Long Live Grim Fandango | Hacker News Reader

Long Live Grim Fandango

blog.longreads.com

182 pointsaaronbrethorst76 comments

>> "The game was built for Intel’s 386 processor; one year later, the 486 arrived. Computer games rely on a web of interlocking code that resembles more a cityscape of cards as opposed to a single, measly house. These new chips were too fast, and the difference in speed made this towering game tumble down."

Errrr..... This seems wrong. I played the original on a Pentium 2 box back in the day

Damned awesome game though, been meaning to replay it.

Here are the original game's system requirements, courtesy of Disney:

https://help.disney.com/articles/en_US/FAQ/What-are-the-syst...

Minimum CPU: Pentium @ 133 MHz

The video requirements are actually pretty long, but for the overwhelming majority of people who played this game back when it came out it all boiled down to one thing: 3DFX required.

I'm not sure if I played this on the Diamond Monster I or the Diamond Monster II 3DFX card, but I'm pretty sure it was one of those two.

For those young enough not to remember, the 3DFX chipset was on the first cards with logic specifically built for 3D rendering that was affordable for consumers. For the first couple of generations, you typically had to own a 2D graphics card (for all your usual stuff) and a 3D card. You would plug the video output from your 2D card into your 3D card, and then connect the output to your monitor. Running code that used the 3DFX's glide API would cause the 3D card to cut in and replace the 2D card's output with it's own. This is pretty ghetto by today's standards, but the step forward in graphics was amazing at the time!

My brother still has his 3DFX cards (Banshee, Voodoo Dragon, perhaps a Voodoo 2 as well?) Playing Screamer 2 with 3DFX acceleration and Need For Speed 2 SE with 3DFX was very impressive at the time, still great fun now (he keeps an old ancient Celeron around and runs Windows 98 on it for such vintage things)

Heh, yes indeed. I was privileged enough to own a Voodoo Rush card - their first all in one card with 2D and 3D on board... I was utterly amazed when I first played a 3D game on it.

3dfx. Now there is a name I haven't heard in a long long time.

I had a P1 133 but no 3D card and GrimFan was one of three popular games til 2001 that didn't run on that hardware (beside Quake 3, Outcast).

Funny, I don't remember having 3dfx, but maybe OpenGL/Direct3D was used?

I guess someone confused 1989 and 1998. 486 was released in 1989, Grim came 9 years later.

It's old, but nowhere near THAT old. If games like this were possible on 386's, it would have blown some minds.

There's some other odd time related mistakes in the article as well. Tim Schafer left LucasArts in 2000, but in 2015 he's "a decade into his own studio".

Yeah, I thought something was up with that, the 486 came out well prior...

Yeah, the game came out well after the launch of the Pentium. Any claim it was authored for the 386 is entirely false. They may be referring to a previous SCUMM/GRIMe game, perhaps?

(Disclosure: I've seen the game's source code)

Or maybe they mean (or misinterpret) it was written directly with 386 features in mind (like Doom...remember DOS extenders and protected mode?), not available on the 286 or 8088? A lot of companies were conservative at abandoning older processors.

But I don't remember these games being blazingly fast at all, even on Pentiums. Timing bugs did start appearing for some games (Sierra's Quest For Glory 4 is one of the most infamous ones for timing bugs in my head), but I thought these surfaced at least another generation or two later.

The processor types are incorrect, but Grim Fandango did rely on a mix of clock time and cycle count for the timing of automatic elevator doors, and faster CPUs made them unusable.

There was a puzzle involving an elevator that you simply could not solve on faster machines because the elevator moved too quickly. I think I had to patch my game because of that one.

How strange. Why didn't they use a timer? That is, on any machine you know how long 1 second is. From a developer perspective that doesn't change if you bump up the CPU clock speed, else "clocks" wouldn't work.

