Grim Fandango being remastered for PS4 and Vita

[Ben X]

Yeah, like I said, I was operating on the assumption that they don't want to just go that way and have invisible walls or Manny insta-teleporting a few feet between certain screens - I might be wrong but although it's not noticeable in that video, I think it would be in at least some areas when you're playing the game...Also, wouldn't there be situations where the original game allows an animation to take place partially offscreen (or a character exits screen left or right), whereas it would get cut off in this version?

 

Again, I'm not saying they won't do widescreen, just that it'll be more effort than just doing what the maker of that video did, which was to photoshop some extra bg and slap the 4:3 in the middle of it. Even then he had issues:

 

Yes, you're right But it wasn't as easy as I (and you) thought it would be. There are a lot times when objects go outside the screen, and then you have to make something out of nothing and motion track it. Like the initial tube shake, little flag notifier and Many's hand holding the letter. The inventory screen was a real nightmare: Many's arm always has 3 specific positions in each movement, and different movements for each inventory item. Plus, his arm rotates in each of those key positions... so in the end I gave up on motion tweening and did the thing frame by frame.

[Professor Video Games]

It was kind of mentioned in the latest podcast but what I'd love to see is commentary from Schafer et al. It would give me a good reason to go back through a game I've already played multiple times.

[tegan]

I thought this video showed that Grim could go widescreen without much change to the underlying structure. It means Manny never walks off screen since the camera would cut at 4:3 edges, but I think that would be totally fine. I don't notice it in the video.

 

Maybe it's just because I've never played Grim Fandango, but man is it surreal to watch an adventure game character just do adventure game things with nothing to indicate player input.

[Zeusthecat]

Maybe it's just because I've never played Grim Fandango, but man is it surreal to watch an adventure game character just do adventure game things with nothing to indicate player input.

 

I found it a bit weird at first but after getting used to it, I thought it was pretty impressive how clearly they managed to communicate what you could interact with based purely on what Manny looked at as you walked around. I do prefer EMI's style where each of the items you can interact with in your immediate vicinity are also shown as text at the bottom of the screen but I think GF's environments were laid out well enough that the 'look' mechanic by itself was perfectly adequate.

[mikemariano]

I found it a bit weird at first but after getting used to it, I thought it was pretty impressive how clearly they managed to communicate what you could interact with based purely on what Manny looked at as you walked around. I do prefer EMI's style where each of the items you can interact with in your immediate vicinity are also shown as text at the bottom of the screen but I think GF's environments were laid out well enough that the 'look' mechanic by itself was perfectly adequate.

 

Manny has a gigantic head, just like Link in Wind Waker, so it was easy to notice his focus.  Guybrush's focus was much more difficult to interpret.

[Bjorn]

Maybe it's just because I've never played Grim Fandango, but man is it surreal to watch an adventure game character just do adventure game things with nothing to indicate player input.

 

I love both that and the inventory system because of how not gamey they feel (even though the look thing ends up creating some really silly poses for him). 

[syntheticgerbil]

I like the way Glottis' mouth animates, it's just when he opens it wide and you can see the gaps through to his body that it looks iffy.

The character's lips are all animated by code and not actual animators, so it's no big deal to lose or redo.

 

Except apparently Glottis' mouth is animated by a person for the Rusty Anchor song according to the recent Tim Schafer playthrough.

[Ben X]

Yeah, they used that Microsoft Clippy lip sync thing, right? (Except for certain bits like the Rusty Anchor song etc). What I meant was I like the style it's done in - ie a flat texture in the same manner as the skeleton faces for the most part. I think someone was talking about changing that to a polygonal mouth...

 

EDIT:

 

 

He has a very big one that stretches across his face, so the animation needs more frames in it for it to look good. At that point, it's probably easier to just give him a polygonal mouth; he already clashes with the world as a big orange demon, so it hopefully won't look jarring compared to the skeletons.

[syntheticgerbil]

Oh, I'm not even sure why I posted then.

 

Also I find it bizarre that for all of these years people have been using some algorithm for automatic lip sync. I seriously thought everyone did that by hand in games. I feel dumb.

[dibs]

I have just noticed that two people on here have Christmas themed Grim Fandango avatars. I think before I just merged you into one person before.

It's fine, they are both from the mainland, who can ever tell them apart.

[SecretAsianMan]

We all knew this was coming... but I'm gonna say it anyway.

 

FUCK YES!

[Jutranjo]

We all knew this was coming... but I'm gonna say it anyway.

 

FUCK YES!

 

But it's still exclusive right? Exclusively first announced for Sony's shit. Still the only exclusive console it's on?

[SuperBiasedMan]

I like how in the article that announces it coming to PC, they still plug it as a console exclusive.

[Merus]

Are there not false advertising laws for this kind of thing?

[Ben X]

It's the article writer phrasing it that way, plus it says "the game is a console exclusive for the PlayStation platforms", so even though it's badly-written/hamstrung by the silliness of the term exclusive, I think it's pretty clear it means that on consoles it will be exclusive to Sony.

 

Will Sony keep it as exclusive to them on consoles forever, do we think?

[syntheticgerbil]

It's exclusive to receiving some Sony money for production... right?

[Merus]

It's the article writer phrasing it that way, plus it says "the game is a console exclusive for the PlayStation platforms", so even though it's badly-written/hamstrung by the silliness of the term exclusive, I think it's pretty clear it means that on consoles it will be exclusive to Sony.

 

Will Sony keep it as exclusive to them on consoles forever, do we think?

 

I think that, while it's possible to work out how it's not quite false, it's still trading on the meaning of 'exclusive' that they're not actually meaning. When you say 'exclusive to', people take it to mean 'only available to' and then have to work out how you don't actually mean that.

[SecretAsianMan]

I don't blame the writer for using the term "exclusive" misleadingly because at this point the term has been used so poorly by Microsoft, Sony, and tons of game developers that it's almost lost all meaning.  I'm sure Sony themselves will say it's "exclusive on console" or some other equally ambiguous phrase.

[Ucantalas]

"Exclusive to things that play games!"

[SuperBiasedMan]

Well I was under the assumption that the phrase was actually required in the press release info that was being sent out, rather than the writer feeling like it was the best way to describe it in the article.

[BigJKO]

I have a feeling they're not sticking to the press release to the letter, because they keep calling it a remake while DF always call it specifically a 'remaster' which, presumably, is to keep people from expecting a fully remade Grim Fandango..

[Udvarnoky]

It was meant to be a console exclusive for Sony, surely.  I'm (happily) surprised that the PC release is revealed to be simultaneous, which would further obviate the kneejerk outrage from the kneejerk outragers.

 

Hope to see some screenshots of this soon.  Also, what happened to those retail releases of Psychonauts, Costume Quest and Stacking (I think?) that were meant to have been put out by Nordic Games (aka the nineteenth parent company to have absorbed Dreamcatcher) some time ago?

[Ben X]

I think that, while it's possible to work out how it's not quite false, it's still trading on the meaning of 'exclusive' that they're not actually meaning. When you say 'exclusive to', people take it to mean 'only available to' and then have to work out how you don't actually mean that.

 

Sure, I'm only talking about this specific article of which the central point is that there's a PC release. If Sony themselves are using the term "console exclusive" in such a way that it's not clear it's on these other platforms at some point, that's a bit ropey.

[melmer]

New making of episode 2

iGrim

Episode 1 if ya missed it

[Ben X]

That's fantastic news regarding the cutscene assets!