Mod Removes Grim Fandango Tank Controls, World Cheers

While incredible, Grim Fandango's relationship with the modern era is a complicated one. Foremost, there is no easy way to purchase it digitally, which sadly signals its death knell in the eyes of many more convenience-minded folks. But even if you opt to acquire it and get it up and running, there's still the issue of, you know, playing your videogame. Rose-tinted glasses might see only Grim Fandango's sterling personality and solid puzzles, but there is a third suspect in the room: terribly awkward tank controls, you're under arrest. You have the right to remain silent, you have the right to an attorney, and no just kidding we're tossing you in a furnace.

All credit goes to modder Tobias Pfaff, who replaced Grim's grimy control scheme with a more classic point-and-click interface. He explained:

"I got annoyed by the Grim Fandango's tank controls, so I made a classical point&click interface. The game is now 100% playable with mouse only (bugs to be expected, though)."

"As the game was never intended to be used with mouse control, and contains a lot of puzzles with non-standard controls, this required massive modifications of both ResidualVM and the game source. Some of the RVM edits may have unintended consequences for other games and platforms, so I think it's better to keep the codebase separate."

You can download the mod here, though it might require a fairly significant amount of fiddling to get up and running. But still: Grim Fandango without controls that make it irritating as all get-out to interact with basic objects. Hurrah!

Has anyone tried this yet? Does it work well? Also, where is a Steam or GOG version of Grim Fandango? I'm guessing the rights belong to Disney now, so that doesn't bode well. Perhaps I'll do some snooping, but I'm less than optimistic.