Loop counting is usually done for fast (and not so time dependent) timers

Yeah, an OS timer is the "official" solution, but that might not have been practical for a multitude of reasons

Shortlist that for the worst analogy ever written.

yeah it was definitely not in the 386/486 era. Another author who does not check what he's writing about... :/

The game was recently remastered and released on Steam. It's an incredible game, with some of the wittiest writing I've seen, and I couldn't recommend it more highly.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/316790/

It's also on GOG DRM-free: https://www.gog.com/game/grim_fandango_remastered

It's on GOG, Humble Store and Steam, but GOG got special acknowledgement https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swrIN5yIaOk : Grim Fandango was #1 on GOG's community wishlist http://www.gog.com/wishlist for a long time and it seems this had something to do with the new edition.

Yeah, I saw that. Good to see Tim Schafer ridiculing DRM :)

I always thought he'd be that way. I remember an old copy of The Secret of Monkey Island had a comic take on anti-piracy protection [1].

[1] - https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/df/Secret_of_Mon...

Ironically, growing up in the Third World when software legality wasn't even a thing yet and game stores only sold cracked copies on Maxell floppies with handwritten labels, Monkey Island was the first -and for a long time, the only- game I bought in the official box.

Runs on Linux - official Ubuntu 14.04 compatibility.

I'm playing it on Debian testing - works fine, except for that XFS bug.

oh hey - sorry for the OT question. But how has Debian Testing worked out for you ? Are you able to install it on UEFI laptops, systemd, working well, etc ?

Debian installers have been a pain last time I used it and have been worried to go anywhere near them

New Debian installer (for Jessie) handles UEFI / GPT just fine. I use systemd for a long time already. Besides some minor issues like warnings if you have swap defined in fstab and with partition flag, I don't have any issues with it.

You can get the installer here: http://cdimage.debian.org/cdimage/jessie_di_rc1/amd64/iso-dv... (just take the first image and write it on a USB drive - it's hybrid).

I usually select KDE inside the installer (it gives such option) and after installation repoint repositories to testing proper.

"remastered" -> a lot of the assets were not really remastered. I know that is what they are calling it but they are overselling the actual changes.

So? It's not called Grim Fandango Every Single Asset Remastered. They updated the controls, made hi-res versions of all the character textures, added dynamic lighting, re-recorded the entire score with a full orchestra, and of course made it run smoothly on modern machines. It would have been nice if they could have updated all the backgrounds as well, but I think what's there counts as "remastered" by any reasonable definition.

Let's not forget the awesome director's commentary (options menu to enable, press Z to activate near any object that lights it up)

> They updated the controls, made hi-res versions of all the character textures, added dynamic lighting, re-recorded the entire score with a full orchestra, and of course made it run smoothly on modern machines

You forgot one thing: they updated the price as well. Instead of costing 5 dollars like every game older than 10 years mostly does, it's 15. But hey, there's no little profit, and they got a lot of free press coverage on top of that just because it was a miserable mess before to run this game on modern computers (Thanks ResidualVM folks for doing their work).

So that's the real issue? You're bitter that they're charging all of $15 for what's been called the best adventure game ever made?

I don't think that's what he said or meant.

I just bought it. Only found out about the remastered version thanks to this post on HN today. Basically I wanted to show the game to my kids a few years ago. The original CD was not playable on XP with a computer roughly 10x faster than the one I had played it on years ago. There were forums with all sorts of patches and help in getting it to run and run well enough to be playable and enjoyable, but I just decided it was not worth all the time and trouble. This GoG version was worth $15 to me. I think I paid like $40 plus tax back in the day and that's when $40 felt like a WHOLE lot more for me.

I haven't tried ResidualVM yet, but do have my original Grim Fandango CD so am looking forward to trying it out.

I think this impression is mainly due to the original background assets being unavailable to be re-rendered at a higher resolution, which is unfortunate. The textures though have been remade, a new lighting engine added, and the music re-recorded. A three part behind the scenes featurette details some of the process [1].

[1] (Part 3) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0g6ub2-E8eY#t=61

Correct. It just comes with upscaled background pictures and remastered video files.

