Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Update: Minecraft-master Markus ‘Notch’ Persson has been publicly trying to get Tim Schafer’s attention today, saying “Let’s make Psychonauts 2 happen” and confirming to us that he’s serious. Who knows what, if anything, will come of this – but how exciting, eh?

Ah, the fine art of reporting on non-events: not news as such, but they make us go all misty-eyed and slightly sad. In this case, it’s Double Fine’s Tim Schafer revealing that he would gladly make another Psychonauts game, but no-one will give the studio the money they need for it. Aaaaaaaaaaaargh!
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When Costume Quest arrived on PC, I hoped it meant Doublefine loved us again. Now, in a characteristically jolly announcement during the X-Play Best of 2011 awards, it has been revealed that the beautifully characterised and wonderfully inventive Stacking is on its way too. All that remains is to sulk until Trenched Iron Brigade stomps onto PC as well. Stacking, for those who do not know, is a game wherein the player controls “Charlie Blackmore, the world’s tiniest Russian stacking doll” and “jumps into more than 100 unique dolls”. It’s set within one of the finest worlds I’ve played around in for some time. The news happens in the video below. Skip to 1.02 to get straight to it.

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Obviously we’ve known that Ron Gilbert has been working with/at Tim Schafer’s Double Fine for over a year now, but ON WHAT we’d regularly scream at the sky. Then Double Fine revealed they were basically ignoring the PC for all their games, and we crossed them out of our Christmas lists and spank banks, and got on with our lives. Then they threw us all by releasing Costume Quest on PC, raising hopes that further projects will also reach our shores. So it is that I hold hope in my belly that this Gilbert/Schafer project will be adorned by my PC. Because apparently it’s an idea that predates even Maniac Mansion.

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Psychonauts unexpectedly updated itself on Steam today, adding achievements and cloud saves. For our Macintosh brethren, there’s super-exciting news in that the game is now available on OSX, so you too can neglect to buy it. To ensure that your portable iDevices won’t be jealous when they see the mindscapes you’re traversing, Doublefine have also released a Memory Vault Viewer app, which has all the memory slides with new commentary by Tim Schafer and Scott Campbell. Along with the other Steamy updates, there’s also a difficulty tweak to one area of the game. Guess which one? I’ll tell you, but only if you click for more.

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So Double Fine’s Tim Schafer said Activision’s Bobby Kotick was a prick and then Bobby Kotick said Tim Schafer was rubbish and he’d never even met him anyway and then Tim Schafer said Bobby Kotick was stupid and mean, and before that Bobby Kotick said EA were rubbish and mean and then EA’s Jeff Brown said Bobby Kotick was rubbish and mean and now I don’t know what to think about anything and everyone seems mean and angry and I’m so confused about who’s a goodie and who’s a baddie and I wish people would just make nice games instead of calling each other names across the internet.

For God’s sakes! How does this help anything? And we wonder why the games industry doesn’t get taken seriously by the mainstream media.

(Pic source)

Which isn’t much of a story, until Kotaku reveal that the staffmember is in fact Ron “Monkey Island” Gilbert, being hired by Tim “Monkey Island” Schafer. The interview is really worth reading for the gags alone, but basically Gilbert was working in the Double Fine office (As he hates working from Home) and Schafer offered him the gig to make what they were talking about. This fits neatly into Doublefine’s current many-small-games biz plan. RPS will look forward to the announcement of the game, doing several posts until the fact it’s a console exclusive is revealed and then rolling our eyes and wondering why we bother writing about Double Fine when they bit our pretty red heart in two, Daddy, Daddy, You Bastard, etc.

Tim Schafer may be long-gone to console-land these days, but that doesn’t mean he’s forgotten the PC adventure game roots that made him. As anyone who follows him on Twit-witter knows, he’s been sharing his thoughts, memories and mild horror about Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge as he plays through the Special Edition. It’s as close as you’re likely to get to a director’s commentary [edit - ah. There is one with the SE. Didn't play it yet, see. Oh well, this is still new stuff, and wonderfully pithy] for the revered pointer-clickerer. Some highlights of what’s clearly the man having a great time with one of his old creations are below.
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Ah, yes. I return from a day of adventuring. Alec’s doing a post about Gameswipe, bless him. In which case, I’ll draw your attention to something which emerged over the weekend. Tim Schafer was hired 20 (count ‘em!) years ago as a designer. He does a post including some splendid rejection letters, as well as reciting the awesome Ballblazer Story. I said the word “ball”. You have to go and read that, yes? No, yes. Yes.

Eurogamer conducted a live interview with Mr Tim Schafer this afternoon. You can read the results over here, but a couple of points more pertinent to our fields are highlighted below. The major headline would be: Brutal Legend definitely isn’t coming to PC, despite all our mewling and whining. There’s also some interesting comments about his thoughts on the potential for a Grim Fandango sequel.

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It’s the season of GDC award ceremonies. RPS isn’t going to be there. We don’t like other people and, more relevantly, other people don’t like us so we don’t get invites. Or, at least, invites which don’t read “DIE SCUM” in what we believe is blood. So Double Fine’s new online mini adventure Host Master And The Conquest Of Humour is the closest we’re going to get to hanging back stage with Tim Schafer. It’s a one room affair – or at least, it is for me – with you playing Tim, trying to collect enough jokes to make through his presentation. And, suffice to say, Jokes are found along the way. I got 11 of them, and apparently there’s 22. Where’s the rest? I don’t know. I’ve got three items left and nowhere left unturned. Gahk! I’m going to stop and play the Path. That’ll show you, Doublefine. That’ll show you.

Er… you have a try here.

Here’s some news that probably shouldn’t be here. But it’s such good news that we’ll extend our optimism that Schafer’s just playing hard to get for a moment longer. Brütal Legend has a publisher. A publisher that had bloody well better tell him to release the game on PC.

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