Grim Fandango

1998 · Point-and-Click Adventure · PC

Overview

Grim Fandango (1998) is Tim Schafer's film-noir adventure set in the Land of the Dead, where Manny Calavera sells travel packages to departed souls. Critics loved it, but its weak sales helped end LucasArts' adventure games.

Deep Dive

Manny Calavera works as a travel agent for the Department of Death in the Land of the Dead, a retro-futuristic world styled on the 1950s. The story borrows from the Day of the Dead and from film noir, and was planned as a four-year journey, each year built from branches of puzzles. Its 3D characters move over pre-rendered backgrounds, and the original used tank controls. Players solve puzzles by collecting objects and talking to characters. Peter McConnell's score mixes jazz, big band and Mexican folk music.

Developer Story

Tim Schafer directed and wrote the game on a budget of about $3 million, with Bret Mogilefsky programming and Peter Tsacle on art. It was released for Windows on 30 October 1998 and won several Adventure Game of the Year awards, but sold only 58,617 copies in the US by the end of the year. Double Fine released a remastered version in 2015.

Did You Know?

Its GrimE engine was scripted in Lua, one of the first notable uses of the language in games.
The working title was Deeds of the Dead; The Long Siesta and Dirt Nap were also considered.
Adventure Gamers ranked it first in its 2011 list of the top 100 adventure games.