Maybe a better URL could be: http://gameshelf.jmac.org/2008/11/grim-fandango-puzzle-desig...

Agreed. Grim Fandango is a game that's all about the setting and characters. For that alone it's a masterpiece. But the puzzles... ehh..

Well worth playing the remastered version. It makes the control a bit more bearable but otherwise feels like the original.

Soundtrack is dope as well

Majora’s Mask is fantastic

Do it, it's a beautiful work of art.

It's well worth playing despite the many years passed since its release. I first played it in 2020 (despite knowing of it since its initial release), and had an absolute blast of a time.

I have never played through Grim Fandangoo in full, but in my peer group memes from this game permeated so thoroughly that when I see a pigeon I will too often end up shouting at it, "Run you pigeons! It's Robert Frost".

Unique game. Also to think that they pulled out that beautiful 3D toon feel before toon shaders were made.

Same for most LucasArt games, Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Islands, and the others

I first played it in my 40s when the remaster came out, and it's one of the best games I've played. It holds up incredibly well, particularly with the modernized controls.

So if anyone is wondering if this is just nostalgia, or if the game actually holds up, it's the latter. Just play it.

You're missing out; give the Remastered/Extended/whatever edition a try

It is funny to think that even back then people just didn't put up with bad controls. Like Elder Scrolls Redguard, amazing game for the time but the lousiest controls ever. Megaman Legends also comes to mind.

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.

I also remember the criticism of Full Throttle, but it always rang hollow to me: a game is not just the puzzles, and also some people complained about the action sequences, but for me they were welcome (even if too easy). Everything about the game is golden: the setting about bikers (how cool is that?), the 2D pixel animation, the amazing voice acting and the opening by the Gone Jackals. I fell in love with the game back then, and I still like it on replays.

Same, it's one of those things that stays with you for life.

For similar feels, check out Disco Elysium

Planescape Torment

and almost anything by Amanita Design

Absolutely this. The game is a prime example of how characters can drive engagement.

Looks like Tom Schafer style; I find him whimsical and funny in all of his communication. I don't think it's a stretch that this aspect extends to nom-public communications.

Design document, from the page that links this pdf (http://gameshelf.jmac.org/2008/11/grim-fandango-puzzle-desig...):

"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."

It's a game design document.

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.

Looks like a GDD but just for the puzzles, a PDD

Yes. Literally one of the best.

The small square box at the very end of the document, with accompanying text, is just delightful:

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.

Always fascinating to peek behind the curtain at how these classics were built. Grim Fandango had some truly brilliant, and occasionally maddening, puzzles.

I came here to post just this.

That GDC talk just showed up on my YouTube frontpage this morning and I watched it. And now I check HN and here we are.

Seems like ultimately they aren't actually able to track us as well as they claim.

Not a coincidence. Submitting references and sources is a bit of a HN cheat code.

I've been playing most of Lucas Arts games with my 10 y/o daughter. Grim Fandango is the one she has liked the best. It is not perfect, has lots of bugs (crashed on several occasions) and weird things, but the atmosphere is so cool.

Monkey Island comes second of course.

"This report by its very length defends itself against the risk of being read" Winston H. Churchill

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.

Nice, Tim Schafer is someone whose writing I really admire, if you haven't checked it out yet Double Fine (the studio he leads) documented the entire (7 year!) development cycle of Psychonauts 2 in a 32 episode documentary series, and it in my opinion one of the best documentaries ever made. It covers a lot of cool stuff, like Covid, them getting acquired by Microsoft, big project leadership struggles. It's long as hell but it is really worth your time if you have an interest in creative work in large teams.

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)

Agreed. I actually didn't find it buggy when I bought it in 1998. I loved the box art.

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.

Obligatory link to The Digital Antiquarian's treatment of the game:

https://www.filfre.net/2024/11/grim-fandango/

Absoltely crazy amount of detailed work

Grim Fandango was one of the first games I bought out of my own pocket. And as was the norm back then, this used up all my games budget for months, so I had to stick to this game, for better or worse, for a long time. I remember it took me a very long time to even find the Tube Room, it's easy to miss unless you do the 3D equivalent of pixelhunting to find the place where you need to take a turn. And boy, was I stuck in Rubacava!

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.

I would sometimes just let the game idle at the casino level and just listen to the mellow jazz. That game was a piece of art.

Nope, they integrated their sister project, ResidualVM, that does 3d

Some are, but I'm Danish and I think they translated any of the games to that :)

My favorite game of all time. This is awesome

Interesting so much

Grim Fandango is interesting because they are responsible for Lua’s popularity as a gaming scripting language:

https://www.lua.org/doc/hopl.pdf

Peter Chan was the concept artist for this game (as well as several other LucasArts and Double Fine ones)

Nostalgia activated. I now have to play Grim Fandango! Loved that game!

I wonder how does this fits in the general Game development pipeline

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'll bite.

    - 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.

It's the theme and characters. Remember this game predates Coco by a lot!

If the Day of the Dead setting does nothing for you, then you'll dislike the game. But if it intrigues you, you'll likely love it.

The puzzles are arbitrary, it's not really what the game is about.

If you look at the 2nd to last page of the PDF you can see Tim Schafer's deception where he hadn't actually designed the ending puzzle by the time the document was due.

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.

I'm glad I used a walkthrough when playing the game, because even after beating it I still have no idea how the hell the Chain puzzle worked.

Brilliant game, so much soul and character... I wish we could get another game in the same universe.

don't remember where I found this, but here is the viewing list for the movies that inspired the game. It has Tim put his viewing notes in it

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YsollH04QK9si9uEm3VXZWT0snH...

This is one of those masterpieces that I'm surprised hasn't been scooped up by Netflix and turned into a movie.

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.