>> "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.
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!
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, 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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. :)
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
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.
[+] [-] Nursie|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] beloch|11 years ago|reply
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!
[+] [-] skuhn|11 years ago|reply
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".
[+] [-] kevingadd|11 years ago|reply
(Disclosure: I've seen the game's source code)
[+] [-] pygy_|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mesozoic|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ShaneWilton|11 years ago|reply
http://store.steampowered.com/app/316790/
[+] [-] shmerl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekianjo|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eridius|11 years ago|reply
PS4: https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-us/games/gr...
PS Vita: https://store.sonyentertainmentnetwork.com/#!/en-us/games/gr...
[+] [-] _JamesA_|11 years ago|reply
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2015/01/grim-fandango-remaster...
[+] [-] daurnimator|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bandwevil|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] onemore360|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jordigh|11 years ago|reply
The only times I see "día de los muertos" is in English-language media.
[+] [-] jordigh|11 years ago|reply
https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3A%22jornada.unam.mx%22+...
https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3A%22jornada.unam.mx%22+...
https://www.google.ca/search?q=site%3A%22reforma.com%22+%22d...
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.
[+] [-] pcthrowaway|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] carise|11 years ago|reply
* 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. :)
[+] [-] trevelyan|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kemayo|11 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] tekmate|11 years ago|reply
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
[+] [-] exch|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shmerl|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmc|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] makeset|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] shmerl|11 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] blt|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tammer|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elyrly|11 years ago|reply
[+] [-] avodonosov|11 years ago|reply
Are they creating new version of Grim Fandango? (The original game was really great!).
[+] [-] adrianpike|11 years ago|reply