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Category:Credits -> Double Fine Productions
Tim Schafer
Background
Tim Schafer is an American video game designer, known for his involvement in several well-loved adventure games with a strong focus on humor and storytelling. He is also founder and head of Double Fine Productions, a game studio based in San Francisco, California.
Early Gaming and Programming
Tim’s first experience with gaming began in 1972 when his father brought home a Magnavox Odyssey, followed later by gaming systems such as the Atari 2600, and the Atari 400 and 800 computers. He spent a large amount of time as a teenager both playing video games, and eventually creating (or at least starting) his own. Tim describes his early efforts as “really unspectacular.” Games he worked on included a Pong clone written in BASIC (“It was really slow,” says Tim), an attempted clone of Galaxian written in Assembly Language (“I just realized I wasn’t really smart enough to do that”), and an originally-conceived game he says involved “a helicopter that was dropping babies, and you had to catch them. I got pretty far with that one.”
Career
Tim had graduated from UC Berkley and was into his second year with a database company when he came across a job listing for a position with LucasArts, then known as LucasFilm Games. He applied for the job, and soon after being hired on, learned his new position “Assistant Designer/Programmer” was known affectionately within the company as simply “scummlet”—one of a few bottom-rung programmers who worked with the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, or SCUMM. He began playtesting the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade action game and assisted in production of the NES port of Maniac Mansion, after which there was a period in which he had no real projects to do for LucasArts, so he just did what he could to learn the language. It was the material written by Tim and his fellow scummlet Dave Grossman while learning SCUMM that eventually led to a position writing and programming for Ron Gilbert’s pirate-themed game, The Secret of Monkey Island.”
The success of Monkey Island led to an immediate sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, and landed Tim in his first lead role on a game project for a Maniac Mansion sequel, Day of the Tentacle. He followed Day of the Tentacle with his first solo project, the biker adventure Full Throttle, and then his 3D-rendered noir mystery adventure Grim Fandango.
Each of these games were extremely well received, but the adventure game genre as a whole was struggling. Tim has also expressed frustration with LucasArts’ creative direction over a period of several years, stating, “Around 1992, I felt like SCUMM games were getting the short end of the stick at LucasArts in many ways. Management didn’t seem to like them, and in fact seemed to want to sweep them out the door.” After completing Grim Fandango in 1998, he took a hiatus for a few months, and upon return, felt “like it would be a good time to maybe try it on our own.” After discussing it amongst themselves, Tim and several other LucasArts employees quit and formed a new game studio, Double Fine Productions, in January 2000.
After finding an official name and some office space, the new studio started work on their first project, The Excellent Game Psychonauts™. The game was a fully 3D adventure platformer which, like all of Tim’s previous games, received a great deal of critical praise. Mostly because it was mind-blowingly awesome.
Tim’s (and Double Fine’s) current project is a heavy metal fantasy called Brütal Legend, slated for release Rocktober 13th, 2009.
Future Plans
Mr. Schafer has not officially stated any plans for future titles at this time. Given the cliffhanger ending to Psychonauts, the possibility of a sequel has been whispered breathlessly among fans for some time, and there has already been talk of a sequel to Brütal Legend (with no objection to either idea from Tim); however, any upcoming titles at this point are based on pure speculation, and the future remains yet to be seen.
Gameography
• Maniac Mansion, tools programmer, SCUMM (LucasArts, 1987)
• The Secret of Monkey Island, co-writer (JVC/LucasArts, 1990)
• Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, co-designer (LucasArts, 1991)
• Day of the Tentacle, co-designer, co-producer, co-director, co-writer (LucasArts, 1993)
• Full Throttle, writer, designer, project leader (LucasArts, 1995)
• Grim Fandango, project leader (LucasArts, 1998)
• Psychonauts, creative director, co-writer (Double Fine/Majesco, 2005)
• Brütal Legend, (Double Fine/Electronic Arts, 2009)
Awards
• Tim Schafer and Erik Wolpaw won the award for Best Writing for Psychonauts at the 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards. Tim Schafer and Double Fine Executive Producer & COO Caroline Esmurdoc also won the award for Best New Studio.
• In October 2006, Tim Schafer received a BAFTA video game Best Screenplay award for Psychonauts.
Mental Morsels
• He’s married to Rachael Schafer, and has one daughter, Lili Bean Clementine Schafer.
• Oh, and he’s totally awesome.