I remember that line but never realized how that can be applied to the perspective of Hector and his men stealing everyone's ticket. That was his was of locking everyone's open door.
This is my personal favorite adventure game of all time. Still have the CDs and the manual from ~15 years ago, too. Grim Fandango definitely deserves a re-release on Good Old Games and Steam!
Words cannot express how much i love this game, no shit, i tear up a bit looking at Tim talk about it, and about the passion that went into making it. I actually tattooed the loading screen on my arms. To me this is simply the best game that will ever exist . Thank you to the Double Fine team for bringing it back to us and 2player for showing us anything about the process, cause i want to see everything
This game I truly remember in my childhood even though I got stuck at a certain puzzle being so young I just started a new game just to keep playing. I love everything about this game the style, the setting, the characters, the puzzles and especially the story which is one of my earliest memories of purely AMAZING storytelling. It also started my fascination and eventual liking of the holiday Día de Muertos a theme which I love to see, which is also on my birthday, November 2nd. I did beat the game when I got a good amount older even though the game disks were old and scratched causing the game to crash every so often. So thank you to introducing to me a cool holiday that's also on my birthday and giving me a truly amazing and memorable experience.
This is amazing. I started playing Psychonauts a few days ago for the first time and I was excited to know a sequel was in the making, and on top of that, I learned that the same man was behind Grim Fandango. That's amazing O O
This was a childhood favourite. I have played it so many times I know all the dialogue and puzzles from memory. I wish there had been a sequel. Brilliant story, hilarious dialogue, great animation (especially for its time) and the best voice acting. This game kept me sane after recovering from a serious surgery back in 1998 :)
Aw... I love the concept of Tim playing through his games, but I wish he would play all the way through them and if possible with more people from the teams that developed them at that time. That we would be so cool to watch!
This video is absolutely awesome! I loved how Tim Schafer commented on details I missed despite having played this game a lot. One thing though: Most of the small glitches Tim encountered come from ResidualVM, not the original GRIME native engine. From my experience, disabling hardware acceleration on ResidualVM fixes most of these glitches. I'm waiting for more of these videos! :D
I don't know if you awesome people at doublefine read comments, but I hope you keep making these because they are super informative and interesting. I love watching them, and also find the inspiring for me to make games.Just wanted to say some words of encouragement. LOVE YOU TIM ,and love you guy who makes and edits these!
It's more than words how much I love this game. Classic gamers, like real adventure fans will know that Grim Fandango is an absolute outstanding jewel. Many years ago I won this game with Tim Schafers signatureon it as a member of an adventure gamers platform in germany. For me, this game is more than movies or music, it's a special, very complete, intelligent form of art. Thank you, Tim.
That was fantastic, I loved how Tim was nit picking the little stuff now that he has an extra 16 years of game development under his belt. I like the little Easter Eggs he pointed out as well. I can't wait to buy this for all my friends!
TIM Oh my goodness, did you guys hear me screaming from halfway across the continent because I am elated you're playing this game. It's one of my favorite games in the whole world. I LOVED hearing the backstory and development bits. Please continue!
This video made my day. To see Tim Schafer play my all time favourite game is just beautiful. However, I do wish they'd record this using in-game commentary setup instead of this cam thing.
My favourite game of all time, please Tim, make a sequel or something this crazy again. This is a game ive maybe played over 30+ times and i still love it.
Oh man. I need a way to play this game. I've always wanted to, but it's super hard to find now. Also RIP Ryan Davis. Noticed the little pin there. Makes me sad and happy to see it.
The little anecdotes like the crap brownies are why i love watching these. It's great hearing about the little things that made the games the way they are, that we as an audience wouldnt have ever known either ways.
Just earned a subscriber. Being able to get insights into one of the great game designers on one of my favorite and generally regarded one of the best PC games of all time is awesome.
as a spanish speaker this game felt tailor-made for me when I was a kid :D It blew my mind to think that they had made a game with so many inspirations in mexican culture and spanish language
***** I can see what you mean, but the character's accents weren't that off putting to me. They weren't recognizably latino, but they also weren't Spain-Spanish (known as _castellano_). Instead, their accents rang a certain Cuban or Miami ring to me, which is understandable given the game was made in the US.
