Tim Schafer Gives More Info on Psychonauts 2

Tim Schafer, head of Double Fine Productions, has held an Ask Me Anything (AMA) on reddit, and told all on some of the details of the upcoming Psychonauts 2.

Spoilers for Psychonauts may be contained below!

S_Hawking asked about how much pre-planning had gone into Psychonauts 2 before the announcement:

The story for Psychonauts 2 is something I wanted to do back when Psychonauts was released. In the intervening years I've been keeping a document of ideas going, with new mental worlds and story ideas going in as I think of them. So I'm starting this game with the rough story figured out, ideas for brains and mechanics, and an engine (Unreal).

In Psychonauts 2, Raz will finally get to go to Psychonauts headquarters--his lifelong dream. There he can see Sasha and Milla in their natural environment--international espionage. But he finds several things strange about the organization. While Truman Zanotto was missing, several changes to the direction of the organization were made by his second in command. Funding was cut from traditional psychic research and peacekeeping, and redirected to unorthodox, fringe endeavors, including the discredited practice of necromancy. Raz soon uncovers sinister things at work in the shadows of Psychonauts headquarters, including double agents and evils of the past. Raz’s own family history plays a pivotal part in the story, and Raz must confront the roots of the curse placed on his family once and for all. And also deal with this whole “girlfriend” term and what it really means. :)

He elaborated a little when randy_buttcheese asked about powers:

A mix of old and new powers. Raz will be a few hours older than in the first game, because it takes place soon after the events of Psychonauts.

After learning that the sequel will take place very soon after the original, Xelinis asked whether they would reference the multi-year gap in releases:

I don't like to do things that break the fantasy of the game. Although we did have fun with that on Monkey Island.

Tim confirmed the role of his co-writer Erik Wolpaw, thanks to JohnnyWalker2001:

He will help with the writing like he did on the first game, but he's also coming on the project earlier in its production so we'll be able to get even more of his ideas into it.

The final level in the original game was explained, thanks to Megadoomer2:

Originally, the game had two final levels. One in Raz's mind that was his memories of the circus. One was in Oleander's mind, in his father's butcher shop. Our publisher was pushing us to cut one level, so we combined the last two! :)

Kidofthethird asked the hard question - how does Tim cut his sandwiches?:

Diagonally! I had a boss at a summer job once and I had to go out for sandwhiches, and when I brought his back and it was cut diagonally he groaned and said, "Did a girl cut this?" So I guess I cut like a girl.

The topic of Ancient Mythology came up, courtesy of articleofpeace:

You are correct in assuming Norse Mythology played a big part. I read a ton of that stuff and love it. But I also love all folklore and mythology. The class I took in college (Forms of Folklore by Alan Dundes) was part of the inspiration for Grim Fandango. These stories survived for thousands of years--with no marketing! :)

Monkeyman512 wanted assurances that the difficulty curve of Psychonauts 2 would be less of a right angle:

There were two main errors I made with Meat Circus. When some people said it was too hard, I asked my lead tester what he thought. "No way! It's my favorite level," he said. Forgot that testers are unnaturally skilled at games, especially ones they play over and over. Not his fault--mine. Secondly, I asked our lead designer what he thought, and he said, "Well, it's hard, but I think it's good that the game has at least one really hard level." Which I understand, but looking back, it probably should have had one medium hard level before it at least. :) Third thing was there were some bugs that made it harder than it should be. So when we got the pub rights back to it and updated it for Steam we fixed those bugs and made a couple other changes. We left it hard, but not too hard I think, and people who play it on Steam have responded well to the changes.

User relaxok asked how well Grim Fandango Remastered was selling:

It's been doing great! Soon it will surpass the unit sales of the original game, if it hasn't already.

Broken Age came up a few times, and Tim handled this one (once more) from Johnnywalker2001, saying that he doesn't feel ripped off like people think he should:

I think I've become a symbol to some really angry people who feel wronged by the world. Also, here's an interesting article about how people don't respond well to facts: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/07/11/how_facts_backfire/

Finally, Tim tried to assuage the fears of johndoz of another Spacebase DF-9 fiasco:

When you say “mishandling of several past games resources” I assume you’re talking about two things: games going over budget, and then Spacebase.

Regarding games going over budget: Many times in the past I have made the choice to invest more in a game than the original budget specified. That is because in the end, my highest priority is the quality of the game. Most of the games you play (not all of them, but more than you think) went over budget and extended their schedules at some point. Double Fine is just more honest and transparent about it. There are many things that lower the risk of Psychonauts 2 going over budget. It’s a sequel, so the gameplay and IP of the game are already known. We are using the Unreal Engine, so we don’t have to write an engine from scratch. And our team is much more experienced than when we made the first game. But if even after that, if the game has any overages, Double Fine is committed to paying for them ourselves, as we have done in the past.

We have successfully completed and shipped both of the games we crowdfunded (Broken Age and Massive Chalice) and are very proud of them. The majority of our fans and critics enjoyed them as well. We have put three games through early access--Hack ‘n’ Slash, Massive Chalice, and Spacebase. Two of these worked out great, and one of those was a disappointment to many people. We have shipped 17 titles over the last 15 years and overall we have a great track record of shipping great games and being extremely transparent and honest with our community. That is the more lasting reputation of Double Fine, and the reason people can feel confident about Psychonauts 2!