Grim Fandango is a 1998 adventure game directed by Tim Schafer and developed and published by LucasArts for Microsoft Windows. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered static backgrounds. As with other LucasArts adventure games, the player must converse with characters and examine, collect, and use objects to solve puzzles.
Grim Fandango is set in the Land of the Dead in a retro-futuristic version of the 1950s, through which recently departed souls, represented as calaca-like figures, travel before they reach their final destination. The story follows travel agent Manuel "Manny" Calavera as he attempts to guide new arrival Mercedes "Meche" Colomar on her journey. The game combines elements of the Aztec afterlife with film noir style, with influences including The Maltese Falcon, On the Waterfront and Casablanca.
Grim Fandango received praise for its art design and direction. It was selected for several awards and is often listed as one of the greatest video games of all time. However, it was a commercial failure and contributed towards LucasArts' decision to end adventure game development and the decline of the adventure game genre.
In 2014, with help from Sony, Schafer's studio Double Fine Productions acquired the Grim Fandango license following Disney's acquisition and closure of LucasArts as a video game developer the previous year. Double Fine produced a remastered version of the game, featuring improved character graphics, controls (including point and click), an orchestrated score, and directors' commentary. It was released for Linux, OS X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Windows in January 2015, for Android and iOS in May 2015, for Nintendo Switch in November 2018, and for Xbox One in October 2020.
Gameplay
Grim Fandango is an adventure game, in which the player controls Manuel "Manny" Calavera (calavera being Spanish for 'skull') as he follows Mercedes "Meche" Colomar in the Underworld. The game uses the GrimE engine, pre-rendering static backgrounds from 3D models, while the main objects and characters are animated in 3D. Manny can engage in dialogue with other characters through conversation trees to gain hints of what needs to be done to solve the puzzles or to progress the plot. As in most LucasArts adventure games, the player can never die or otherwise get into a no-win situation (that prevents completion of the game).
Synopsis
Setting
Grim Fandango takes place in the Land of the Dead (the Eighth Underworld), where recently departed souls aim to make their way to the Land of Eternal Rest (the Ninth Underworld) on the Four Year Journey of the Soul. Good deeds in life are rewarded by access to better travel packages, provided by the Department of Death, to assist in making the journey (such as sports cars and luxury ocean cruises), the best of which is the Number Nine, an express train that takes four minutes to reach the gate to the Ninth Underworld. However, souls who did not lead a kind life are left to travel through the Land of the Dead on foot, which would take around four years. Such souls often lose faith in the existence of the Ninth Underworld and instead find jobs and stay in the Land of the Dead. The travel agents of the Department of Death act as Grim Reapers to escort the souls from the Land of the Living to the Land of the Dead, and then determine which mode of transport the soul has merited. Each year on the Day of the Dead, these souls are allowed to visit their families in the Land of the Living.
Manuel "Manny" Calavera is a travel agent at the Department of Death in the city of El Marrow, forced into his job to work off a debt "to the powers that be". Manny, who used to be a top sales agent, is frustrated with being assigned clients who do not qualify for "premium" travel packages due to their poor living choices and must take the full four-year journey. Manny is threatened to be fired by his boss, Don Copal, if he does not come up with better sales, so Manny steals a client, Mercedes "Meche" Colomar, from his successful co-worker Domino Hurley. The Department computers assign Meche to the four-year journey even though Manny believes she should have a guaranteed spot on the "Number Nine" luxury express train due to her pureness of heart in her life. Manny asks Meche to wait for him to sort out the mistake, but while he is discussing the matter with Copal, Meche, overcome with guilt, starts her journey on foot by herself. Don Copal uses it as a reason to arrest Manny. Manny is freed from arrest and sprouting by Salvador "Sal" Limones, the leader of the small underground organization the Lost Souls Alliance (LSA), who warns him of Domino and Don rigging the system to deny many clients Double N tickets, hoarding them for the boss of the criminal underworld, Hector LeMans. LeMans then sells the tickets at an exorbitant price to those that can afford it. Sal recruits Manny to help LSA by setting up a system of pigeon mail and providing the group with biometrics of Manny in order to access the computer systems of the Department. Manny recognizes that he cannot stop Hector at present and instead, with the help of his driver and speed demon Glottis, he tries to find Meche on her journey in the nearby Petrified Forest. Manny arrives at the small port city of Rubacava and finds that he has beaten Meche there, and waits for her to arrive.
left|thumb|The cast of Grim Fandango. In the front-center are Domino, Meche, Manny, and Sal. Glottis is in the upper left and Hector is on the far right. The game's creator, Tim Schafer, is in the bottom-left corner.|alt=A compute image of approximately 40 characters, most skeletal figures with a few large, cartoonish characters, arranged on a series of steps, posing for the photograph; one figure is of a human face imposed onto the character.