***** Oooh, wait, I misunderstood you completely. You were talking about the translated game version, not the spanish-bits in the english version. Sorry, I thought you meant the latter :P , as for the translated game, I haven't heard it, so I believe you if you say they were actors speaking in castellano and their accent was off-putting. I can understand that.
***** I'm not sure if it's five or more, I'm also not very knowledgeable of the linguistic categories from Spain. Although I do know that Catalan is a distinctive language separate from Spanish, so at least you avoided a bullet there xD At any case, even with your lone high school class, you should be proud that at least you can tell the difference between Latino and Spain Spanish. Which is not a thing many English-speakers notice at first :P
whens the second bit of Tim playing through this coming out ? As a massive fan of this game I feel like I watching the director pointing out things from one of my favorite films
MusicStuffSome We're going to revisit these once Broken Age is wrapped up and Tim has more time. The new Grim Fandango Remastered release has a commentary track with a bunch of people from the original team, you should check that out too!
TIM! I feel you so much with that frustration of being locked away from the carnival in the city. I thought up similar scenarios of punching the clown in my dreams ;)
Interesting at 29:11 what you say about the localization of the game, the Italian version has Sigmund Freud instead of Robert Frost. Would be super interesting to hear about other instances of things having to be modified for localization.
Speaking from a guy, a fan, from Mexico D.F., who actually bought the game, back in 99, (in a time when it was very difficult to get an original game here, south of the border ). I really love this game, amazing art direction, music, everything... It really brings back memories...
Grim fandango is the best game ever i play best game EVER i play. this is not game for me this is part of my life I play this game every year since 1998 until now I'm gamer i don't know really why new game with high graphics not satisfied me ... Sadly The new generation of games has no soul ... Only graphic's and blood " Tim Schafer " thank you
I was going to ask if Tim would play his other great classic, like the still hilarious "Day of the Tentacle" and the awesome "Full Throttle", only to notice that he has. That is fantastic. Can't wait to watch those as well. As for "Grim", I'd love to see a re-release with updated controls to use the mouse and keyboard together instead of the annoying tank control setup.
Mr Tim Schafer, even with the imperfections, Grim Fandango is the closest to a perfect game if there is anything like that. It made me think, laugh, cry, happy, sad, and frustrated (the infallible control scheme!). And the music! Best videogame OST ever! And Glottis playing the piano? Genious!!
Ok someone tell me what's wrong with the controls, because I was 8 at the time so maybe I just adapted naturally. But still to this day I don't understand what's wrong with: a) walking around with arrows (it's been done in many other games and nobody screamed about it, plus way more cinematic than pointing&clicking) b) his head turning towards interactive stuff (waaaaaay better than pixelhunting, I think, and again, more cinematic than clicking) c) the inventory in his jacket (again, more cinematic and engaging than a normal one, and if you're not patient enough to scroll through the items, you're playing the wrong kind of game anyway :) plus buttons 1-9 were assigned for taking out items 1-9 so it's not that bad) My guess is that it's just the very conservative adventure gamers complaining, who were/are used to point&click, but "sniff, sniff, it's not what I'm used to" isn't enough of an argument for me, sorry :) This is my favourite game of all time, and I know it has its faults, mostly some insane puzzles, but the controls I never had any problems with.
I grew up playing point and click games yet the controls of Grim Fandango never bothered me. One of the best things was the run feature. One of my biggest gripes with some point and click games was it could take forever to navigate through certain areas due to the slow movement. Games like Leisure Suit Larry had it right where you could bump up the speed your character walks.
They're tank controls. They are relative to the character rather than the camera. They are not intuitive, and pretty much everyone messes up with them. There's a reason no modern game uses them. You can adapt to pretty much any control system. That doesn't mean it is good. A good control system feels natural, and you can just pick up and use it. Even the designers realized the problem eventually and threw in camera relative controls. (Unfortunately, they were thrown in at the last minute without much testing, and you could get stuck. They weren't implemented very well, as you could not turn in place, even when up against a wall.) If it was just people not used to the controls, they wouldn't still be regarded as bad. Teltale's games are often not point-and-click, too. Yeah, a handful of people complain about them, but only a handful, and at least they still play the game. People didn't play Grim Fandango. It almost killed the adventure game genre.
