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Tim Schafer

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Not to be confused with Tim Schaffer.

Tim Schafer
Schafer in 2016
Born
Timothy John Schafer

(1967-07-26) July 26, 1967 (age 57)
Sonoma, California, U.S.
Occupation(s)Game designer, game programmer, game writer
SpouseRachael Schafer

Timothy John Schafer[1][2] (born July 26, 1967) is an American video game designer. He founded Double Fine Productions in July 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts. Schafer is best known as the designer of critically acclaimed games Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Brütal Legend and Broken Age, co-designer of Day of the Tentacle, and assistant designer on The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. He is well known in the video game industry for his storytelling and comedic writing style,[3] and has been given both a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards, and a BAFTA Fellowship for his contributions to the industry.

Career

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College and LucasArts (1989–2000)

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Tim Schafer was born on July 26, 1967, in Sonoma, California, the youngest of five children. His father was a doctor and his mother was a nurse.[4] While studying computer science at UC Berkeley, Schafer became interested in writing, and took inspiration from Kurt Vonnegut, who while a publicist at General Electric wrote short stories in the evenings. Schafer opted for a similar course, interning to help develop databases for small companies while trying to position himself for an opening in a larger corporation such as Atari and Hewlett-Packard, but he was rejected by these.[5] He saw an offering at Lucasfilm Games, looking for programmers who could also write game dialog, which piqued his interest.[5]

During his application process for the job, he had a somewhat disastrous phone interview with David Fox in which he mentioned being a fan of Ballblaster. Fox informed him that the Lucasfilm Games title was Ballblazer, and that only the pirated version was known as Ballblaster, but despite the misstep, Fox asked Schafer to submit his resume for further consideration.[5][6] To make up for the phone interview, Schafer sent in a comic of himself applying for and getting the job at Lucasfilm Games, drawn as a text adventure.[5][6][7]

Schafer was hired by LucasArts in 1989, and his first position was as a "scummlet", a programmer who helped to implement features and ideas proposed by the lead game developers within the LucasArts SCUMM engine. He, alongside Dave Grossman, helped to playtest Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game and implement the NES version of Maniac Mansion. Schafer and Grossman, along with two others, were taught by Ron Gilbert as part of a "SCUMM University" on how to use the engine to set up rooms and puzzles.[5]

Later, Gilbert approached Schafer and Grossman, offering them the chance to work on his new project, which would ultimately become the pirate-themed adventure game The Secret of Monkey Island.[5]

According to series creator Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman were responsible for about two thirds of the game's dialogue.[8] The Secret of Monkey Island became one of the most acclaimed games of its kind. The same team created the sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.[9]

In his first lead role on a game project, Schafer co-designed (with Dave Grossman) Day of the Tentacle, a time-travel comedy adventure and the sequel to Ron Gilbert's Maniac Mansion.[10] Schafer's first solo project, the biker adventure Full Throttle, was released in 1995.[11] He went on to design the highly acclaimed Grim Fandango, a noir adventure game set in the Aztec afterlife featuring characters similar to the papier-mâché skeleton decorations from the Mexican holiday Dia De Los Muertos. Grim Fandango won many awards, including GameSpot's Game of the Year award of 1998.[12]

Double Fine Productions (2000–present)

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Schafer and other game developers at a BAFTA event in Los Angeles in July 2011. From left: Rod Humble, Louis Castle, David Perry, Brenda Brathwaite, John Romero, Will Wright, Tim Schafer, Chris Hecker.

Schafer worked on an unannounced PlayStation 2 action-adventure game at LucasArts, but it never entered production.[3] Prior to his departure, a number of other developers were leaving LucasArts as the studio shifted away from adventure games. Schafer was approached by his colleagues with the idea of leaving the company to develop PlayStation 2 games on their own; Schafer was initially wary of this believing he felt secure in his position at LucasArts.[13] He left the company in January 2000,[14] to found Double Fine Productions, where he created the platform game Psychonauts.[3] The game was first released on Xbox in North America on April 19, 2005. While the game was met with critical acclaim, including a Game of the Year award from Eurogamer, it sold poorly at its initial release and led to financial troubles for its publisher Majesco Entertainment.[15] Double Fine reacquired full rights to Psychonauts by 2012, allowing them to release the game with improvements for modern systems, and in that year, Schafer stated that "We made more on Psychonauts [in 2012] than we ever have before."[16]

On March 7, 2007, he hosted the annual Game Developers Choice Awards. He later hosted it again in 2009. To coincide, Double Fine released a free Flash minigame entitled Host Master and the Conquest of Humor, a pastiche of Schafer's LucasArts games in which the player takes on the role of Schafer backstage at the GDC Awards.[17]

