Posts with tag Psychonauts
by Ludwig Kietzmann Mar 7th 2008 8:30PM
Filed under: Culture, Adventure
Alright, Tim Schafer, you win. After targeting various industry folks with a typically contrived adventure game puzzle and then assembling their responses in our
GDC Quest Quiz feature, we simply weren't prepared for your relentless response to our silly challenge. Not only did you trick us into doing all the hard work, but you successfully navigated through our made-up-as-we-went-along chicane of bizarre logic. But don't grow complacent in your victory -- we'll get you next time.
The Player
Double Fine's Tim Schafer, designer of
Full Throttle,
Grim Fandango,
Psychonauts and upcoming god of gwar epic,
Brütal Legend. Prior to the release of those games, he worked on
The Secret of Monkey Island,
Monkey Island 2 and
Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle.
The Puzzle
You're standing in front of a cave. The goal is to get inside the cave, taking care to foil the
ferocious robot bear guarding the entrance first.
The Inventory
- (1) perforated parasol
- (1) rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle
- (1) sealed manila envelope
- (1) miniature macaroni Tim Schafer statue
Make your way past the break to read our adventurous e-mail exchange.
Continue reading Return to Quest Quiz: Tim Schafer
by Ludwig Kietzmann Feb 26th 2008 5:55PM
Filed under: Culture, Adventure, GDC
We did a terrible thing at last week's
Game Developer's Conference. Aside from our usual barrage of photographs and "reporting," a select group of attendees had to endure a particularly inane and utterly pointless line of questioning --
just for laughs.
This is what happens when you hunt down several adventure game connoisseurs and challenge them to solve a typically obnoxious adventure game puzzle.
The Player
Erik Wolpaw, co-author of the now-defunct
Old Man Murray. He's written for games such as
Psychonauts and
Portal, and once accused the adventure genre of
committing suicide.
The Puzzle
You're standing in front of a cave. The goal is to get inside the cave, taking care to foil the
ferocious robot bear guarding the entrance first.
The Inventory
- (1) perforated parasol
- (1) rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle
- (1) sealed manila envelope
- (1) miniature macaroni Tim Schafer statue
The Solution
"How is the pulley attached to the rubber chicken? See, this is why I hate adventure games. I think you're expecting a joke answer, and I'm actually trying to figure it out. OK, type 'quit.' That's what I would do. Go to the menu and type 'quit.'"
(Catch the rest of our interview with Wolpaw later this week!)
by Ross Miller Dec 24th 2007 8:30PM
Filed under: PC, Online
Valve's Steam service is having a last-minute holiday sale from today until January 1, with everything on the online store reportedly 10% to 50% off. While all they have to do is make one game 50% and the rest 10% to make that statement valid, there are some good deals going on. Highlights include:
- Orange Box - $37.45 (25% off)
- BioShock - $37.45 (25% off)
- S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - $22.45 (25% off)
- id Software Super Pack - $52.45 (25% off)
- Psychonauts - $9.95 (50% off)
There are very few hours until Christmas. On this coast, most stores are closing down. Wouldn't be great if you could find the perfect gift for the ones you love? How about a downloadable copy of
Psychonauts (no, we don't shut up about this game) for only $10? And while we're at it, you can afford to purchase
Rag Doll Kung Fu ($13.45) and
Bookworm Adventures ($17.95).
by Justin McElroy Oct 24th 2007 8:00AM
Filed under: Culture
Alright, the internet, you can officially stop dreaming about a sequel to
Psychonauts and go back to dreaming about
Brutal Legend. After a darkened version of the game's logo with the words "Coming Soon" on it appeared on the Double Fine site and
started the rumor train, chief Tim Schafer had to be the one to put the penny on the track. He
told Next-Gen, "the truth is we are just putting together a new page about 'The Excellent Game
Psychonauts.' We're not announcing any new games or anything. Sorry if we confused anybody! We lightened up the image to hopefully make things clearer."
Why do you build us up (build us up), buttercup? ... And why did we just call a man who could squish us between his meaty palms "buttercup"?
by Scott Jon Siegel Oct 23rd 2007 8:00AM
Hot off the heels of Double Fine's announcement of
Brütal Legend, we get this tasty little morsel of potential excellence. On
Double Fine's projects page, beneath the link for
Brütal Legend, we have the teaser image pictured above. No great mystery regarding its contents -- that's clearly Raz, and the logo for the first
Psychonauts.
Is
Tim Schafer trying to not-so-subtly tell us that a sequel is in the works? Or is this some sort of twisted joke? (Schafer does, after all, have a "twisted mind," as many a press release have said). Not much else to speculate here. We'll keep our eyes peeled for any further announcements or information.