ZipplyZane Ok, I think you got a little carried away in the end there :D But I'll have to disagree. It's completely understandable why the controls are not camera relative: the camera angle changesa all the time, even in the same room. So camera relative controls would either cause confusion, or lead to endless "oh I just left the screen and changed to a new angle, I better press the movement buttons differently now" experiences. This approach, which departs from the earlier "one room - one screen" school of many-many point&click games, is what makes GF so immersive and cinematic, I think. Also, obviously, the fact that it's not point&click. Now, for this multiple camera gameplay, I can't think of a better system than tank controls (point&click being out of the question for design decisions I mentioned earlier). You press forward and your character goes forward through the room, even during multiple camera changes. How much more obvious can it get? And how is a camera relative system more intuitive, which means that forward, back, left and right change all the time, even in the same room! Now, of course, in games where the camera follows you closely, the camera relative controls are more intuitive. (I'm thinking KotOR now, just an example.) That doesn't make them great for every game. I'm sorry for people who don't have enough spatial skills to work it out, but it's not exactly rocket science. I'm sure it was weird for an adventure game back then (still kind of is), but it's a false allegation that this control scheme is inherently faulty. Many games use it in other genres, or at least they have at the time, so it's not like it was unheard of and nobody knew how it works. Another false claim you make, sadly, or at least imply, is that the reason this control scheme isn't used anymore is because it's so horrible. While actually it has a lot more to do with the fact that generally games went on to be more immersive and more 3D, the camera tailing the character closely in an actual 3D world, and the mouse playing more and more of a role in either character or camera control, so naturally, you don't need a control scheme to solve the multiple camera problem, because the problem doesn't exist. So if you couldn't grasp it, well, sad day for you, I'm sure it was annoying. But I'm definitely not going to apologise or feel weird for being able to pick up and use the controls instantly. It's the best possible control scheme for a game with pre-rendered backgrounds and multiple cameras, and camera relative controls in such games are a joke.
Zoltán Jenkei I did not once insult you for liking the controls. I explained why other people hated them and think they are bad, which was your question. Yes, tank controls were used in other games around that time period. But all of them that have modern equivalents no longer use them. Once good camera-relative controls came out, people stopped using tank controls. I know the claim that the multiple camera angles cause problems. I disagree. I played Grim Fandango mostly with the camera-relative controls. The screen transitions were easy to handle. (The problems was with collisitions not being handled well, allowing Grim to get stuck. I blame the alternate controls being added last-minute.) I mostly responded because I didn't like the implication that people were just stupid and didn't give the controls a chance, just because you found them easy to use. Most people don't find them easy to use. I've never seen anyone just pick them up and use them. They always mess up for quite a while. That's why I went a little overboard at the end. It's not "sad for me." It's sad for Grim. The controls are largely cited for why Grim did not sell very well. People found the controls hard to use, even if you didn't. These same people play camera-relative games all the time. A good example are Telltale games, which not only use camera-relative controls, but also use the quick camera-angle changes, just link Grim. You need to face it. Tank controls are less intuitive, and take longer for most people to pick up. People make mistakes that they don't make with other control systems. That's why they are generally not regarded well.
Man, i'm becoming a fan of you. Just you the game and a simple PC, don't ignoring the bugs or the silly lines, just being truly about the game that you have. I've never seen any other developer behave in so sincere way in front of a camera.
Really cool to see this. I'd've just preferred the game audio to be recorded directly from the soundcard rather than through the speakers. Also, it's probably worth mentioning that the opening music is (I think) 'The Magnetic Tree' from the Dustforce soundtrack: lifeformed.bandcamp.com/track/the-magnetic-tree
Hey! He was disappointed that Manny didn't cast a shadow from the projector, but I was just playing this on the wii port of residualvm and it DID cast a shadow there! I remember being impressed by it. Too bad it didn't work here.
