day of the Dead celebration meets Casablanca. Two, it benefits from being that inaccessible cult title from that prestigious director, you know, like how you used to only be able to…
News
Last Life is a Grim Fandango-looking adventure game and Tim Schafer is involved. Need I say more?
Minus the skulls. Plus the art deco.
News
Costume Quest 2 to make Halloween more whimsically endearing
Costume Quest was a sleeper of an RPG which traded in charm. And the second game in the series, announced yesterday, promises to be adorable too. And really how could it not be, with Tim Schafer and crew making a game about tikes trick-or-treating? This one is definitely filed under the “kids friendly” division of Double Fine’s game-ography, but not in the same camp with titles like Double Fine Happy Action Theater and Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster. It’s been RPG-ified enough so kids-at-heart can get caught up in the whimsy. I’m a little surprised at the announcement, as…
News
Watch Tim Schafer and Pendleton Ward wax poetic about game design
Every year, Double Fine hosts its internal game jam competition Amnesia Fortnight. They usually film it too, because let’s face it, Tim Schafer looks great on camera. This time around they put together a short documentary to placate their charitable fans, giving us a look-see into the game-making process, which is actually just some guys hunched over a computer and not that interesting. But what’s always compelling are the game design philosophies of great game designers like Schafer, and also of his pal Pendleton Ward of the Adventure Time cartoon series. This video is full of clever gems like this…
Article
Inside the twenty-year collaboration that brought us Psychonauts, Full Throttle, and Broken Age
Meet the John Williams to Tim Schafer’s Spielberg.