Posts Tagged ‘Double Fine Productions’

Psychonauts In The Rhombus Of Ruin jacks into PC

Sure, you’ve jacked into someone’s mind to wander through their memories, but have you jacked into someone’s mind while jacked into cyberspace? You can now do just that in Psychonauts In The Rhombus Of Ruin. Double Fine’s VR spin-off from peachy physic platformer Psychonauts arrived on PC last night, supporting Rift and Vive cybergoggles, following its debut on PlayStation VR in February 2017. It’s set right after Psychonauts, bridging the gap to the upcoming full sequel Psychonauts 2, and looks a little something like this: Read the rest of this entry »

Tim Schafer to headline EGX Rezzed this April

Tim Schafer

You’re already attending this year’s EGX Rezzed, of course. But if you haven’t yet booked your ticket to That London so you can play all them lovely games, here’s a piece of news that should cause you to get on that, post-haste. Double Fine’s Tim Schafer – he of the simian islands and the tentacular days – is going to headline the event, taking part in a Q&A with Eurogamer editor Oli Welsh, along with meet-and-greet sessions throughout the three-day shindig. That interview’s happening at 12pm BST on Friday 13th April, and will also be streamed live on Twitch, if you can’t make it to Rezzed.

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The adorably ultraviolent Gang Beasts is fully out now

gang-beasts

Round up your chums for a spot of adorable ultraviolence, as the wonderful Gang Beasts has launched out of early access. Gang Beasts is a multiplayer arena fighting game where players will hurl each other off the tops of speeding trucks, out windows, and into industrial grinders, grabbing and grappling in physics-simulated fisticuffs. Pummel your pal into exhaustion, hoist them up, go to throw them out the arena, but they recover in time and grab onto the edge and somehow fling you out… it’s brutal and it’s funny. And it’s properly out now. Read the rest of this entry »

RPS Feature Remake or rebreak

When is it OK to remake a classic game?

monkey3

Adventure game remakes are common. But not everyone likes to see their old favourites revived. Mitch Kocen asked veteran point-and-clickmen Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer, among others, when they think it’s OK to remaster the classics

Without intervention, every video game you have ever loved will eventually become unplayable. The technology that enables the next generation of games cripples the last. At some point, systems simply can’t run slowly enough to support games made decades prior. For many years, it wasn’t possible to (legally) play older games without digging out the old computer gathering dust in your basement. Fortunately, there is a resurgence of classic games on modern hardware. These re-releases often come with new (or improved) graphics and sound, and sometimes include the option to view the game in its original form. Yet some creators are concerned that these changes compromise the game’s original artistic vision. Read the rest of this entry »

Rock out with Brütal Legend for free today

brutal

Brütal Legend, Double Fine’s heavy metal action-RTS hybrid, is completely free on the Humble Store. It was also free yesterday, so let’s pretend I told you about this 24 hours ago. Once you grab it, it’s yours to keep. You’ve still got a day and change to pick it up, so get on it. Read the rest of this entry »

Psychonauts 2 shows off first playable area and a goat

goat

Psychonauts 2 [official site] has hit a big development milestone: first playable. This means that Double Fine have put together a fully playable area where the platforming, dialogue, art and exploration are all implemented, even if they’re not in a finished state. And, importantly, it already looks quite fun.

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Clickuorice Allsorts: How Headlander’s look works

Headlander

You want to click on a thing that’s interesting to read RIGHT NOW? This Clickuorice Allsort is a beautiful-looking confection in the form of the art direction document for Double Fine’s head-swappy Metroidvania, Headlander! Writer and director, Lee Petty, lays out things like the game’s influences, and why particular stylistic choices were made – the use of the colour spectrum to accompany progress through levels, so red and orange for early on and blue/violet for later – BUT it also has all these explicit reminders to the team not to fall into common traps of the trade, like mistaking visual unity for uniformity. If you’re interested in art OR design OR Headlander OR all three there’s loads to pick through and enjoy here.

We’ll try to build up a bag of these Clickuorice Allsorts so you can dive in for an interesting nibble whenever you fancy…

RPS Feature Ideas generation

Tim Schafer tells the story of Amnesia Fortnight

“I started feeling a little bogged down by the scope of [Brutal Legend],” says Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine. “It was really huge and I felt like the team had been doing it for a long time and had a long way to go yet. I felt like they needed a break.”

That break was Amnesia Fortnight, a two week game jam during which anyone at the developer can pitch an idea and, if it’s selected, lead a team to turn it from concept to working prototype. Now in its tenth year, I spoke to Schafer about the jam’s benefits, pitfalls and how it’s changed over the years. Read the rest of this entry »

RPS Feature Bathos: The Game

Wot I Think: Everything

I am a spruce beetle. I call to two other spruce beetles nearby and now I am all of them. I tell them to dance and they begin to skitter of their own volition, making concentric circles and infinity signs and all manner of patterns. Each time a circle fills at the top of the screen – the only visible UI element – I press A in order to spawn another spruce beetle which joins in the dance. I do this for seventeen minutes, until there is a thrumming mass of spruce beetles. Eventually I’ve had enough and so I become a snowball.

