25 Years of Fans and Fun
A little while ago we sent out a survey so that folks could share with us their thoughts, memories and opinions about the history of Double Fine and help us to celebrate our 25th Anniversary! The responses have been processed, converted into a rich data mulch, duly baked into a giant statistics cake, and finally consumed by me so that I could share the findings, all over the place.
Gross? Maybe! But the data itself was delicious, revealing, and in many cases both literally and figuratively heartwarming.
When we asked you what your favourite Double Fine game might be, it’s perhaps no surprise that the Psychonauts series dominated. It’s our best-known title, after all, and our first, giving people longer to dwell on its excellence.
Responses to What is your favorite Double Fine game? in our 25th Anniversary Survey.
But it gladdens our little hearts to know that Psychonauts 2 is right up there in popularity with the original. Making a sequel isn’t something we’ve done very many times. Trying new things is our natural way to be, and revisiting something always feels like its own kind of creative risk, especially with a gap of over 15 years. Seeing it so well-received feels like a huge validation. Aw, shucks!
The Two-Headed Baby (or 2HB for short) has been our logo and mascot since the start, and going all the way back to Brütal Legend we've carried on a tradition to recreate that baby in the image of the new game. Why, only yesterday I was looking at what we've cooked up for Keeper, and it's marvelous. We can't wait to share that with you! In the meantime we asked what your favourite 2HB of yore was.
Responses to What is your favorite game-themed 2 Headed Baby logo? in our 25th Anniversary Survey.
I mean, just look at this beauty!
There you have it! A fine set of choices, but this is my article and I'm damn it all, I'm just going to say it: you're all sleeping on Headlander.
But enough about the games. We know why you’re really here.
Beards!
Yes, it’s time to answer that burning question: Which era of Tim’s beard was the best one? There were three clear favorites here.
Coming in at number three...
21.4% found this to be Tim's best beard. Circa maybe 2019.
…It’s Option 7. Ah, Option 7. Warm and reassuring, like a teacher in a movie about a class of unruly kids who gradually learn the value of self-respect.
Next up, by popular vote…
Were people voting for the beard, or did that faraway look draw in that 33% of the vote? circa possibly 2017?
Option 6! Ah, Option 6. Warm and reassuring, like a teacher in– no hang on, that was the last beard. Okay, look. Option 6 is a lot like Option 7, but the energy is different. Here the teacher has just been told he’s being reinstated into the space corps to train a new group of no-hoper cadets who the other staff just can’t handle.
Which brings us to the winner…
Each hair on that chin did its part to earn that healthy 34.8% of the vote for Tim's best beard. Modern Day Tim!
Option 3! The current beard! Thick and luxurious, like a teac- okay I’m just going to drop this bit. Will it please Tim to know that more people voted for his current look than any other? Undoubtedly. Did he slip the very similar options 6 and 7 in in a devious (yet successful) attempt to split the vote? Did he answer the survey himself several times to put his thumb on the scale? There’s just no way of saying. Respondent ‘Bim Bafer’ could very well be a real person.
Your favorite memories
To close our survey we asked if you’d like to share a Double Fine memory with us, and we got all kinds of responses. We saw and appreciated every one of those messages, thank you! But here are a few choice picks we thought would be fun to share onwards.
Some people wanted to talk about bonding with loved ones over our games, or introducing them to other people.
Victor writes:
Getting into Psychonauts is actually what led me to starting a relationship with my husband- we knew each other for a long time before but the game brought us together
Grey Jelley has this:
I’ve made one of my best friends I’ve ever known through Double Fine games. Double Fine games are also my biggest motivation to work harder as a game art student. I really loved playing the games with my friend and theorizing and jamming to the Brütal Legend soundtrack with my friend. All of my happiest times seem to revolve around Double Fine games and music.
Sabrina tells us of getting the nephews into Double Fine games:Â
I'm grateful for the time I've spent sharing your mind-expanding creations with my nephews. It started with Broken Age when they were very little - the way they were enthralled by the game's humour, scares, twists, mysteries, characters and puzzles was unlike anything I'd ever seen in them before. I shared the story on the DF forums and was glad to see Tim get a kick out of it. Psychonauts was also a success and we're currently on Psychonauts 2, which they like even more.
Being a 25 year old developer carries with it a legacy both proud and daunting, but one of the biggest joys is when we find our games getting introduced to a new generation by those that played them years ago. Even if it is also a devastating reminder of time's inexorable passage. If you, right now, introduced the game to two young relatives, and they did the same thing in 20 years and so on, within just 500 years you would have been personally responsible for the creation of over 134 million fans. So what are you waiting for?
Others, like Caspian, talked about how the games helped them:
Psychonauts was one of the first games I ever played. As a child who didn't speak English I remember how cool it was to understand and grasp the individuality of all the campers, agents and inmates. Seeing Raz stand up to bullies and believing in others while being himself throughout taught me more about life than what I realised at the time.
Ahimay writes:Â
As a writer and aspiring psychiatrist, I've always strongly believed that self-expression through art is crucial for mental health care, let alone humanity as a whole. I found Psychonauts during a troubling time in my life, and I cannot overstate how much it comforted me. I felt not only heard, but also empowered - like I was being told my dreams were worth striving for, even if it means having some doubt along the way. Psychonauts remains a very precious gem near and dear to my heart as a result, and I cannot thank you and the teams behind it enough.
