This past Friday I completed one of my all time favorite games on stream for charity. In fact, I do it every year. The game already meant a lot to me, because it was one of the first games I have fond memories of. It also touches on my writing sensibilities. It's both well written, and funny, which is harder than you'd think to pull off in a video game.
However, now it holds an all new meaning. The first time I streamed on Twitch for real I played through Grim Fandango while my friend Noukeo got to see it for the first time. I've come a long way since then, and it's cool that my yearly playthrough of the game can now be something more by raising money for charity.
One thing that never ceases to amaze me is that I still find new things in each playthrough of the game I have, When the HD re-release of the game came out I found out that if you show Glottis an item you would never normally show him he bursts out into song. So, there is a point in the game when you get a piece of paper that says the rusty anchor, and a number on it. You're supposed to bring it to the tattoo parlor, because it's referring to one of the sample tattoos in the book there. It's cool, because there's no real reason you'd ever show Glottis the item, but if you do you're treated to a delightful little sea shanty!
We completed our playthrough of Grim Fandango and made a little bit of money for Extra Life in the process. Turns out people really like Grim Fandango, so I ended up getting more viewers than I expected. Anyways, if you weren't able to make it to the stream you can check it out in its entirety on YouTube. It took us about 7 hours and 40 minutes to get through it all, and it's split into five parts.
We had a super fun time doing this and I'm definitely going to do it again next year!
The day is here at last, and we're about to go live! Noukeo and I will be streaming an entire playthrough of Grim Fandango for Extra Life. Extra life is a yearly event where tons of people stream video games in order to collect money for Children's Miracle Network. We don't have a super huge following or anything, so we're hoping to get the modest sum of $100. Hopefully you can join us in our quest through the land of the dead and maybe even toss a little money to the kids!
Like I said we'll be going live in five minutes on my Twitch channel. If the link doesn't work you can get there at www.twitch.tv/drac96.
If you're in the giving mood you can visit out Extra Life donation page. I wrote a more in-depth explanation as to why we're doing this there. It also allows for you to donate right to the Children's Miracle Network. You can go here for that, or go to www.extra-life.org/participant/drac96
It takes around 12 hours to complete our journey through the land of the dead normally. I fully expect my laptop to overheat at some point and we'll probably need food. So expect a few delays during the stream while we try to figure those things out. It would be super nice if everything goes right!
E3 is a very exciting time of year for me and all video game fans. We get to see exactly what we have to look forward to in the coming months. I could recap everything that E3 has to offer so far, but there are tons of video game websites much more well equipped to do that than I am. The reason I'm writing this is to tell you about what I'm the most excited about from this year's E3. To me it doesn't even matter what else happens this year, because nothing else will affect me as much as a single game announcement did.
Normally I get excited for game announcements, but this time I lost my shit completely and I'm not even embarrassed to admit it. One of my favorite games of all time is Grim Fandango. Back in 1998 when Lucasarts was still around and at its peak Tim Schafer gave the world an amazing story about the land of the dead.
Adam Boyes got on stage and announced that Double Fine (Tim Schafer's Studio) and Disney (They own all the Lucasarts properties now) have gotten together and are going to release a remastered version of Grim Fandango which will debut on PS4. Tim has gotten on twitter since then to say that it will be coming to other platforms, which is awesome.
You might wonder why I'm so excited for a game that was released in 1998. The answer is that Grim Fandango has played a large part in my life. It's one of the driving factors behind my interest in video games and their stories. It's one of the few games that I can honestly say I will never forget. I've played it to completion at least once a year since it's initial release. I remember every puzzle by heart, and can recite almost all of the dialogue. I realize that this makes me sound like a crazy person and I'm willing to accept that.
"Sorry for the wait, Mr. Flores. I'm here to take you now."
What's weird is that I'm not even necessarily excited to play this new version myself. I'm excited that other people get to play this amazing game. It's an old PC game, which is hard to find. On top of that it can't even run on newer versions of windows without a special program. Now people will have the opportunity to see this awesome game without having to jump through hoops in order to do so.
The fact that I'm getting excited about new Grim Fandango information in 2014 is surreal. I don't even know what to think about this whole thing. All that matters is that Grim Fandango is being re-released and I could not be happier about it.
Note: Yes, I realize that the quote underneath the second screenshot should be Manny yelling at Glottis about his company car. However, I don't care.
Double Fine Productions is a video game developer that was founded by one of my heroes, Tim Schafer. He used to work for Lucasarts back in their heyday mostly making adventure games. He was the primary writer on Grim Fandango, which happens to be one of my favorite games (I play it once every year). It focuses on Skeletons in the land of the dead and it just so happens that the main character shares my name. If you haven't ever played it, I highly recommend that you do.
Grim Fandango is a game that everyone should play at least once.
In 2,000 he left Lucasarts to form his own studio known as Double Fine Productions. He went on to create the cult classic Psychonauts, which is about a summer camp for psychic children. There's something about the humor and look of his games that I really enjoy. I make it a personal point to buy every Double Fine game available to me, because I want them to be able to continue the great work that they do.
Double Fine has been all over in the ways they publish their games. They've partnered with THQ, and more recently Microsoft. In order to make more recent PC ports of their games they have accepted money from XE.com co-founder Steven Dengler. Within the past week, Notch the creator of the popular indie title Minecraft has offered to personally fund a sequel to Psychonauts 2.
There are many people in the world like Notch who claim that they would willingly fund a Double Fine Project. Most of the time people want any type of point-and-click adventure game. If Double Fine went to a publisher and pitched an adventure game they would most likely be laughed out of the meeting. The simple truth is that point-and-click adventure games don't make the kind of money most publishers are looking for in a game.
Look at this man! I'd certainly give him my money!
In order to skip the troublesome pitch to a publisher Double Fine has given fans the opportunity to put up or shut up. Tim Schafer put up a Kickstarter page yesterday evening. Kickstarter is a way for people with ideas to ask for money from anyone willing to fund that idea. Double Fine's idea was to create a new point-and-click adventure game and all they needed was $400,000. Just $300,000 dollars for the game's development (An extraordinarily small budget) and $100,000 dollars to film the entire development process for backers to see. They were hoping to raise the money in just over a month,with the timer set to 34 days.
This video explains everything you need to know about the project.
Turns out that Double Fine fans want to see a point-and-click adventure game really bad. In less than 24 hours the Double Fine Kickstarter page has amassed around $872,000 dollars, which is well over the target amount. It hasn't even been 24 hours yet, but it is already the highest amount of money any project on the site has gotten in a day, and it has the most backers of any project ever. There is no doubt that people will notice this amazing achievement. If things keep going the way they have been then Double Fine will have $1 million dollars before the day is up.
For just $15 dollars you will get a copy of the game when it's released and you'll have an exclusive look at the development. The page will be open for another 33 days, so I hope that everyone will continue to donate. I've donated $15, because this is a game that I can't allow myself to miss out on.