Schafer led the development of Double Fine's next game, Brütal Legend, released on October 13, 2009, after a tortuous development route due to having its original publisher Vivendi Games drop the title following its merge with Activision in 2008 to be picked up later by Electronic Arts.[18] The game was Schafer's tribute to the music and art of heavy metal and featured voice acting from actor/musician Jack Black and cameos from rock musicians including Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford, Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford. Schafer said "For Brütal Legend, I've always seen this overlap between medieval warfare and heavy metal. You see heavy metal singers and they'll have like a brace around their arm and they'll be singing about Orcs. So let's just make a world where that all happens. That all gets put together, the heavy metal, and the rock, and the battling, actually does happen. Let's not flirt around with this; let's just do it."[19]

During Brütal Legend's development, Schafer had Double Fine's staff take two weeks away from the game's development to participate in Amnesia Fortnights once a year starting in 2007. This was an internal game jam where the company was split into four teams to make a pitchable game prototype, an idea he compared to what film director Wong Kar-Wai had used previously. After Brütal Legend's release, the game had generally positive reviews but did not perform as well as expected, and Electronic Arts cancelled the preliminary work Double Fine had started on the sequel.[20] To keep Double Fine above water financially, Schafer went back to the past Amnesia Fortnight projects and selected games they could reasonably expand into full releases. From these, four smaller games were picked up by publishers, and were the first games in Double Fine's history to have project leaders other than Schafer: Costume Quest, Stacking, Iron Brigade and Once upon a Monster. The titles helped to keep Double Fine financially stable, and Schafer has continued to implement the Amnesia Fortnight as a yearly process; most of the games that result from these are led by someone other than Schafer.[21]

On February 1, 2012, Schafer returned to the role of director in the Kinect-based Double Fine Happy Action Theater, a game concept he devised based on Once Upon a Monster to be able to play a game with his two-year-old daughter that she would be able to enjoy as well.[22]

Schafer and 2 Player Productions at PAX Prime 2012

In February 2012, Schafer launched a crowdfunded project for an unnamed adventure game via the crowd-sourced Kickstarter, using the placeholder title "Double Fine Adventure"; Schafer stated that he had found publishers extremely wary of an adventure in the current video game industry, and decided to turn to crowdfunding to seek player interest. The game and accompanying documentary were projected to cost US$400,000 dollars. Contributions exceeded that amount by more than three times in less than 24 hours, making it the first Kickstarter project to reach a $2 million figure, and the second most successful project on the website at the time.[23][24] When the project ended on March 13, funding reached a level of $3,336,371 in Kickstarter[25] with an additional $110,000 from premium pledges.[26] Ultimately, the project culminated in Broken Age, released in two acts over 2014 and 2015.[27]

Schafer and Double Fine had been able to negotiate with The Walt Disney Company, who acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, to obtain the rights to three of the titles that Schafer had directed there: Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango, by 2014. Double Fine subsequently released remastered versions of all three games over the following years.[28][29][30][31]

Schafer has frequently served as host of the Game Developers Choice Awards, including in 2019.

Schafer stood in support of Anita Sarkeesian and other game developers that were being harassed by supporters of Gamergate, a loosely organized misogynistic online harassment campaign and a right-wing backlash against feminism, that started in August 2014.[32][33]

Schafer hosted the 2015 Game Developer’s Choice Awards on March 5; during the event one of his jokes referenced the #NotYourShield tag connected to the harassment Campaign. Gamergate supporters claimed #NotYourShield was used to demonstrate women and minorities supported their cause, but Schafer's remarks spoke to the wider assessment that the tag's use was largely composed of sockpuppets, which was later proven to be true.[34] Following the event, Gamergate supporters targeted Schafer for harassment by claiming he had been making a joke that mocked the minorities using this hashtag.[35][36]

Gamergate supporters also found other opportunities to target Schafer for harassment, including a decision to expand the scope of Broken Age after its Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign raised far more than the amount asked for, and a later decision to seek additional funding for the studio by offering the game's first half for sale on early access. Since then he continues to be an occasional target of harassment from either GamerGate supporters or those who were swayed by the campaign's claims.[37][38]

Schafer joined with other industry leaders with crowdfunding experience to help create the crowdfunding platform Fig in August 2015, serving on its advisory board until March 2020. [39] Through Fig, Schafer announced the sequel Psychonauts 2 in December 2015.[40]