The steering on PC with no mouse support is as bad as ever. All adventure games used the mouse as input method, GrimFan tried to change that and failed - dumb decision for a otherwise very good game. The 2D backgrounds are in 4:3 as in the original (only the figures are in 3D).

One can play the original GrimFan on Win7 64bit with no issues.

So they remastered the video, but also rerecorded some of the music with an orchestra, and they also redid the textures on the 3d models (e.g., Manny's face), and added mouse support (based on the fan mod).

I thought I read that they added mouse controls for this remake, but I haven't tried it so can't confirm.

They did, it at least has point and click added on PC, I think it has Telltale style drag controls too but I'm not certain.

It was also released on PS4 and PS Vita. I'm rather curious to know what the "best" platform to play it on is.

PS4: https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-us/games/gr...

PS Vita: https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-us/games/gr...

I got it for my PS4 and I think it controls great.

The only problem I do have is that because it lacks a manual, there is no tutorial for anything. It doesn't take many button guesses to figure out what they do, but it just throws you into the game. Took me about half an hour to realize you can run if you hold R1. But this is not a fault of the game's controls, just a lack of button layout by me.

Awesome, good to know! I was considering getting it on PS4 but I wasn't sure how well the adventure game style actually translates to that. Your comment makes me feel comfortable enough getting it there.

Speaking of manuals, I could swear that I once accessed a manual for a PS4 downloadable game. But I've never since been able to figure out how I did that, to the point where I question whether it ever even happened. But it seems absurd to believe that they decided that games simply don't need manuals. I get that console games are trending towards having a very minimalistic manual in the game box (often just a page with the control layout), but not every game does that.

Ars just had a write-up on the remake as well.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/01/grim-fandango-remaster...

A significant portion of Grim Fandango was written in Lua 2.5! Here is a followup talk from the developer in 2005: http://www.lua.org/wshop05/Mogul.pdf

They also used the engine for Escape from Monkey Island. What's neat about that is the first 3 games had the SCUMM Bar (SCUMM being the scripting language used for those games), which ends up getting replaced by a tropical-themed Lua Bar in Escape.

Somewhere I read that GF implements game saves by serializing the whole Lua heap.

Good idea, serialization is a good technique when you don't need to switch architectures.

Nitpick from a Mexican raised in Mexico: we never say "día de los muertos". This is a literal back translation of English of "Day of the Dead". We say "día de muertos", without the "los".

The only times I see "día de los muertos" is in English-language media.

Oops, looks like I spoke too soon. I do see the "los" version now, but it's far less frequent than the one without:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3A%22jornada.unam.mx%22+...

https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3A%22reforma.com%22+%22d...

Maybe the English back translation is making its way into Mexico? Maybe it always was there? Who knows. It sounds weird to me, as if you were speaking of a particular group of dead people instead of all of the dead, but maybe usage has changed or it always existed.

Quite possible that the difference is due to Mexican-American influence in the Southwest US where the holiday is celebrated.

FYI my high school spanish teacher (who grew up in New Mexico but was Hispanic) always called it Dia de los Muertos.

I've always wanted to play this and never got around to it. Would someone who's played both Grim Fandango and Secret of Monkey Island (one of my all-time favorite games, also released by LucasArts about 8 years prior to Grim) be willing to provide their comparison of the two?

I played Escape from MI (which I am assuming is kiiiinda similar to Secret of MI) and Grim Fandango. Loved both.

* possible spoiler alert *

Both are puzzle kind of games. There isn't anything like the insult fighting in GF. Both storylines are fascinating and suck you right in. Great voice acting and sidekicks. I think (if I recall correctly) both games make you travel to different places.

I found that GF moved me a lot more emotionally than MI (subjective, yeah) and I think it's probably because the GF storyline is a little darker/serious (not to say it didn't have funny moments). When I finished MI, I felt accomplished. When I felt GF, I felt like I was saying goodbye to friends that I'm not sure I would ever see again. That kind of feeling.