This is what Everything [official site] is about.

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RPS Feature Puttin' My Lips on That

Wot I Think: Full Throttle Remastered

Full Throttle Remastered [official site] is the return of perhaps the most under-appreciated of the classic 90s LucasArts adventures. Double Fine’s remastering will hopefully go a long way to seeing it gain a reputation among a new generation. Here’s wot I think: Read the rest of this entry »

Vroom! Full Throttle Remastered roars out today

Today I’m wearing my leather jacket and trying to convince Cara to bop me with a plank then toss me into a bin, celebrating the launch of Full Throttle Remastered [official site]. Tim Schafer’s Double Fine Productions have updated and re-released LucasArts’ 1995 stonking adventure game, which Tim Tam led development on back in his LucasArts days. Parts of Full Throttle always niggled and annoyed but it rose well above them, and I’m hopeful that still holds true. I can’t think of any game in the past 22 years which has surpassed Full Throttle’s opening, for starters. Read the rest of this entry »

Everything in the RPS Cave of Wonders at Rezzed

Everything

This is a post with a very clever title! The last game featured in our RPS Cave of Wonders at Rezzed this week is Everything, David OReilly’s gorgeous interactive nature simulation where you can skip up or down in scale to make discoveries and roam an entire universe. BUT! It’s also a good point to remind you of everything that will be joining Everything in the cave, so read on for, well, Everything and everything: Read the rest of this entry »

Everything has the best animated animals anywhere

Everything [official site] is the new game from David OReilly, artist, director and creator of RPS’s favourite Mountain. We’ve already heard whispers about Everything, notably that it is coming to PS4 before Windows and Mac. Now, along with a lengthy new trailer, the release date has been announced. It’ll be coming to PS4 on March 21st and to Steam on April 21st.

But what is Everything? I’m not entirely sure, but I am in love with every single one of these animals and their outrageous methods of locomotion.

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Full Throttle Remastered rides again in April

The Polecats will ride again, with flash new jackets, on April 18th. That’s the release date announced today for Full Throttle Remastered [official site], Double Fine’s revamp of LucasArts’ fan-flipping-tastic 1995 adventure game about futurebikers. After 22 years, it still has one of the finest openings in games. Read the rest of this entry »

Cuteness overwhelming in Ooblets trailer

Every now and then, in this vast hall of GIFs we call the internet, I see the mini-monsters and dancing townsfolk of Ooblets [official site] and it makes me feel good about life. It’s an as-yet-unreleased game of farming, raising creatures, and living among the townsfolk of ‘Hubton’. “It’s sort of like Harvest Moon meets Pokémon meets Animal Crossing meets the weird awkward people we are,” say the creators at Glumberland. Now they’ve been picked up by publisher Double Fine and have released a new trailer to celebrate that fact. Good stuff.
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Psychonauts 2 peeks at pretty plants, picks up publisher

You like rocks? I’ll show you nice rocks. You like trees? I’ll show you nice trees. You like squirrels? I’ll show you nice squirrels. All these and more are in a new Psychonauts [official site] dev video showing an art test of a quarry environment. It’s not a finished level, just Double Fine feeling out the game’s style, but some pretty stuff is in there.

Over in the world of #business, Double Fine have announced that Psychonauts 2 will be published by Starbreeze, the Brothers and Payday mob. But first, look at these rocks. Read the rest of this entry »

A first peek at Full Throttle Remastered, a bit late

Reader dearest, I fall upon my sword before you. I hurl myself upon it. I take a running start and leap upon my sword. Through the teeth and past the gums, look out guts here it comes and I’m split from the skull down, intestines and shame and regret and apologies spill steaming upon the ground, dissolving into putrid black mucus the cold earth swallows to fester and feed the blooms of so many future mistakes.

Dearest reader o reader dear, while I was off tromping around lochs on my hols earlier this month, Double Fine shared a trailer peeking at Full Throttle Remastered [official site] and it’s taken me this long to notice. THE SHAME. Read the rest of this entry »

GNOG’s Puzzleheads Still Look Delightful

I am quite keen to rummage in the giant puzzleheads of GNOG [official site]. They’re teeny little rooms with plenty of things to press, pull, flip, open, rotate, lift, twist, twirl, plug in, and generally fiddle with. Developers Ko-op Mode have cited inspirations including Windosill and Polly Pocket toys and yes, that all sounds splendid. It looks gorgeous too. Check out this new trailer:

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RPS Feature And which games might do it...

Can Videogames Teach You Programming?

if(desire_to_program > 10)
    continue;
else
    return;

When I tell people I’m a programmer, I get that look. The glazed eyes, the polite smile, the clear desire to change topic. If I’m lucky, I’ll get pitched on an idea for the next killer mobile app that my conversation partner insists will make us rich; if I’m less lucky, I’ll get wrangled into providing free tech support for the rest of my life. The thing is, though, as impossible as it might sound, programming can be more fun than people realise. Fun enough to warrant its own video game genre, even.

Just how educational are these games, though? Is it really possible to become a programmer by playing games? I dug through Steam and came away with three promising candidates. Let’s take a look at them, and see whether they can really teach you skills to pay the bills.

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