In June 2019, Microsoft announced that it had acquired Double Fine as part of Xbox Game Studios. Schafer stated that while he had not been looking to be acquired, he found the opportunity in his talks with Microsoft to be promising; the acquisition would not affect Double Fine's independence and would still allow the company to publish its pending titles on its own choice of platforms, and would provide the financial security needed for Double Fine to be able to concentrate on developing a quality product.[41] Through this support, Double Fine was able to retain several gameplay elements within Psychonauts 2,[42] which was eventually released on August 25, 2021, to critical praise.[43]

Influences and philosophy

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In an interview at the Game Developers Conference in 2003, Schafer stated that he strives for integrating story into the gameplay, setting a creative goal of someday creating a video game without any cutscenes at all.[44] Furthermore, he said he often sets a story in an established world:

"[O]ften, the world is the initial inspiration for the game. One day I was listening to someone tell me their stories of spending the summer in Alaska. They had hung around this one biker bar, with these people with names like Smilin' Rick and Big Phil. And I thought, 'Wow, what a crazy world that is.' It's so apart from everybody's life, and yet it's right there, it's so mundane in a way. And that's where Full Throttle came from."[44]

Recognition

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The press first previewed Psychonauts at the E3 trade show in 2002, where it won the Game Critics Award for Best Original Game.[45] An hour-long episode of Icons on the G4 Network documented the last week of the production of Psychonauts and explored Schafer's career.[46] At the 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards, Schafer and Erik Wolpaw won the award for Best Writing for Psychonauts. Schafer and Double Fine Executive Producer & COO Caroline Esmurdoc also won the award for Best New Studio. In October 2006, Schafer received a BAFTA video game Best Screenplay award for Psychonauts.[47] In 2012, the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) organized the "Game Masters" exhibition, where Schafer was featured as the creator of Grim Fandango, among a few other visionary designers, credited for having "pushed the boundaries of game design and storytelling, introducing new genres, creating our best-loved characters and revolutionising the way we understand and play games"[3] In 2015, he won the Vanguard Award at Bilbao's Fun & Serious Game Festival.[48] Schafer received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards in March 2018.[49] He received a BAFTA Fellowship as "a true pioneer of game design, who has pushed the boundaries of the medium through his extraordinary talents" at the British Academy Games Awards in April 2018.[50][51] In February 2023, Schafer was recognized as "a beacon of creativity and innovation in the games industry" by being selected as a Hall of Fame Inductee at the 26th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.[52]

Ludography

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Name Year Credited With Publisher
The Secret of Monkey Island 1990 co-writer, programmer, assistant designer LucasArts
Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge 1991 co-writer, programmer, assistant designer LucasArts
Day of the Tentacle 1993 co-designer, co-producer, co-director, co-writer LucasArts
Full Throttle 1995 project leader, writer, designer LucasArts
The Curse of Monkey Island 1997 additional design LucasArts
Grim Fandango 1998 project leader, writer, designer, programmer LucasArts
Star Wars Episode I: Racer 1999 "never actively tried to sabotage the project"[53] LucasArts
Psychonauts 2005 creative director, co-writer, designer Double Fine, Majesco
Brütal Legend 2009 creative director, writer, co-designer Double Fine, Electronic Arts
Costume Quest 2010 studio creative director, co-writer Double Fine, THQ
Stacking 2011 studio creative director Double Fine, THQ
Iron Brigade 2011 studio creative director Double Fine, Microsoft Studios
Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster 2011 studio creative director, writer Double Fine, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment
Haunt 2012 voice actor[54] NanaOn-Sha, Zoë Mode, Microsoft Studios
Double Fine Happy Action Theater 2012 director Double Fine, Microsoft Studios
Middle Manager of Justice 2012 studio creative director Double Fine, Dracogen
Kinect Party 2012 studio creative director Double Fine, Microsoft Studios
The Cave 2013 studio creative director Double Fine, Sega
Dropchord 2013 studio creative director Double Fine, Dracogen
Broken Age 2014 director, writer Double Fine
Spacebase DF-9 2014 studio creative director Double Fine, Indie Fund
Grim Fandango Remastered 2015 creative director Double Fine
Massive Chalice 2015 studio creative director Double Fine
Day of the Tentacle Remastered 2016 creative director Double Fine
Headlander 2016 studio creative director Double Fine, Adult Swim Games
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin 2017 studio creative director, writer Double Fine
Full Throttle Remastered 2017 creative director Double Fine
Psychonauts 2 2021 creative director, writer Double Fine, Xbox Game Studios