A year passes, and the city of Rubacava has grown. Manny now runs his own nightclub off a converted automat near the edge of the Forest. Manny sees Meche leaving the port with Domino, but when he tries to stop them, he is stopped by Meche. Manny learns from Olivia Ofrenda, the owner of the beatnik Blue Casket nightclub, that Don has been sprouted for letting the scandal be known.
Manny gives chase, manages to get on board of a leaving ship as a janitor, and a year later (after being promoted to a captain) tracks them to a coral mining plant on the Edge of the World. Domino has been holding Meche there as a trap to lure Manny. All of Domino's clients who had their tickets stolen are also being held there and used as slave labor, both to make a profit with the coral mining and as a way to keep Hector's scandal quiet. Domino tries to convince Manny to take over his position in the plant seeing as he has no alternative and can spend the rest of eternity with Meche but he refuses. After rescuing Meche, Manny defeats Domino by causing him to fall into a rock crusher. Manny, along with Meche, Glottis and a few of the souls being held at the plant then escape from the Edge of the World.
The three travel for another year until they reach the terminus for the Number Nine train at the gate of the Ninth Underworld. The Gate Keeper to the Ninth Underworld won't let the souls progress without their tickets, mistakenly believing they have sold them, and it's further revealed that a wicked soul that has either not paid off their debt or tried to cheat the Gate Keeper with a fake or stolen Double N Ticket to gain entrance to the Ninth Underworld will cause the express train to transform into the hell train (which sends all souls on board to hell). Meanwhile, Glottis has fallen deathly ill. Manny learns from demons stationed at the terminus that the only way to revive Glottis is to travel at high speeds to restore Glottis' purpose for being summoned. Manny and the others devise a makeshift fuel source to create a "rocket" train cart, quickly taking Manny and Meche back to Rubacava and saving Glottis' life. The three return to El Marrow, now found to be fully in Hector's control and renamed as Nuevo Marrow. Manny regroups with Sal and his expanded LSA and with the help of Olivia, who volunteered to join the gang earlier in Rubacava, and is able to learn about Hector's current activities. Further investigation reveals that Hector not only has been hoarding the Number Nine tickets, but has created counterfeit versions that he has sold to others while keeping the real tickets for himself in a desperate attempt to balance out his sinful life and get out of the Land of the Dead. Manny tries to confront Hector but is lured into another trap by Olivia, who is revealed to be Hector's girlfriend, who has also captured Sal, and is taken to Hector's greenhouse to be sprouted. Manny is able to defeat Hector after Sal sacrifices himself to prevent Olivia from interfering.
Manny and Meche are able to find the real Double N tickets, including the one that Meche should have received. Manny makes sure the rest of the tickets are given to their rightful owners; in turn, he is granted his own ticket for his good deeds. Together, Manny and Meche board the Number Nine for their happy journey to the Ninth Underworld while Glottis waves tearfully goodbye.
Development
Background and project inception
right|thumb|upright|[[Tim Schafer was the project lead for Grim Fandango.|alt=A middle aged Caucasian man with dark hair speaks from a lectern.]]
Grim Fandango development was led by project leader Tim Schafer, co-designer of Day of the Tentacle and creator of Full Throttle and the more recent Psychonauts and Brütal Legend. Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts noted that the pitching process for Grim Fandango was "a breeze" because of Schafer's earlier success, despite the new project's unusual theme.
Development began soon after the completion of Full Throttle in June 1995. Grim Fandango was an attempt by LucasArts to rejuvenate the graphic adventure genre, in decline by 1998. In response to complaints that Full Throttle was too short, Schafer set the goal of having twice as many puzzles as Full Throttle, which demanded a more lengthy and ambitious story to accommodate them. According to Schafer, the game was developed on a $3 million budget. It was the first LucasArts adventure since Labyrinth not to use the SCUMM engine, instead using the Sith engine, pioneered by Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, as the basis of the new GrimE engine. The GrimE engine was built using the scripting language Lua. This design decision was due to LucasArts programmer Bret Mogilefsky's interest in the language, and is considered one of the first uses of Lua in gaming applications. The game's success led to the language's use in many other games and applications, including Escape from Monkey Island and Baldur's Gate.