Some notes: 26:10 - The word Manny uses is "tacaños" wich translates as "stingy" 51:20 - The spanish playing cards are "clubs", "golds", "swords" and "cups": en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraja_(playing_cards) The funny thing is that all cards are numbered so although the first one is called "As" (ace) there are not "A"s in the classic spanish deck, the first card is just "1". Moderns decks might have an "A" instead a "1" influenced by the french deck (classic poker cards)
This news of a remaster is amazing. There are ways of getting the game working on modern PCs, but it never works 100% well and can sometimes be tricky, it's also a great way to introduce the game to a new era of fans. Buying a PS4 just because of this news, thank you Tim and the team for making this decision on a remaster. EDIT: Would love some high res black and white artwork/posters to be released. =)
!["Devs Play" S1E06 - Psychonauts "The SMK Speedrun" [1/1]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/lsDc1YVxHA0/mqdefault.jpg)
"we're about to experience the most perfect and infallible control scheme in a video game"
Haha, this is great :D
Good seeing you and Roses in the top comments. You still really need to review this game.
Love your channel dude!
Heh, that's what ruined Escape from Monkey Island... that and Monkey Kombat!
Clint on a scale to one to ten how happy are you to the remake :D
Englebert3rd Never bothered with that game because of the controls. Completely forgot Grim used this too because I just watched my friends play it.
"I've just locked an open door. Strange yet symbolically compelling..." One of my favorite lines.
I remember that line but never realized how that can be applied to the perspective of Hector and his men stealing everyone's ticket. That was his was of locking everyone's open door.
the art style of this game is so amazing
And McConnell's score!
Artzie Music Yeah it's mainly based off of the Día de los muertos.
Lol.
Oh god, this game is amazing and this is a perfect way to see it being played again.
I really need part 2. I'd love to see Tim in Rubacava.
This is my favorite game of all time. Thank you for this TIm!
A game that's definitely better on your second playthrough since you won't get stuck on any puzzles. Definitely one of my favourite games of all time.
Tim, playing through his own game, giving commentary on the way? This is the best kind of Let's Play someone could ask for.
This is my personal favorite adventure game of all time. Still have the CDs and the manual from ~15 years ago, too.
Grim Fandango definitely deserves a re-release on Good Old Games and Steam!
Words cannot express how much i love this game, no shit, i tear up a bit looking at Tim talk about it, and about the passion that went into making it. I actually tattooed the loading screen on my arms.
To me this is simply the best game that will ever exist . Thank you to the Double Fine team for bringing it back to us and 2player for showing us anything about the process, cause i want to see everything
Be cool to see a picture of that.
29:14 In the French version they changed Robert frost to Captain Haddock from the tintin comic
+Redem10
in Brazil he's sherlock holmes
+Redem10 In italian he's Sigmund Freud! :D
*****
the Brazilian dub is the original one from the 90's (which is really good), but the achievement on steam is still Robert Frost
+'Murrican Oil The acheivement was changed to Haddock in french
This game I truly remember in my childhood even though I got stuck at a certain puzzle being so young I just started a new game just to keep playing. I love everything about this game the style, the setting, the characters, the puzzles and especially the story which is one of my earliest memories of purely AMAZING storytelling. It also started my fascination and eventual liking of the holiday Día de Muertos a theme which I love to see, which is also on my birthday, November 2nd. I did beat the game when I got a good amount older even though the game disks were old and scratched causing the game to crash every so often.
So thank you to introducing to me a cool holiday that's also on my birthday and giving me a truly amazing and memorable experience.
This is amazing.
I started playing Psychonauts a few days ago for the first time and I was excited to know a sequel was in the making, and on top of that, I learned that the same man was behind Grim Fandango. That's amazing O O
This was a childhood favourite. I have played it so many times I know all the dialogue and puzzles from memory. I wish there had been a sequel. Brilliant story, hilarious dialogue, great animation (especially for its time) and the best voice acting.
This game kept me sane after recovering from a serious surgery back in 1998 :)
Since the first one of this series of videos came out, I've been wanting to see him playing Grim Fandango, love it !
Aw... I love the concept of Tim playing through his games, but I wish he would play all the way through them and if possible with more people from the teams that developed them at that time. That we would be so cool to watch!
Best game ever.