References

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  1. ^ Schafer, Tim; Bush, Josh (March 23, 2014). DFGameClub – Broken Age, Act 1 (Podcast). Twitch. Event occurs at 1:27:30. Archived from the original on March 23, 2014. Retrieved March 23, 2014. Like The Secret of Monkey Island, is it more exciting if I keep it a secret forever? Yeah, my full name is Timothy John Schafer.
  2. ^ Schafer, Tim (March 23, 2014). "Cheese talks to: Tim Schafer (as a part of the Double Fine Game Club)". DFGameClub (Interview). Interviewed by Josh Bush. Archived from the original on July 9, 2014. Retrieved March 31, 2014.
  3. ^ a b c d "Let the Games Begin". Sunday Herald Sun. Australia. June 24, 2012. p. 12 – "Play" section.
  4. ^ Warren, Jamin (June 14, 2011). "Tim Schafer". Kill Screen. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  5. ^ a b c d e f Ringell, Jaz (June 22, 2015). ""I Don't Know if a Duck is Going to Swallow me Whole." The Tim Schafer Interview". USgamer. Archived from the original on June 23, 2015. Retrieved June 22, 2015.
  6. ^ a b Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts pg. 54
  7. ^ "Double Fine – Action News". Double Fine Productions. September 27, 2009. Archived from the original on October 1, 2009. Retrieved January 26, 2012.
  8. ^ "The Secret of Creating Monkey Island – An Interview With Ron Gilbert". LucasFilm Adventurer vol. 1, number 1 (online transcript). 1990. Archived from the original on June 10, 2011. Retrieved December 24, 2006.
  9. ^ Remo, Chris (July 6, 2009). "Back in the Water: The Monkey Island Interview". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on February 14, 2011. Retrieved December 10, 2010.
  10. ^ "Behind the Scenes: Maniac Mansion + Day of the Tentacle". GamesTM. The Ultimate Retro Companion (3). Imagine Publishing: 22–27. 2010. ISSN 1448-2606. OCLC 173412381.
  11. ^ Suellentrop, Chris (April 15, 2017). "Full Throttle's Tim Schafer on Mark Hamill and Being Asked Not to Touch George Lucas". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on December 6, 2018. Retrieved April 15, 2017.
  12. ^ "Best and Worst of 1998: Game of the Year". GameSpot. 1999. Archived from the original on October 5, 2013. Retrieved March 27, 2008.
  13. ^ "10 years of Psychonauts – In conversation with Tim Schafer". GamesTM. June 2, 2015. Archived from the original on August 6, 2015. Retrieved August 26, 2015.
  14. ^ Mullen, Michael (January 7, 2000). "Tim Schafer Leaves LucasArts". GameSpot. Archived from the original on April 6, 2017. Retrieved August 26, 2015.
  15. ^ Adkins, John (November 12, 2007). "Life After Shelf Death". The Escapist. Archived from the original on November 15, 2007. Retrieved November 13, 2007.
  16. ^ "Double Fine Double Feature". Polygon. December 13, 2012. Retrieved February 5, 2013.
  17. ^ Cavalli, Earnest (March 24, 2009). "Double Fine Unveils Tim Schafer Flash Game". Wired. Archived from the original on April 8, 2014. Retrieved March 24, 2009.
  18. ^ "Sierra Entertainment and Double Fine Productions unearth ancient tome and decrypt Brütal Legend" (Press release). Double Fine Productions. October 19, 2007. Archived from the original on March 24, 2008. Retrieved March 30, 2008.
  19. ^ "James Gunn & Brutal Legend". The Jace Hall Show. Season 2. Episode 5. April 16, 2009.
  20. ^ "Tim Schafer confirms Brutal Legend 2 canceled, announces four games". November 5, 2014. Archived from the original on February 24, 2015.
  21. ^ Cifaldi, Frank (February 3, 2012). "Happy Action, Happy Developer: Tim Schafer on Reimagining Double Fine". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on February 5, 2012. Retrieved February 3, 2012.
  22. ^ Palacios, Tina (January 24, 2012). "Talking Happy Action Theater with Double Fine". IGN. Archived from the original on January 29, 2012. Retrieved January 31, 2012.
  23. ^ "When making a game is a game in itself". cnn.com. February 10, 2012. Archived from the original on February 13, 2012.
  24. ^ "Double Fine Adventure". Kickstarter. Archived from the original on February 11, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  25. ^ "Double Fine Day". Kickstarter. March 14, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  26. ^ "Double Fine™ – Action News". doublefine.com. Archived from the original on March 17, 2012. Retrieved March 17, 2012.
  27. ^ "PAX: Double Fine's adventure game is called Broken Age". November 5, 2014. Archived from the original on November 5, 2014.