3D design
Grim Fandango mixed static pre-rendered background images with 3D characters and objects. Part of this decision was based on how the calaca figures would appear in three dimensions. There were more than 90 sets and 50 characters in the game to be created and rendered; Manny's character alone comprised 250 polygons.
Themes and influences
The game combines several Aztec beliefs of the afterlife and underworld with 1930s Art Deco design motifs and a dark plot reminiscent of the film noir genre. The Aztec motifs of the game were influenced by Schafer's decade-long fascination with folklore, stemming from an anthropology class he took at University of California Berkeley, and talks with folklorist Alan Dundes, with Schafer recognizing that the four-year journey of the soul in the afterlife would set the stage for an adventure game. Several scenes in Grim Fandango are directly inspired by the genre's films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, Key Largo, and most notably Casablanca: two characters in the game's second act are directly modeled after the roles played by Peter Lorre and Claude Rains in the film.
Originally, Schafer had come up with the name "Deeds of the Dead" for the game's title, as he had originally planned Manny to be a real estate agent in the Land of the Dead. Other potential titles included "The Long Siesta" and "Dirt Nap", before he came up with the title Grim Fandango. for release on October 30, the Friday before November 2, the actual date of the Day of the Dead celebration.
Remastered version
Acquisition of rights and announcement
A remastered version of Grim Fandango was released for Linux, OS X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Windows platforms on January 27, 2015. The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions feature cross-buy and cross-save. It was later released for Android and iOS on May 5. The remastered version was released as a PlayStation Plus title for the month of January 2016.
Schafer declared that he felt the need to make a new version of Grim Fandango because "always bugged me that people couldn't play it", given that along with the game not being available for sale aside from used copies, compatibility issues emerged making it unplayable in modern computers without the usage of fan-made emulators. The remastered version was predicated on the transition of LucasArts from a developer and publisher into a licensor and publisher in 2013 shortly after its acquisition by Disney. Under new management, LucasArts licensed several of its intellectual properties (IP), including Grim Fandango, to outside developers. Schafer was able to acquire the rights to the game with financial assistance from Sony, and started the process of building out the remaster within Double Fine Productions. Sony did not ask for any of IP rights for the game, instead only asking Double Fine to give the PlayStation platforms console exclusivity in exchange for funding support, similar to their Pub Fund scheme they use to support independent developers.
In addition to his own developers, Schafer reached out to players who had created unofficial patches and graphical improvements on the original game, and modifications needed to keep it running in ResidualVM, and gained their help to improve the game's assets for the remastered version. One such feature was a modified control scheme that converted the game's movement controls from the tank controls to a point and click-style interface. Schafer said the team used tank controls as it was popular with other games like Resident Evil at the time, but recognized it did not work well within the adventure game genre.
Later development and new features
Double Fine demonstrated an in-progress version of the remastered game at IndieCade event in October 2014; new features included higher-resolution textures and improved resolution for the character models as well as having real-time lighting models, and the ability to switch back and forth between this presentation and the original graphics at the touch of a control. The remastered game runs in 4:3 aspect ratio but has an option to stretch this to a 16:9 ratio rather than render in a native 4:3 ratio. The remaster includes improvements to the control scheme developed by Pfaff's patch and other alternate control schemes in addition to the original tank like controls, including analogue controls for console versions and point-and-click controls for computer versions. The game's soundtrack was fully orchestrated through performances of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (who also performed the soundtrack for Double Fine's Broken Age). The remastered version also includes developer commentary, which can be activated via the options menu and listened to at various points in the game. The PlayStation version also features cloud saving between the PS4 and Vita versions. A Nintendo Switch port was released on November 1, 2018. Double Fine was acquired by Xbox Game Studios in 2019, and Grim Fandango for the Xbox One arrived in 2020.
Soundtrack
Original soundtrack
thumb|right|A sample of the "Casino Calavera" track as heard on the remastered soundtrack. In the first release of the game, [[IGN noted that "LucasArts has put together a film class soundtrack that uses a blend of simple jazz and classical Mexican themes to add depth to the atmosphere of an already fantastic title. Not only is the soundtrack not annoying, but once again it is used to reinforce the emotions delivered in various sequences of the game". The soundtrack was released as a CD in 1998.
