Grim Fandango

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Grim Fandango
Developer(s)	LucasArts
Publisher(s)	LucasArts
Designer(s)	Tim Schafer
Engine	GrimE
Latest version	1.01 December 15, 1998
Release date(s)	September 30, 1998
Genre(s)	Adventure game
Mode(s)	Single player
Rating(s)	ELSPA: 11+ ESRB: Teen
Platform(s)	Windows 95 / 98 / ME / XP
Media	CD (2)
System requirements	Intel Pentium 133 MHz CPU, 32 MB RAM, 30 MB hard disk space, 2 MB PCI graphics card, 4 MB AGP/PCI 3D graphic accelerator
Input	Keyboard or joystick

Grim Fandango is a graphical adventure computer game released by LucasArts in 1998, the title derived from a line of a mournful poem read by one of the characters in the game. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use three-dimensional graphics. Grim Fandango was lauded by critics and adventure game fans as one of the best games in the genre and beyond (see Reactions section), but was not a commercial success.

The game was the brain-child of Tim Schafer who had previously worked on LucasArts' Monkey Island series as well as Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle. Grim Fandango is based on Aztec beliefs of afterlife; the game charts protagonist Manny Calavera's four year journey through the Land of the Dead towards the Ninth Underworld, the final destination of all dead souls in search of a woman named Mercedes "Meche" Colomar.

Contents 1 Gameplay 2 Story 3 Characters 3.1 Manuel "Manny" Calavera 3.2 Mercedes "Meche" Colomar 3.3 Glottis 3.4 Hector LeMans 3.5 Salvador "Sal" Limones 4 Production 5 Reactions 5.1 Awards 5.2 Sequel and movie rumors 6 Trivia 7 See also 8 References 9 External links 9.1 Official 9.2 Summary/Rating 9.3 Fan/Community 9.4 Miscellaneous

[edit] Gameplay

Grim Fandango was the first game to use the GrimE engine. The control system was somewhat different from a traditional point and click adventure game. Instead of using the mouse to move the character around the screen and interact with objects, the protagonist, Manuel Calavera (Manny for short) is controlled with the arrow keys, or even a joystick.

While walking around the various environments, Manny will turn his head to look at objects with which he can interact; the player can then press the enter key to get Manny to do so. This is sometimes considered one of the game's few weaknesses, though it is only problematic where there is more than one item for the player to view. In these situations, the player has to position Manny accurately in order to avoid him looking at the wrong object. The issue was resolved in Escape from Monkey Island through the use of action-lines. Pressing Del (in the numerical pad) or period also switches between different objects.

Pressing E will make Manny comment on whatever he's looking at. Inventory is accessed by pressing the I key. Objects in inventory can then be scrolled through using the arrow keys, and brought out of Manny's pocket by pressing enter. Specific items can also be pulled by using the number-keys 1-9.

With an inventory item in hand, Manny can then use that item on his environment by interacting with environmental objects as usual.

[edit] Story

The story unfolds in four episodes, each set a year apart on the Day of the Dead. It is from this festival that much of the game's imagery is drawn — most of the game's characters look very much like the skeletal calaca figures (based on the work of Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada). Various flowers are also used as tools of murder, in the form of a substance known as "Sproutella", which reacts with bone, destroying it by causing flowers to grow in it extremely rapidly. Characters refer to this manner of death as "sprouting". There is also unique fauna scattered throughout the game, such as bone-eating fire beavers and gigantic race cats.

Unusually, the game combines this mythical underworld with 1930s Art Deco design motifs and a dark plot reminiscent of the film noir genre. The design and early plot are reminiscent of films such as Brazil and Glengarry Glen Ross. Manny, whose job combines the roles of Grim Reaper and travel agent, turns detective when he discovers that deserving souls are being denied their rightful post-mortem reward of direct travel to Mictlan on the Number Nine train, bypassing the four-year trip that all other souls must take. Manny's investigations draw him into a tangled web of corruption, deceit, and murder.

The second part of the game, when Manny is running a nightclub, is inspired by Humphrey Bogart films The Maltese Falcon, Key Largo and Casablanca. In the game, the gambler Chowchilla Charlie is extremely reminiscent of Peter Lorre, and the town's corrupt police chief is based on Claude Rains's Captain Renault. Despite this, Tim Schafer stated that the true inspiration was drawn from films like Double Indemnity, in which a weak and undistinguished man (an insurance salesman, not a detective) is involved in murder and intrigue.^[1]

[edit] Characters

Most of the characters are Mexican and occasional Spanish words are interspersed into the English dialog.

Most of the characters smoke a lot, which follows a noir film tradition. The manual amusingly observes that everyone who smokes in the game is dead... "Think about it.".