[Update: Sadly, it seems that the "coming soon" image was merely intended to indicate an eventual info page for the original Psychonauts. Double Fine has recognized the confusion, and quietly un-darkened the image to make it more apparent. So no Psychonauts 2 after all. Color us disappointed.][Via
Rock Paper Shotgun]
by Ludwig Kietzmann Oct 11th 2007 9:26PM
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 3, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure
"A Rock 'n Roll roadshow through the twisted mind of
Tim Schafer?" That sounds fantastic, though we imagine it comes across like nails on a chalkboard to the publisher hoping to hear terms like "shooter," "sequel," "football," and "based on the hit movie" in the game pitch. Preferably, it'll be
all of those.
And for all we know,
Double Fine's
Brütal Legend could contain any of the above. For now, the only information we have is that obtained from the cover of the latest
Game Informer magazine (we've confirmed the image is real), graciously snapped and posted by "Iksenpets" on the official
Double Fine forums. The image reveals who we assume to be Jack Black's character -- an axe-wielding,
axe-wielding roadie named Eddie Riggs. Oh, and when you check between the pages to find out more about Mr. Schafer's latest road trip, be sure to find out how
NF HELL 4K2: The Movie: The Game is coming along.
[Thanks, Max]
by Justin McElroy Sep 10th 2007 10:00AM
Filed under: PC, Fighting
As any video game journalist with a few free minutes will tell you,
Psychonauts is a brilliant classic that never got the attention it so richly deserved. Thankfully for all of us tired of game journalists yammering on about his last stroke of brilliance, Tim Schafer and Double Fine studios have returned with a new stroke, a title perfectly poised for mass market success:
Epic Saga: Extreme Fighter.
We all love dark wizards and gnome kings, right? But what if a gnome king fought a dark wizard? That's the sort of question that
ES: EF dares to simultaneously ask and answer. If your puny desktop rig can manage pushing all the pixels, you need to start playing this game
today. Oh, didn't we mention? It's free!
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in.]
by Ross Miller Feb 12th 2007 8:09PM
Filed under: Culture, Business
Game designer Pierre-Alexandre Garneau ("just call me
Pag") has written a piece for Gamasutra that is essentially a Magic 8-ball for determining the success, by means of marketing, of a quality title. The piece, entitled "10 Minute Game Sales Potential Test," presents six questions for determining whether a publisher will be able to successfully market a title.
It's a fascinating read. The words of wisdom one can reap from the piece, if you believe Garneau's analysis, is that original, complex ideas have a steep curve when it comes to profitability.
Spore without Will Wright would likely not garner so much attention and anticipation, and we're inclined to agree. As much as one might despise EA for rather annually "rehashing"
Madden titles, the company still manages to sell millions of copies of each iteration -- as a business, they are acting as we'd expect.
Also presented in the piece are examples where the test explains the financial success and failure of quality titles (
Grand Theft Auto 3 and
Psychonauts, respectively). It would be interesting to see how the analysis stacks up to other games both deserving and undeserving of their sales.
See Also: Ad Critic by James Ransom-Wiley Dec 14th 2006 9:45PM
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360, Action, Adventure, Fighting, Online
We won't be satisfied until every Xbox title is compatible on 360, but today's backwards compatibility update is a major step in that direction. Sure,
we knew the patch was coming, but it's a relief that it's here,
Pyschonauts now playable -- as are
Shenmue II,
Indigo Prophecy,
Mortal Kombat: Armageddon,
Dead or Alive Ultimate,
Buffy,
Destroy All Humans, and others.
The update's final list of games also features some additional surprises (unrevealed during the premature posting on Xbox.com), most notably
Soul Calibur 2 (North America only) and
Conker: Live and Reloaded. Still, each of these bc updates is bitter sweet, inevitably lacking games we've been longing for. It's been a year, and still no
Panzer Dragoon Orta?
Continue reading Huzzah! Psychonauts on 360, Soul Calibur, Conker too
by Ludwig Kietzmann Dec 12th 2006 6:55PM
Filed under: Microsoft Xbox, Microsoft Xbox 360
For a brief moment in time, an updated version of the Xbox 360's
backwards compatibility list was exposed for all the internet to see. Though it was yanked in a matter of minutes, one new entry
stood out like an atomic mushroom cloud in a serene, children's playground. Not to imply that
Psychonauts is capable of
melting children or flooding large masses of land with deadly radiation, but its
presence was rather
devastating to the psyche.