I could go on and on, but I don't want to spoil it too much more. :)

> When I felt GF, I felt like I was saying goodbye to friends that I'm not sure I would ever see again. That kind of feeling.

To me playing GF felt like reading a really, really enjoyable novel. The plot really stands up on its own. While in MI you travel back and forth different places to do various things, GF has a bit more of a journey feel to it, and you can see the main character learning and developing along the way.

Thanks! I highly recommend the first MI game since you haven't played it. It was my favorite in the series.

Thanks! I'll need to check it out for sure. I wanted to do all of them in the MI series but didn't get around to it. Lately I've been trying to play through some old games so I will put that on my list.

Escape was probably the weakest of all the MI games and hasn't aged as well Grim Fandango or any of the other MI games due to its art style and the early 3D engine.

The Curse of Monkey Island still looks amazing (if low-res), as does Full Throttle. I'd love to see the return of big-budget games with 2D art.

If you enjoy both, be sure to check out Psychonauts, also by Tim Schafer. One of the best games ever made, and extremely story-driven although more of a platformer than a traditional point-and-click adventure.

They're both excellent games: well written, with engaging gameplay (assuming one enjoys the adventure-game format; some don't). Beyond that, they're trying to do different things.

Monkey Island is laugh-out-loud funny. It's very much a comedy game, with gags and a ridiculous world.

Grim Fandango is more subdued. It does have funny bits, but they're more in the absurdity of the situation. It has a lot of /style/ and attention paid to evoking a particular noir-esque mood.

the basic lucasarts adventure game style is there but the biggest difference apart from its style is also one of grims only problems: its controls, they are made for a gamepad and relational movement of the character as opposed to the classic point&click (with residualVM there is a hack available to make it point&click which works surprisingly well)

it can be a bit clunky to get used to it.

despite that, while TSOMI is one of the best adventuregames of all time, grims story, characters, style and music elevate it beyond just the medium of games. this is a cultural masterpiece of that time

The Remastered edition enables standard point-and-click controls, I believe.

This is definitely one of my all time favourite games. The atmosphere and story are top notch. Good to see it being revitalized.

Interesting to note that remastered version requires OpenGL 3.3, which makes it unsuitable for Intel GPUs older than Sandy Bridge.

Tim Schafer has also made a new point and click game: Broken Age http://www.brokenagegame.com/

It drew quite a bit of ire when, after a wildly overfunded Kickstarter campaign in 2012, they missed their deadline by a year, only to deliver a short "Act 1" instead of a full game. After yet another year, the rest of the game still remains to be completed.

Not to mention that Double Fine then went on to start Spacebase DF-9, which despite a successful Kickstarter relied on a paid alpha model[0] via the Steam Early Access program to fund the ongoing development and was eventually canned[1] when it didn't meet the monthly sales numbers they depended on to finance the project.

[0]: Sadly they didn't really communicate that they were relying on continuous funding for development and had to use most of the Kickstarter funds to pay back the initial investment. This miscommunication resulted in a lot of bad blood because many fans had assumed the Kickstarter funds would pay for the future development rather than the development that had already happened.

[1]: Well, they just called it "1.0" and released it, but calling it a finished product would be absurd. It's barely playable, has game-breaking bugs and contains only a fraction of the gameplay that was originally proposed.

I'm playing it now for the first time (GOG release). It's a great game.

If you have a large XFS partition however (1+TB) it will fail to run. For a workaround see: https://www.gog.com/forum/grim_fandango_remastered/grim_fand...

one of the best games ever. play it.

This is what I was really excited about when I first heard about Lucas selling everything to Disney.

Brings back memories of reading the article in PC Gamer. OpenGL has come a long ways

The problem with that article - it's too long.

Are they creating new version of Grim Fandango? (The original game was really great!).

Were you expecting something wildly different on a site called 'longreads'?

Perhaps there is a market for "condensedlongreads"?

I am thinking about that too

pretty sure they call that "the rest of the internet".

:) +1

I didn't notice

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