The soundtrack was very well received. IGN called it a "beautiful soundtrack that you'll find yourself listening to even after you're done with the game". In 2017 Fact magazine also listed it as one of the "100 best video game soundtracks of all time". It was also lauded by GameSpot, which awarded it the "Best PC Music awards",
| AdvGamers = 4.5/5
| Allgame = 4.5/5
| Edge = 9/10
| GameRev = A−
| GSpot = 9.3/10
| IGN = 9.4/10 Aggregating review website Metacritic gave the game a score of 94/100. The San Francisco Chronicle stated "Grim Fandango feels like a wild dance through a cartoonish film-noir adventure. Its wacky characters, seductive puzzle-filled plot and a nearly invisible interface allow players to lose themselves in the game just as cinemagoers might get lost in a movie." IGN summed its review up by saying the game was the "best adventure game" it had ever seen.
Next Generation reviewed the PC version of the game, rating it five stars out of five, and stated that "Grim Fandango is a smart, beautiful, and enjoyable adventure game that will leave you holding your breath waiting for Grim Fandango 2."
The game also received criticisms from the media. Several reviewers noted that there were difficulties experienced with the interface, requiring a certain learning curve to get used to, and selected camera angles for some puzzles were poorly chosen.
In 1999, Next Generation listed Grim Fandango as number 26 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time", commenting that, "Grim offered adventure fans funny, touching, and infuriating moments in following its characters, and it did so through a magnificently beautiful game."
Awards
Grim Fandango won several awards after its release in 1998. PC Gamer selected the game as the 1998 "Adventure Game of the Year". The game won IGNs "Best Adventure Game of the Year" in 1998, while GameSpot awarded it their "Best of E3 1998", "PC Adventure Game of the Year", "PC Game of the Year", "Best PC Graphics for Artistic Design", and "Best PC Music awards". GameSpot named Grim Fandango its Game of the Year for 1998, and in the following year included the game in their "Ten Best PC Game Soundtracks" and was selected as the 10th "Best PC Ending" by their readership. In 1999, Grim Fandango won "PC Adventure Game of the Year" during the AIAS' 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards (now known as the D.I.C.E. Awards); it was also nominated for "Game of the Year", "Computer Entertainment Title of the Year", "Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics", "Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development", and "Outstanding Achievement in Sound and Music".
Grim Fandango has been included in several publishers' "Top Games" lists well after its release. GameSpot inducted the game into their "Greatest Games of All Time" in 2003 citing, "Ask just about anyone who has played Grim Fandango, and he or she will agree that it's one of the greatest games of all time." GameSpy also added the game to their Hall of Fame in 2004, further describing it as the seventh "Most Underrated Game of All Time" in 2003. Adventure Gamers listed Grim Fandango as the seventh "Top Adventure Game of All Time" in 2004; in their 2011 list of "Top 100 All-Time Adventures" it was listed as #1. In 2007, IGN included the game in the "Top 25 PC Games" (as 15th) and "Top 100 Games of All Time" (at 36th), citing that "LucasArts' second-to-last stab at the classic adventure genre may very well be the most original and brilliant one ever made." Grim Fandango remained as the 20th in the Top 25 PC Games in IGNs 2009 list.
Lists of awards and rankings
{| class="wikitable"
|+ Awards and nominations
!Publication or ceremony
!Award name
!Result
!Year
!
|-
|PC Gamer
|Adventure Game of the Year
|
|1998
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
|rowspan=6 |GameSpot
|PC Adventure Game of the Year
|
|1998
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
| Micromanía
| Best game in the Adventure and RPG categories
|
|1998
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
|Game Critics Awards
|Best Action/Adventure Game (displayed at E3)
|
|1998
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
|rowspan=6 |Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences
|PC Adventure Game of the Year
|
|1999
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
|Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics
|
|1999
|style="text-align:center;"|
|-
|Computer Gaming World
| CGW's Hall of Fame
|Inducted
|2001
|
|-
|GameSpot
|Greatest Games of All Time
|Included in the list
|2003
|
|-
|Time
|All-Time 100 Greatest Video Games
|Included in list
|2012
|
|-
|GameSpot
|Best PC Ending (of all time)
|10th position
|2012
|
|-
|Empire
|The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time
|84th position
|2014
|
|-
|PC Gamer
|The PC Gamer Top 100
|21st position
|2014
| It debuted at #6 for the first week of November on PC Data's computer game sales charts, at an average retail price of $35. It was absent by its second week. In the United Kingdom, Grim Fandango claimed first place on Chart-Track's weekly sales chart in December, before falling to ninth place. It secured 12th after four weeks, and 24th at the 13-week mark. The game sold 58,617 copies and earned $2.33 million in the United States by the end of 1998, and rose to 95,000 sales there by March 2000, according to PC Data. Grim Fandango sold another 16,157 units in the region during 2001, and 8,032 in the first six months of 2002; its jewel case SKU reached 5,621 sales during 2003. According to Tim Schafer, the game achieved sales of approximately 500,000 units by 2012, around 50% fewer than Full Throttle had achieved. even though LucasArts stated that "Grim Fandango met domestic expectations and exceeded them worldwide". although Dave Grossman has said, "It was pretty ambitious and expensive, and I don't think it made very much money back."