In case you weren't aware (and clearly you aren't much of the time), Tim Schafer and his team at
Double Fine did extraordinary things with
Psychonauts, managing to take the seemingly incompatible platformer and adventure genres and mash them together like two pieces of clay. That's
before they twisted the whole mess into a variety of amusing shapes.
Oh, there's a whole bunch of other new games too. However, when asked about the exact release date of this December update, Microsoft warned us that the list is
not final. "We'll have more news soon -- as I'm sure you're aware with any software development, things can change at any time so we want to make an announcement when we're sure we've got the final, solid list."
View the non-final, slightly wobbly list of additions after the break.
[Thanks Nick! Thanks to Richard from
Xbox 360 Fanboy for remembering to take a
screenshot.]
Continue reading Pre-huzzah: Psychonauts spotted on back-compat list
by Ross Miller Dec 7th 2006 5:25PM
Double Fine founder Tim Schafer told
Gamasutra that while he's mostly a single-player kind of guy, he has really enjoyed the Xbox Live system that "facilitates ... playing with people you know," he said.
Schafer, speaking in general about all the new generation consoles, also suggested that Xbox Live incorporate some of the features found in social networking sites. "You know how funny it is to go on MySpace or Friendster and write testimonials," he said. "I wish you could post those kinds of things about each other."
Schafer also expressed glee with his Nintendo Wii, specifically the controller,
Twilight Princess and the Mii channel. "As soon as I got it, just sitting there making Miis and sending them to all my friends was incredibly entertaining for about the first four days." That prompted the developer into suggesting XBL incorporate testimonials. We're imagining a Mii-like avatar creation tool for Xbox Live, and how enjoyably devious that would be.
Double Fine is responsible for last generation's
award-winning,
scholarly media darling Psychonauts, which suffered from economic-centric maladies (read: poor sales). Before that, Schafer's work included
Grim Fandango and contributions to the
Monkey Island series. Double Fine is currently working on an unknown project for an unknown medium.
by Ross Miller Nov 20th 2006 12:25PM
Filed under: Sony PlayStation 2, Sony PlayStation 3, Retro, Online
Sony's PlayStation site now features a handy little Javascript program that lets you check on any compatibility issues the PS3 might have with the PlayStation catalogue. Instead of a list, however, you have to type in the games about which you are curious into the search box to find out all the glitches.
We understand not making a list of every PSOne and PS2 title that has compatibility issues, but at the same time we are not sure to what extent BC problems are prevalent. We are impressed with how detailed every glitch has been chronicled, so that you know exactly how the game will screw up (major or minor) while being played on the PS3. We decided to run of a few searches ourselves:
- Psychonauts, unlike its Xbox counterpart, "has no major problems" with the PS3. Huzzah!
- The Ratchet series works fine.
- The Jak series is okay, except for a handful of issues with Jak X: Combat Racing.
- Almost surprisingly, every Madden title works well. Only Madden NFL 2007 has some issues with static IP / DHCP and online gaming.
- Every SOCOM title has at least one or two issues.
- The Final Fantasy series is a mixed bag. X, XII, and Tactics work, but Anthology, Chronicles, Origins, VIII, and IX have issues. FF VII has one graphical anomaly during one of the first battles in the game. Final Fantasy XI has problems using the PS3's HDD, but a future software update promises to fix that.
Mess around the search box and let us know what else you find. Don't throw out your PS2 until you check your favorite titles first.
[Via
CVG]
by Christopher Grant Oct 11th 2006 11:00PM
Filed under: PC, Sony PlayStation 2, Microsoft Xbox, Action, Online
Last night, reading about
RoboBlitz coming to Steam, we knew we weren't
alone in wondering where our
promised Psychonauts was. The
BAFTA award winning (congrats, guys!) critics darling may not have been the belle of the retail ball, but she was always beautiful to us ... and now, Steam subscribers everywhere can take her out dancing for the digitally distributed price of $19.99 starting
tonight!
If you're hearing the sweet, sweet sound of romance in the air, you may wanna turn down the Barry White and listen up, cause
Psychonauts developer Tim Schafer has something he wants to say you ... and only you ... in his low, deep, gravelly baritone:
"So for the press release. uh. man, it's tough because every single 'steam' related play on words has already been done," said Schafer. "Double Fine and Valve: With a love this hot, you know there's gotta be STEAM! How about that?"
Ooooh! We like that, and we know you do as well, dear reader. Just when you thought we'd already beaten that equine to death, sawed its head off, and tucked it gently into Doug Lombardi's comfy bed, here comes the ever dependable Schafer, pitching in with one. final. sawing. thrust! Phew!
That's hawt. The comic Psychonauts art director Scott Campbell made commemorating the tryst is even hawter.Next Page >