Just wanted to say: thanks Tim. the stuff you made was a big part of my childhood. can't wait for the Day of the Tentacle remake
This video is absolutely awesome! I loved how Tim Schafer commented on details I missed despite having played this game a lot. One thing though: Most of the small glitches Tim encountered come from ResidualVM, not the original GRIME native engine. From my experience, disabling hardware acceleration on ResidualVM fixes most of these glitches. I'm waiting for more of these videos! :D
I don't know if you awesome people at doublefine read comments, but I hope you keep making these because they are super informative and interesting. I love watching them, and also find the inspiring for me to make games.Just wanted to say some words of encouragement. LOVE YOU TIM ,and love you guy who makes and edits these!
Thanks! We're going to keep doing more!
It's more than words how much I love this game. Classic gamers, like real adventure fans will know that Grim Fandango is an absolute outstanding jewel. Many years ago I won this game with Tim Schafers signatureon it as a member of an adventure gamers platform in germany. For me, this game is more than movies or music, it's a special, very complete, intelligent form of art. Thank you, Tim.
My favorite game of all time. I wish I could explore more of this world. It's just so amazing.
Still waiting for part 2
I would really love if there was a "Tim Plays Psychonauts"
That was fantastic, I loved how Tim was nit picking the little stuff now that he has an extra 16 years of game development under his belt. I like the little Easter Eggs he pointed out as well. I can't wait to buy this for all my friends!
the ghost of ryan davis! I love that you get the behind the scenes of the art direction and love that went unto this game.
TIM Oh my goodness, did you guys hear me screaming from halfway across the continent because I am elated you're playing this game. It's one of my favorite games in the whole world. I LOVED hearing the backstory and development bits. Please continue!
This video made my day. To see Tim Schafer play my all time favourite game is just beautiful. However, I do wish they'd record this using in-game commentary setup instead of this cam thing.
Yeah I loved the in game commentary for the remake of Monkey Island 2.
I'm glad I saw this. Would never have seen how quality a game this is until this
Oh thank you so much for doing this Tim. One of the best adventures ever made, gonna be a pleasure to hear your thoughts as you replay.
Thanks Tim for creating the masterpiece that I still play today. Manny lives! or not... "I'm the Grim Reaper lardass, and you're my next customer"!
Playing this game was a pretty iconic moment in my childhood. My mum still remembers this game. Such awesome memories. Thanks Mr Schafer man sir.
Now funny to watch this last week and only today to see you guys remaking it. Glad to see it happen!
My favourite game of all time, please Tim, make a sequel or something this crazy again. This is a game ive maybe played over 30+ times and i still love it.
Oh man. I need a way to play this game. I've always wanted to, but it's super hard to find now. Also RIP Ryan Davis. Noticed the little pin there. Makes me sad and happy to see it.
I can't believe it will almost be a year since Ryan left us
ResidualVM works pretty good if you need to play on PC or MAC, and in regards to buying it the physical CD doesn't go for THAT much on amazon.
*cough* now you can find a copy on a certain pirate themed website. There is also a fix to get it working on most modern PCs if you look around.
Remake coming soon, yay?
phizzyphizzy Yep! Hopefully for PC soon. :-)
Completely random trivia: "Mostly because we didn't get bonuses that year. Tacaños." Tacaños = Cheapskates.
En chile se dice coloquialmente cagados
@@elmaxo1591 graçias, El Big Yoshi
This is great. Thanks for taking the time to record this!
finally! someone who understands the greatness of tank controls!
The little anecdotes like the crap brownies are why i love watching these. It's great hearing about the little things that made the games the way they are, that we as an audience wouldnt have ever known either ways.
Just earned a subscriber. Being able to get insights into one of the great game designers on one of my favorite and generally regarded one of the best PC games of all time is awesome.
I had the biggest smile on my face during the entirety of this video.
Aww is that a Ryan Davis button? :'(
LOVE RYAN DAVIS!
as a spanish speaker this game felt tailor-made for me when I was a kid :D It blew my mind to think that they had made a game with so many inspirations in mexican culture and spanish language
***** I can see what you mean, but the character's accents weren't that off putting to me. They weren't recognizably latino, but they also weren't Spain-Spanish (known as _castellano_). Instead, their accents rang a certain Cuban or Miami ring to me, which is understandable given the game was made in the US.
***** Oooh, wait, I misunderstood you completely. You were talking about the translated game version, not the spanish-bits in the english version.