[edit] Manuel "Manny" Calavera

Voiced by Tony Plana

Main article: Manny Calavera

In atonement for his sins in life (although he seems not to know exactly what sins he committed to deserve his fate), Manny works as a travel agent at the Department of Death in the city of El Marrow, earning his own passage to the underworld by selling travel packages, ranging from a four-day trainride on the luxurious No.9 train to a crafty walking stick and a four year walk. Manny competes for good clients, whose spotless lives merit a quick passage to the underworld, in turn earning Manny commissions in form of a quicker release from his community work, as well as prestige at the office. Unfortunately for Manny, all the good clients are snapped up by his office rival Domino, and Manny's efforts, to find out why, embroil him in a dark conspiracy. In the game Manny is also emotionally attracted to Meche, but shows signs of denial towards his feelings for her. Calavera is Spanish for "skull".

[edit] Mercedes "Meche" Colomar

Voiced by Maria Canals

Main article: Mercedes Colomar

Meche is Manny's illegally obtained client, whose case puts him on track of the corrupted management of the Department of Death. Even though she has led a virtuous life, the DOD's computer system mysteriously does not grant her a ticket for the No.9 train, and Manny has to let her travel alone on foot the dangerous way to the 9th underworld. After being fired from the Department of Death, Manny, feeling responsible for Meche's fate, tries his best to track her down. Most of the time, however, Mercedes manages quite well on her own. She is not only good, she is tough and smart as well.

[edit] Glottis

Voiced by Alan Blumenfeld

Manny's replacement driver and later on a trusted friend, Glottis is an enormous orange demon, who served as a mechanic at the Department of Death. When Glottis is fired from the Department of Death for helping Manny, he becomes his companion in the search for Meche. Gifted with amazing mechanical skills, Glottis improves the DOD's standard car into a hellish hot rod, known as the Bone-wagon.

[edit] Hector LeMans

Voiced by Jim Ward

Hector LeMans is the boss of the criminal underworld of El Marrow, specializing in ticket profiteering. With the help of his henchmen, he steals tickets for the No.9 train from the deserving dead and sells them to rich people, and throughout the game his brutality shows he is not to be trifled with. He is known to have sprouted dozens and dozens of people, as he owns a greenhouse surrounded by a field where he stores his enemies' sprouted remains.

[edit] Salvador "Sal" Limones

Voiced by Sal Lopez

Salvador Limones is the head of the LSA (Lost Souls' Alliance), an underground organization that fights against Hector LeMans by all means necessary. Limones recruits Manny in order to have access inside DOD's system. He also helps Manny escape from El Marrow, when Manny sets up to look for Meche.

[edit] Production

Grim Fandango was released on CD-ROM only and was fully voiced. The game was designed by Tim Schafer, co-designer of Day of the Tentacle and creator of Full Throttle and, more recently, Psychonauts.

Grim Fandango was a bold attempt by LucasArts to rejuvenate the graphical adventure genre, which by 1998 was in a terminal decline, compounded by the rise in fashionability of visually more novel and increasingly impressive games, such as first-person shooters. It was the first LucasArts adventure since Labyrinth not to use the SCUMM engine, instead using the Sith engine, pioneered by Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II, as the basis of the new GrimE engine. The 3D characters and control system that the GrimE engine used gave the game a completely different feel and appearance from the SCUMM games, even though it preserved many LucasArts conventions in terms of puzzle and dialogue style (and the trademark inability to be killed or become entirely stuck).

[edit] Reactions

Grim Fandango received nearly uniformly positive reviews. GameSpot praised the game, saying "Grim Fandango thankfully avoids the obvious" and "derives its humor from its situations and characters [...] without making fun of itself, helping to create a believable world."^[2] PCZone emphasized the production as a whole, "with its expert direction, costumes, characters, music and atmosphere [Grim Fandango] would actually make a superb film."^[3] The review at Game-Revolution had Manny himself explaining that "as far as an artistic accomplishment goes, my adventure gets all 5 leg bones",^[4] while IGN summed its review up by saying: "the bottom line is that Grim Fandango is hands down the best adventure game we've ever seen."^[5]

On the other hand, the WomenGamers review, though enjoying the "creativity of the storyline, the characters, [and] the Mexican feel of the environment", found the interface clumsy, stating that it made the reviewer feel "like I had much less control playing the game due to these restrictions",^[6] a criticism also voiced, to a lesser degree, by GameSpot and IGN.

Despite its high quality, good reviews and prizes won — including Gamespot's Game of the Year Award for 1998, beating other classic games such as real-time strategy game StarCraft, first-person shooter Half-Life, and action adventure game The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time; Grim Fandango was viewed by many as the final nail in the coffin of adventure games. It has been often stated as a fact that the game failed commercially,^[7] even though, according to LucasArts, "Grim Fandango met domestic expectations and exceeded them worldwide".^[8] However, Grim Fandango failed to be a blockbuster hit unlike many previous LucasArts adventure games, thus tarnishing the image of the demand for adventure games for years to come.