While LucasArts proceeded to produce Escape from Monkey Island in 2000, they canceled development of sequels to Sam & Max Hit the Road and Full Throttle stating that "After careful evaluation of current market place realities and underlying economic considerations, we've decided that this was not the appropriate time to launch a graphic adventure on the PC." some of whom went on to set up Telltale Games, creating an episodic series of Sam & Max games. These events, along with other changes in the video game market towards action-based games, are seen as primary causes in the decline of the adventure game genre. Grim Fandango underperformance was seen as a sign that the genre was commercially "dead" to rival Sierra, as well. LucasArts stated in 2006 that they do not plan on returning to adventure games until the "next decade". Ultimately the studio stopped developing video games in 2013 after The Walt Disney Company acquisition of Lucasfilm, and was dissolved shortly thereafter.
Tim Schafer left LucasArts shortly after Grim Fandango release, and created his own company, Double Fine Productions, in 2000 along with many of those involved in the development of Grim Fandango. The company has found similar critical success with their first title, Psychonauts. Schafer stated that while there is strong interest from fans and that he "would love to go back and spend time with the characters from any game [he] worked on", a sequel to Grim Fandango or his other previous games is unlikely as "I always want to make something new." With the help of developers such as Double Fine and Telltale Games, adventure games saw a resurgence in the 2010s, with financially successful titles such as Broken Age, The Walking Dead, and The Wolf Among Us.
Remastered version
Grim Fandango Remastered has received similar positive reception as the original release, with many critics continuing to praise the game's story, characters, and soundtrack. They also found the developer's commentary to be very insightful to the history of the game. Reviewers were disappointed at the lack of an auto-save system, as well as the game not receiving a full high-definition upgrade, leaving the higher-resolution characters somewhat out of place with the original 3D backgrounds. The game's pacing, also unchanged from the original version, was also found harder to grasp, in both the pacing within the game's four acts, and the time taken to move around and between rooms. In his review for Eurogamer, Richard Cobbett warned players to "be careful of rose-tinted memories", that while the remastered version is faithful to the original, it does show aspects of the original game that have become outdated in video game development.
Legacy
In 2005, The Guardian characterized the game as "the last genuine classic to come from LucasArts, the company that helped define adventure games, Tim Schafer's noir-pastiche follows skull-faced Manny Calavera through a bureaucratic parody of the Land of the Dead. With a look that takes from both Mexican mythology and art deco, Grim Fandango is as unique an artistic statement as mainstream gaming has managed to offer. While loved by devotees, its limited sales prompted LucasArts to back away from original adventures to simply exploit franchises".
Eurogamer Jeffrey Matulef, in a 2012 retrospective look, believed that Grim Fandango combination of film noir and the adventure game genre was the first of its kind and a natural fit due to the script-heavy nature of both, and would later help influence games with similar themes like the Ace Attorney series and L.A. Noire. while the Museum of Modern Art seeks to install the game as an exhibit as part of its permanent collection within the Department of Architecture and Design.
The game was included in the "Game Masters" exhibition, organized in 2012 by the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI); an event devoted to explore the faces and the history behind computer games. Tim Schafer was featured as the creative force behind Grim Fandango, within the exhibition section called "Game Changers", crediting him along a few other visionary game designers for having "pushed the boundaries of game design and storytelling, introducing new genres, creating our best-loved characters and revolutionising the way we understand and play games".
Grim Fandango has been the centerpiece of a large fan community for the game that has continued to be active more than 10 years after the game's release. Such fan communities include the Grim Fandango Network and the Department of Death, both of which include fan art and fiction in addition to other original content.
In an interview with Kotaku after the announcement of the remaster, Schafer stated that he has long considered the idea of a Grim Fandango sequel to further expand on the setting of the game. He felt the story would be a difficult component, as either they would have to figure a means to bring Manny back from his final reward, or otherwise build the story around a new character. One option he has considered to alleviate the issue is by creating an adventure game using an open-world mechanic similar to the Grand Theft Auto series.
Notes
References
Sources
Further reading
- The Making of Grim Fandango Remastered by 2 Player Productions: Episode 1, Episode 2, Episode 3