Sorry, I thought you meant the latter :P , as for the translated game, I haven't heard it, so I believe you if you say they were actors speaking in castellano and their accent was off-putting. I can understand that.
***** It's not the only dialect or accent from Spain, but it is colloquially how we refer to European Spanish here in Latinoamerica.
***** I'm not sure if it's five or more, I'm also not very knowledgeable of the linguistic categories from Spain. Although I do know that Catalan is a distinctive language separate from Spanish, so at least you avoided a bullet there xD
At any case, even with your lone high school class, you should be proud that at least you can tell the difference between Latino and Spain Spanish. Which is not a thing many English-speakers notice at first :P
***** Haha, naaah. Don't worry.
O_O I want that Raz doll in the backround.
I just now noticed the Ryan Davis pin on TIm's desk. Oy. Didn't expect that gut punch.
The master and his creation. What a great video.
whens the second bit of Tim playing through this coming out ? As a massive fan of this game I feel like I watching the director pointing out things from one of my favorite films
MusicStuffSome We're going to revisit these once Broken Age is wrapped up and Tim has more time. The new Grim Fandango Remastered release has a commentary track with a bunch of people from the original team, you should check that out too!
+DoubleFineProd I WANT MORE!!!
this is great... it would be great to have the rest of it....
3 years later...
DoubleFineProd There's still demand for this! Please consider investing some time with Tim to make it happen!
Tim feels like Jack Black’s long lost more introspective cousin
Discusdream Hence the cooperation on Brütal Legend was something out of the ordinary.
favorite game of all time
I played Grim Fandango for the first time last month and it was so perfect. Such a great game.
Surprise mothcub appearance!
TIM! I feel you so much with that frustration of being locked away from the carnival in the city. I thought up similar scenarios of punching the clown in my dreams ;)
YES! I've been hoping he would play this, what is arguably my favorite game of all time, and sure enough he did :)
Love that Tony Plana ad-libbed in some of the Spanish in his lines. It really added to the character of Manny and of the Grim Fandango world.
This is really wonderful, I hope Tim can find the time to finish the whole game. :)
Still to this day one of my favorite games ever, the story is amazing and the humor is top notch
Interesting at 29:11 what you say about the localization of the game, the Italian version has Sigmund Freud instead of Robert Frost. Would be super interesting to hear about other instances of things having to be modified for localization.
I love you, Tim
Made me so happy to see the Ryan Davis pin next to Tim Schafer's monitor.
Speaking from a guy, a fan, from Mexico D.F., who actually bought the game, back in 99, (in a time when it was very difficult to get an original game here, south of the border ). I really love this game, amazing art direction, music, everything... It really brings back memories...
Grim fandango is the best game ever i play
best game EVER i play.
this is not game for me this is part of my life
I play this game every year since 1998 until now
I'm gamer i don't know really why new game with high graphics not satisfied me ...
Sadly The new generation of games has no soul ... Only graphic's and blood
" Tim Schafer " thank you
The same for me! I play it every year.
I was going to ask if Tim would play his other great classic, like the still hilarious "Day of the Tentacle" and the awesome "Full Throttle", only to notice that he has. That is fantastic. Can't wait to watch those as well. As for "Grim", I'd love to see a re-release with updated controls to use the mouse and keyboard together instead of the annoying tank control setup.
Mr Tim Schafer, even with the imperfections, Grim Fandango is the closest to a perfect game if there is anything like that. It made me think, laugh, cry, happy, sad, and frustrated (the infallible control scheme!). And the music! Best videogame OST ever! And Glottis playing the piano? Genious!!
"I wrote that before I had a child and realized how traumatic that would be."
What a wonderful thing this is!
Nicest
I have been waiting for this since they started doing this series, what, a year ago? Or More? But in actuality I've been waiting for this since 1998.
This was so amazing! Thanks Tim! This is an honest to god dream come true!
Alone in the dark and resident evil had tank controls. So did the first tomb raider. We still had tons of fun with those games despite that.
Anyone know where I could get a file of the little jingle at 0:42 when Tim opens the game? Would love to set that as my text tone
This really makes me want to go back and play the game again. Too bad it's not available on GOG or even on Steam.