[edit] Awards

Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences

• Game of the Year (nominated, 1999)
• Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics (nominated, 1999)
• Outstanding Achievement in Character or Story Development (nominated, 1999)
• Outstanding Achievement in Sound and Music (nominated, 1999)
• Computer Adventure Game of the Year (won, 1999)

GameSpot:

• Induction into The Greatest Games of All Time (2003)
• Best of E3 PC (1998)
• PC Adventure Game of the Year (1998)
• PC Game of the Year (1998)
• Best PC Graphics (Artistic Design) (1998)
• Best PC Music (1998)
• The Ten Best PC Game Soundtracks (1999)
• 10th, The Ten Best Readers Endings PC (1999)

IGN:

• Best Adventure Game of the Year (1998)
• 15th, Top 25 PC Games of All Time (2007)

GameSpy:

• 7th, 25 Most Underrated Games of all Time (2003)
• Hall of Fame (2004)

AdventureGamers:

• 7th, Top 20 Adventure Games of All Time (2004)

[edit] Sequel and movie rumors

Many fans await for a sequel to be created for Grim Fandango but no official announcements have been released.

A July 2006 GameSpot blog article first mentioned rumors that Tim Burton would be directing a Grim Fandango movie,^[9]. The rumour was even printed in Edge Magazine, September 2006 edition. However, as of March 2007, the rumor has yet to be confirmed by an official source.

[edit] Trivia

• A reference to Grim Fandango appears in The Curse of Monkey Island, another LucasArts adventure game. A skeleton resembling Manny Calavera in a chicken shop wears a badge saying "Ask me about Grim Fandango". The event is also a throwback to the first game in the series, The Secret of Monkey Island, where a character from Loom (another adventure game released just before Monkey Island) can be found in a bar, wearing a badge that reads "Ask me about Loom". He switches from one-word answers to a long-winded sales pitch if asked about Loom.
• Another homage can be found in Escape from Monkey Island, where one of Pegnose Pete's alternate identities is "Manuel J. Calavera".
• Logos from the LucasArts adventures Sam & Max Hit the Road and Full Throttle can be seen in Toto Santos' tattoo parlour.
• The game was originally going to be named Deeds Of The Dead, but the management at LucasArts didn't want a reference to death in the title.
• The music playing in the background during Terry the Seabee's arrest is a rendition of "The Internationale", the anthem of the socialist movement. Additionally, the seabees themselves are a reference to the U.S. Navy's Construction Battalions who share the same name.
• Typing "BLAM" at any point in the game will cause Manny to explode and immediately regroup, commenting "Ouch!". A similar joke is also present in Escape from Monkey Island. Oddly enough he immediately reverts to wearing his business suit seen only at the beginning of the game.
• The sequence in which Manny chases the florist through the sewers is a reference to British noir film The Third Man. The character of Hector LeMans, voiced by Jim Ward, is a homage in name and in the style of his actions to the character of Harry Lime from the same film.
• The game uses a modified version of the "Sith Engine" used in Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II
• There is a reference to the sci-fi cult novel Dune, by Frank Herbert, at the end of the 4th year. When Salvador follows through with his plan to bite down on a fake tooth, releasing a cloud of poison that will kill both him and his victim, he alludes to an almost identical event in Dune.
• Late in the game, Manny pretends to join Johnny Thunder's musical revue. Johnny Thunder is the title of song by The Kinks, from their 1968 album The Kinks Are the Village Green Preservation Society. Johnny Thunders was also the name of the guitarist in the moderately popular proto-punk band "The New York Dolls," as well as the lead singer of the punk band "The Heartbreakers."
• In Larry Niven's Draco Tavern short story, The Missing Mass, an alien called "Terminator Beaver" plays Grim Fandango.

[edit] See also

• LucasArts adventure games
• Discworld Noir - Another noir adventure game

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Official

• LucasArts Grim Fandango Spotlight (taken down)
• LucasArts Grim Fandango product description
• Grim Fandango demo

[edit] Summary/Rating

• Grim Fandango at MobyGames
• Grim Fandango at the Internet Movie Database
• GameRankings, various reviews

[edit] Fan/Community

• Grim Fandango Discussion at LucasForums, active forum community
• The Grim Fandango Network, general purpose fan site and community hub
• The Department of Death, general purpose fan site and home of the in-development Grim Fandango modification for Half-Life 2
• Ninth World, general purpose fan site
• A Lift Underground, general purpose fan site
• The Blue Casket, Grim Fandango bass and guitar tabs resource

[edit] Miscellaneous

• Grim Fandango Launcher, expanded launcher for Grim Fandango that adds extra functionality
• Residual, a free implementation of the GrimE engine
• Grim X, a OSX implementation of ScummVM's Residual.