I was particularly touched by this Halloween story of self-discovery courtesy of Devi:
I went as Ophelia for Halloween during my freshman year of college and having folks compliment that costume (and a few others I had swapped around because I would dress up for maybe, like, the entire week of Halloween) was one of the major moments that led to me realizing I was trans. Seeing Double Fine continue to endure, to speak up for smaller developers, and just generally be kindhearted with fans of all walks of life over the years has meant a lot to me. I feel welcome when I play a Double Fine game, which is becoming rarer and rarer these days.
Quite a few people spoke about how welcomed they felt by the Double Fine community and that’s something that means a lot to me personally as someone who came into Double Fine via its community. Long-time community regular Cedric elaborates:
The Double Fine communities really remind me of how much passion can bring people together. I can see it in the studio itself, in the documentaries and such, how much you guys support each other and let your ambitions guide you into making such wonderful & weird little games for us to enjoy. Everybody I've met because of Psychonauts is an incredible guiding force in my life and a friend I'm insanely grateful for. It's always a good day to be a Double Fine fan!
Our in-house documentary crew known as 2 Player Productions have been with us so long that they are truly a part of the team, though one with a special responsibility to shine a truthful light on our people and processes that we are delighted to know people find comfort and inspiration in. Alex Shammas tells us this tale of bonding over our documentaries during a difficult development.
Many moons ago I was working on an indie title (don't ask) and I remember when the preemptive burnout started to creep in. After working 6 day work weeks at my buddies house I was prepared to start taking my lunch breaks in his bathroom; luckily we came across the Double Fine Psych Odyssey! We had already binged the Amnesia Fortnight series and we needed more burnout-oriented content to keep us in the fight.
To make this long story a little bit shorter, it gave me the gusto to finish the game we were working on. The solidarity of seeing other creatives pushing themselves to the brim gave us that extra push those last few months. As an added bonus we finally stopped talking shop over lunch break, and you'll be proud to hear I haven't eaten a sandwich in a bathroom since!
Ryan Boyd sees parallels working in a completely different field:
To be perfectly honest, I revisit Double Fine Adventure nearly every year. I'm a psychology researcher, and some of the most meaningful moments in my early career came down to the people I collaborated with and the bonds we built along the way. Double Fine Adventure and PsychOdyssey beautifully capture an environment where work and play intertwine naturally, highlighting genuine care and mutual respect among colleagues. There’s a subtle magic in how their interactions reflect sincere togetherness and compassion - qualities I constantly strive to foster in my own lab, mentorship, and professional relationships. Watching the way that the folks at Double Fine come together to create and inspire each other - it's always a powerful reminder of what I myself want to accomplish with others.
There were also a number of messages from people who had been following the Double Fine team all the way back from its roots, when Tim and others were making games at LucasFilm/LucasArts. I get it; playing The Secret of Monkey Island for the first time was for me a formative experience and I very much doubt I'd be writing these words on this website if it hadn't spoken to me so profoundly all those years ago. I very much enjoyed a message from A.M. Vasquez and wanted to share part of it here:
Grim Fandango felt like it was made for me personally, and it is so much a part of me that I don't know how to summarize it well. I feel lucky to get to live at a time when I could get to play it and exist alongside its legacy. It did so much for me as an LGBT mixed Latino kid living in a very white-majority, rural area in the late 90's that didn't get to see a lot of themself represented in games at the time, at least not in a positive light. It also will always be such a treat to me because I was a 10-12 year old kid with niche interests like Jazz, Noir, Vaudeville, architecture, and adventure games in general, and it felt like somebody out there actually "got" me. I don't think there have been many works I have loved in life that have hit me quite as hard as GF did. I can't fully express what that means to me. Hearing Manny & Meche's theme still makes me tear up and cry, even if I'm expecting it. I have also met a wonderful community of speedrunners and raised over $2000 for charity streaming this game. So thank you for all of that, genuinely.
They had a lot to say about Double Fine games too, but I had to add this little bit:
I think on a more lighthearted note, you might like to know that for a while there my friends and I were obsessed with Black Velvetopia, and I styled my first dorm room after it. I wish I had pictures. Design for that level is still peak.
That sounds a bit like the Black Velvetopia themed room we have in the office!
A sneak-peek at the Black Velvetopia themed room, that's hidden away at Double Fine HQ.
Some messages defied categorization, so I leave you with this:
Because Tim had a picture with Marmite, I bought it and tried because I thought it must be delicious. It was the worst decision of my life. I will never forgive him for this. 😉
You gotta spread it thin, Corey.
FUN FACT / EDITOR'S NOTE: That marmite was MINE, and I took that handsome picture of Tim when i visited the studio as a fan in 2001, and it was also ME who set it as Tim's picture on his wikipedia page years later, where it sat for generations. I now also keep the kitchen at Double Fine stocked with this all important substance, so that all may know its GLORY!
Tim & Marmite, a love story that lasted a generation.
We loved seeing every one of these messages, including the ones we didn't show here and the many private messages which weren't for sharing, so thank you to everyone who sent one. Something else that a lot of people sent through was fan art. We got such a kick from seeing all the ways that people were creative with our characters and settings that we thought we'd save that for a follow-up piece where we can include as many as possible. Stay tuned for that!