Tada
You sneaky awesome guy, now I see why you're playing Grim Fandango! :D Guess I gotta watch out for what game(s) will follow. ;)
This game is part of my life
Ok someone tell me what's wrong with the controls, because I was 8 at the time so maybe I just adapted naturally. But still to this day I don't understand what's wrong with:
a) walking around with arrows (it's been done in many other games and nobody screamed about it, plus way more cinematic than pointing&clicking)
b) his head turning towards interactive stuff (waaaaaay better than pixelhunting, I think, and again, more cinematic than clicking)
c) the inventory in his jacket (again, more cinematic and engaging than a normal one, and if you're not patient enough to scroll through the items, you're playing the wrong kind of game anyway :) plus buttons 1-9 were assigned for taking out items 1-9 so it's not that bad)
My guess is that it's just the very conservative adventure gamers complaining, who were/are used to point&click, but "sniff, sniff, it's not what I'm used to" isn't enough of an argument for me, sorry :)
This is my favourite game of all time, and I know it has its faults, mostly some insane puzzles, but the controls I never had any problems with.
I grew up playing point and click games yet the controls of Grim Fandango never bothered me. One of the best things was the run feature. One of my biggest gripes with some point and click games was it could take forever to navigate through certain areas due to the slow movement. Games like Leisure Suit Larry had it right where you could bump up the speed your character walks.
They're tank controls. They are relative to the character rather than the camera. They are not intuitive, and pretty much everyone messes up with them. There's a reason no modern game uses them.
You can adapt to pretty much any control system. That doesn't mean it is good. A good control system feels natural, and you can just pick up and use it.
Even the designers realized the problem eventually and threw in camera relative controls. (Unfortunately, they were thrown in at the last minute without much testing, and you could get stuck. They weren't implemented very well, as you could not turn in place, even when up against a wall.)
If it was just people not used to the controls, they wouldn't still be regarded as bad. Teltale's games are often not point-and-click, too. Yeah, a handful of people complain about them, but only a handful, and at least they still play the game. People didn't play Grim Fandango. It almost killed the adventure game genre.
*****
Some point and click games have run features. You just double click. Double clicking also works in the point-and-click hack of GF, too.
ZipplyZane Ok, I think you got a little carried away in the end there :D
But I'll have to disagree. It's completely understandable why the controls are not camera relative: the camera angle changesa all the time, even in the same room. So camera relative controls would either cause confusion, or lead to endless "oh I just left the screen and changed to a new angle, I better press the movement buttons differently now" experiences.
This approach, which departs from the earlier "one room - one screen" school of many-many point&click games, is what makes GF so immersive and cinematic, I think. Also, obviously, the fact that it's not point&click.
Now, for this multiple camera gameplay, I can't think of a better system than tank controls (point&click being out of the question for design decisions I mentioned earlier). You press forward and your character goes forward through the room, even during multiple camera changes. How much more obvious can it get? And how is a camera relative system more intuitive, which means that forward, back, left and right change all the time, even in the same room!
Now, of course, in games where the camera follows you closely, the camera relative controls are more intuitive. (I'm thinking KotOR now, just an example.) That doesn't make them great for every game.
I'm sorry for people who don't have enough spatial skills to work it out, but it's not exactly rocket science. I'm sure it was weird for an adventure game back then (still kind of is), but it's a false allegation that this control scheme is inherently faulty. Many games use it in other genres, or at least they have at the time, so it's not like it was unheard of and nobody knew how it works.
Another false claim you make, sadly, or at least imply, is that the reason this control scheme isn't used anymore is because it's so horrible. While actually it has a lot more to do with the fact that generally games went on to be more immersive and more 3D, the camera tailing the character closely in an actual 3D world, and the mouse playing more and more of a role in either character or camera control, so naturally, you don't need a control scheme to solve the multiple camera problem, because the problem doesn't exist.
So if you couldn't grasp it, well, sad day for you, I'm sure it was annoying. But I'm definitely not going to apologise or feel weird for being able to pick up and use the controls instantly. It's the best possible control scheme for a game with pre-rendered backgrounds and multiple cameras, and camera relative controls in such games are a joke.
Zoltán Jenkei I did not once insult you for liking the controls. I explained why other people hated them and think they are bad, which was your question.
