https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLIhLvue17Sd70y34zh2erWWpM...
They are currently doing a company wide gamejam/game idea incubation thing, after surviving Microsoft undoing the acquisition and the same Documentary crew is doing a doc about that (they did a kickstarter campaign to fund it)
> To protect this document, please restrict your fallen tears of joy to this box. Thank you! → [__]
All over the document, you can see Tim Schafer "wasted his time" by adding personality (jokes, graphics, asides) to what is basically an internal document.
I think in 2026 a document lovingly crafted like this would be deemed a great waste of time, lack of efficiency and an affront to shareholder value.
They aren't native English speakers and the story in Grim Fandango is considerably harder to follow compared to DoTT, so they lost interest a bit after we completed year 1. But as soon as their English skills improve, we'll get back to it, it's one of my favorite adventure games!
EDIT: I checked, and I was mistaken: DOTT was never dubbed in French, but Grim Fandango (and its remaster) is.
> We didn’t have the last puzzle designed when I wrote that document, so I wrote two nonsense paragraphs and then overlapped them in the file so it would look like the final puzzle description was in there, but obscured by a print formatting error. That way I could turn the document in by the deadline.
Its not that I don't like it as a game, but it's just so chock full of character.
The premise alone is so compelling; in the Land of the Dead, even dead men chase money. Even with the literal afterlife a train ticket away, you have conmen and good guys living (or dying?) like there's no end of the line.
Love it. One of those rare pieces of art that continues to live in my head rent-free.
I've finished it with a walkthrough so I've seen the entire game. Between an art style that didn't age well and didn't grab me even then, obscure puzzles and a theme that doesn't interest me so much, I think it is one of LucasArts worst adventure games. But that's me. Let's call it "polarizing".
Everything's subjective, but I think most people would say that the art style was great then and is still great, and the theme is pretty unique and compelling. That's why people like it so much.
The puzzles and interface really are awful though, and I say that as someone with a reasonable tolerance for adventure game logic. It's far-and-away the worst-playing classic LucasArts adventure, and even though I'm sure there's plenty of adventure games with worse puzzle design, I'm struggling to think of one with a wider gap in quality between the game design and everything else. Everything's frequently so disjointed and it's such a slog to get around, it's not even one of those "use a walkthrough when you get stuck" games; it's a "just follow a walkthrough constantly" game, or maybe even a "just watch a longplay" game.
- Nothing like it in style and execution.
- Superb and unique universe. It's brilliant. Fight me. ;)
- Charming, engaging storytelling full of wit and humor. Charm and humor are particularly hard to pull off, it seems, given how few games I can think of that have them. (Bard's Tale and... uh...)
- If you like the adventure games of the era, then this one is right up your alley. The puzzles are much more frustration-friendly than modern games, so they're not for the coddled gamers of today who, frankly, would just use an answer sheet when they got stuck. OTOH forcing yourself to stick with it and get that "Ohhhhhh the *diamond* makes the boat sink around us! *that's* how we climb out!" -- which is a real example from a *different* LucasArts game -- is very satisfying.Monkey Island comes second of course.
GDC Talk: "One Page Designs", by Stone Librande
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YsollH04QK9si9uEm3VXZWT0snH...
I also remember that it was slightly difficult to buy the game - I was at least 13 at the time, the game had an age rating of 12, but (gasp!) there were skeletons on the cover, and the tag line mentioned corruption and crime. So the lady in the shop actually called her boss before eventually selling the game to me.
As a walkthrough, it is nice. But as the foundation for the game designers, it would be a fun because it is so lighthearted.
"Tim Schafer at Double Fine has posted the puzzle design spec for his classic adventure game, Grim Fandango. It is that game's tenth anniversary; it was released on the Day of the Dead, 1998."
My guess is it is kinda like a first draft that some higher ups approve and budgets and then dialogue and game development and puzzle testing can begin.
Is it Story -> Characters -> Puzzles?
Theme -> Characters -> Story -> Puzzles?
Or everything everywhere all at once?
Are the character descriptions in this doc leading the Story or derived from it?
How much of the story is built around Gameplay and its limitations? (I think I remember GF requiring 2 CDs?)
I love the world, the characters, the music, and the art style. It was so inspiring for me as a child.
I literally hate the puzzles and the gameplay.
I recently went through it from start to finish as an adult and found it an incredible slog to get through. The puzzles, to me, made zero sense, which sucks the fun out of the game because the only possible way to solve them is to just try everything with everything or to look up the solution.
The latest Monkey Island. Now THAT's how you make a point-and-click adventure game!
That is the difference between Gilbert's game design versus Schafer's. I much prefer Gilbert.
And this comment will prove it, by referencing only the very first part of the document, being the comment most likely to garner upvotes and replies, as opposed to deeper nuanced comments.
Even though I didn't understand most references and sarcasm, few games have grabbed my attention as Grim Fandango did. The art work, the music, the writing. The whole game oozes of style that I've never seen replicated.
Even some 20+ years later I can almost recite most of Act I from heart. If you haven't played this game and like adventure games, this is one of the best.
Thank you for linking OP, this made my morning.
So if anyone is wondering if this is just nostalgia, or if the game actually holds up, it's the latter. Just play it.
Tim Schafer is really good at this. Psychonauts has a large cast of deformed-looking characters, but you'll love them all by the end.
I still remember the feeling of the ending, and the end credits music when the violin kicked in as it played the Manny & Meche theme! The music is at least as good as this game.
I agree that I hated the 3d though. This was a bad patch for games when everyone wanted to go 3d for the sake of it, even though it looked and played worse.
Thing is I bet the people who played it are right too, I just never managed to bring myself to play more than a few hours of the game before getting frustrated. Bad controls + 90s point-and-click-puzzle-design + early 3d graphics is not a good recipe.
Full Throttle was criticized for its dumbed-down point-and-click (basic only 3 actions + using items, instead of the usual verbs), but that was the sweetspot for my early-teens mind. Can never get enough funny responses of using the lick action.
They would put up with crazy puzzles, huge grinds, weird RPG numbers systems (AD&D in BG1/2 for example), but if you want to do action A on thing B that can not, under any circumstance feel bad to do.
Somehow I remember those parts more than the fun parts, maybe because I didn't have access to a guide back then.
For similar feels, check out Disco Elysium
Planescape Torment
and almost anything by Amanita Design