  28. ^ Nunnely, Stephany (June 9, 2014). "Grim Fandango remastered coming to PlayStation". VG247. Archived from the original on June 14, 2014. Retrieved June 9, 2014.
  29. ^ Gera, Emily (June 9, 2014). "Grim Fandango is coming to PS4 and PS Vita (update)". Polygon. Archived from the original on June 13, 2014. Retrieved June 10, 2014.
  30. ^ Siddiky, Asif (June 10, 2014). "A Closer Look at Grim Fandango's Surprise Revival". PlayStation Blog. Archived from the original on August 13, 2014. Retrieved June 10, 2014.
  31. ^ Albert, Brian (December 6, 2014). "DAY OF THE TENTACLE SPECIAL EDITION ANNOUNCED". IGN. Archived from the original on December 8, 2014. Retrieved December 6, 2014.
  32. ^ Frank, Jenn (September 1, 2014). "How to attack a woman who works in video gaming". The Guardian. Retrieved November 27, 2017.
  33. ^ Conen, Rebecca (October 18, 2014). "These 7 Geek Icons Have Had Enough of #Gamergate. Here's How They're Fighting Back". Mother Jones. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  34. ^ Johnston, Casey (September 9, 2014). "Chat logs show how 4chan users created #GamerGate controversy".
  35. ^ Gera, Emily (April 28, 2015). "Tim Schafer on his Broken Age Kickstarter adventure: 'I'd do it again'". The Guardian. Archived from the original on June 26, 2015. Retrieved June 25, 2015.
  36. ^ Griffin, Andrew (March 5, 2015). "Gamergate: Tim Schafer Provokes Rage with 'Not your Shield' Joke About Online Gaming Activists at Industry Awards". Belfast Telegraph. Retrieved September 7, 2015.
  37. ^ Mulkerin, Tim (September 26, 2017). "Why is video game development so secretive? Online harassment, one developer says". Mic. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  38. ^ Rouner, Jef (January 26, 2016). "Gamers Have Become the New Religious Right". Houston Press. Retrieved November 30, 2017.
  39. ^ "Tim Schafer on why he chose Fig to crowdfund Psychonauts 2". SiliconANGLE. December 7, 2015. Retrieved March 2, 2024.
  40. ^ Hall, Charlie (December 3, 2015). "Psychonauts 2 is in Development, and Anyone Can Profit from its Success". Polygon. Retrieved December 6, 2015.
  41. ^ Favis, Elise (June 23, 2019). "Tim Schafer On Microsoft Acquisition And The Future Of Double Fine". Game Informer. Archived from the original on June 23, 2019. Retrieved January 11, 2021.
  42. ^ Dring, Christopher (July 9, 2020). "How Minecraft and Mojang taught Xbox how to buy studios". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved July 9, 2020.
  43. ^ "Psychonauts 2 is vintage Double Fine in strengths and flaws | Critical Consensus". August 24, 2021.
  44. ^ a b Celia Pearce (March 7, 2003). "A Conversation with Tim Schafer". Game Studies. Archived from the original on September 14, 2013. Retrieved November 6, 2014.
  45. ^ "Winners 2002". Game Critics Awards. Archived from the original on April 10, 2008. Retrieved March 27, 2008.
  46. ^ "Icons: Tim Schafer Recap". TV.com. Archived from the original on December 21, 2008. Retrieved March 30, 2008.
  47. ^ "Games Nominations 2006". BAFTA. Archived from the original on December 20, 2008. Retrieved March 27, 2008.
  48. ^ "Tim Schafer recibirá el premio honorífico del festival". Hobby Consolas. April 25, 2015.
  49. ^ "Nolan Bushnell, Tim Schafer, and Rami Ismail to be honored at the 2018 GDC Awards!". Gamasutra. January 30, 2018. Retrieved January 30, 2018.
  50. ^ Handrahan, Matthew (February 21, 2018). "Tim Schafer to receive BAFTA Fellowship". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved February 21, 2018.
  51. ^ Stuart, Keith (April 24, 2018). "Tim Schafer: 'There were so many occasions when I thought my career in games was over'". The Guardian. Retrieved March 24, 2019.
  52. ^ "Double Fine Productions' Tim Schafer Selected as Hall of Fame Inductee at the 26th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards". Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences.
  53. ^ Schafer, Tim [@TimOfLegend] (May 17, 2023). "The Podracing team sat right next to the Grim team at LucasArts. Once, hanging out in their office, I asked, "What credit are you going to give me on Podracer?" "Why would we give you a credit? You didn't do anything to help make this project!" I said, "True, but on the other hand, I did nothing to hurt it." They just couldn't shake the logic I guess!" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  54. ^ Sheffield, Brandon (December 29, 2011). "NanaOn-Sha: Changing The World Of Games". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on January 26, 2012. Retrieved January 27, 2012.
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