Yes, tank controls were used in other games around that time period. But all of them that have modern equivalents no longer use them. Once good camera-relative controls came out, people stopped using tank controls.
I know the claim that the multiple camera angles cause problems. I disagree. I played Grim Fandango mostly with the camera-relative controls. The screen transitions were easy to handle. (The problems was with collisitions not being handled well, allowing Grim to get stuck. I blame the alternate controls being added last-minute.)
I mostly responded because I didn't like the implication that people were just stupid and didn't give the controls a chance, just because you found them easy to use. Most people don't find them easy to use. I've never seen anyone just pick them up and use them. They always mess up for quite a while.
That's why I went a little overboard at the end. It's not "sad for me." It's sad for Grim. The controls are largely cited for why Grim did not sell very well. People found the controls hard to use, even if you didn't.
These same people play camera-relative games all the time. A good example are Telltale games, which not only use camera-relative controls, but also use the quick camera-angle changes, just link Grim.
You need to face it. Tank controls are less intuitive, and take longer for most people to pick up. People make mistakes that they don't make with other control systems. That's why they are generally not regarded well.
played it in 1998 its a great adventure game from start to finish.
I love the Ryan Davis sticker next to the computer screen. Big respect.
Man, i'm becoming a fan of you. Just you the game and a simple PC, don't ignoring the bugs or the silly lines, just being truly about the game that you have. I've never seen any other developer behave in so sincere way in front of a camera.
So is there a part two?
This might just be the high watermark of computer games =)
"This doesn't look anything like Robert Frost" is my favourite line from any game.
Alone in the Dark - 1992 - 3d characters over still backgrounds, tank controls, head tracking. :)
I play it every couple of years, I don't remember head tracking? At least not in the original.
In France, "Robert Frost" became "Capitaine Haddock" from The Adventures of Tintin.
It does kind of resemble Captain Haddock...
The original version it was sherlock. And the balloon looks exactly like him from the shape of his head/hat and the smoking pipe.
this game had and still has the best voice overs ever
Really cool to see this. I'd've just preferred the game audio to be recorded directly from the soundcard rather than through the speakers. Also, it's probably worth mentioning that the opening music is (I think) 'The Magnetic Tree' from the Dustforce soundtrack: lifeformed.bandcamp.com/track/the-magnetic-tree
Yes! The best graphic adventure EVAR!!
that ash tray is part of my childhood , a confusing part cause i spent a long time on this game and never got out of the office
Man i wish there were more of these...
This is so great!
part 2 when? Grim Fandango is easily one my favorite games of all time.
The word spoken outside the Department of Death by Manny / Tony Plana is “tacaños.” It means “tight-fisted people.”
I've watched the whole vídeo, and don't regret it.
If anyone is interested, the song at the start:
Lifeformed - The Magnetic Tree (Dustforce OST)
Hey! He was disappointed that Manny didn't cast a shadow from the projector, but I was just playing this on the wii port of residualvm and it DID cast a shadow there! I remember being impressed by it. Too bad it didn't work here.
Some notes:
26:10 - The word Manny uses is "tacaños" wich translates as "stingy"
51:20 - The spanish playing cards are "clubs", "golds", "swords" and "cups":
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baraja_(playing_cards)
The funny thing is that all cards are numbered so although the first one is called "As" (ace) there are not "A"s in the classic spanish deck, the first card is just "1". Moderns decks might have an "A" instead a "1" influenced by the french deck (classic poker cards)
Cool the voice of Manuel is also the father from Ugly Betty! I was wondering why I found that voice familiar.
This news of a remaster is amazing. There are ways of getting the game working on modern PCs, but it never works 100% well and can sometimes be tricky, it's also a great way to introduce the game to a new era of fans.
Buying a PS4 just because of this news, thank you Tim and the team for making this decision on a remaster.
EDIT: Would love some high res black and white artwork/posters to be released. =)
tim more than played. he filled a wiki page with facts with this video lol
Oh my goodness! The Lifeformed clip in the beginning!
Love this game, but DOTT and Sam and Max hold my heart
this is amazing to watch, tim not remembering where the card goes holy shit haha
ive been waiting for this.
27:00 tacaño in spanish means cheap, if you where wondering.