Tim Schafer
Tim Schafer was born on the 26th of July, 1967, in Sonoma, California, the youngest of five children. His path to becoming one of gaming's most celebrated storytellers began not with a grand ambition but with a single job listing at Lucasfilm Games seeking programmers who could also write dialog. That combination of skills was exactly what Schafer had been quietly developing while studying computer science at UC Berkeley, inspired by Kurt Vonnegut's habit of writing short stories in the evenings while working as a publicist at General Electric.
The phone interview did not go well. Schafer mentioned being a fan of Ballblaster, the pirated name for a Lucasfilm game properly called Ballblazer. The interviewer, David Fox, pointed out the distinction on the spot. Rather than fold, Schafer sent in his resume along with a comic strip depicting himself applying for and landing the job at Lucasfilm Games, drawn in the style of a text adventure. It worked. He was hired in 1989.
From that unlikely start, Schafer would go on to co-write two landmark Monkey Island games, direct Full Throttle and Grim Fandango, found Double Fine Productions in July 2000, and eventually receive both a BAFTA Fellowship and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards. The questions worth asking are how he built that record, what drove the creative choices behind it, and what the rougher chapters of his career reveal about the business of making games that prioritize story.
Schafer's first title at LucasArts was "scummlet," a junior programmer who helped implement features within the company's SCUMM engine. Alongside Dave Grossman, he playtested Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Action Game and worked on the NES port of Maniac Mansion. Ron Gilbert then ran a program he called "SCUMM University," teaching Schafer, Grossman, and two others how to build rooms and puzzles within the engine.
Gilbert subsequently invited Schafer and Grossman to join his next project, the pirate-themed adventure that became The Secret of Monkey Island. According to Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman wrote roughly two thirds of the game's dialog. The same team then produced the sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.
Full Throttle, released in 1995, was Schafer's first solo project. Its biker-bar setting grew from a specific memory: listening to someone describe a summer in Alaska spent around a biker bar populated by characters with names like Smilin' Rick and Big Phil. Schafer described the appeal as finding a world "so apart from everybody's life, and yet it's right there, it's so mundane in a way." He told this story at the Game Developers Conference in 2003, explaining his broader philosophy of letting an unusual, fully-realized world be the initial inspiration for a game.
Grim Fandango followed in 1998. Set in a noir afterlife modeled on the Aztec underworld and featuring characters resembling the papier-mache skeleton decorations of Dia De Los Muertos, it was among the most stylistically ambitious games LucasArts had published. GameSpot named it Game of the Year for 1998. At the 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards it won Computer Adventure Game of the Year.
By the late 1990s, however, LucasArts was shifting away from adventure games. Schafer worked on an unannounced PlayStation 2 action-adventure that never entered production. A number of colleagues had already left the studio, and some approached Schafer with a proposal: leave together and develop PlayStation 2 games independently. He was initially hesitant, feeling secure at LucasArts. He departed anyway in January 2000.
Double Fine Productions opened in July 2000, and its first major release was Psychonauts, a platform game in which players enter the minds of various characters. The press previewed it at the E3 trade show in 2002, where it won the Game Critics Award for Best Original Game. The game shipped on Xbox in North America on the 19th of April, 2005.
Critical response was strong. Eurogamer gave it a Game of the Year award. At the 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards, Schafer and Erik Wolpaw won Best Writing for the game, and Schafer and Double Fine Executive Producer and COO Caroline Esmurdoc won Best New Studio. In October 2006, Schafer received a BAFTA video game Best Screenplay award for Psychonauts. An hour-long episode of the G4 Network series Icons documented the final week of Psychonauts' production and examined Schafer's career up to that point.
Sales, however, were poor at launch, creating financial difficulty for publisher Majesco Entertainment. By 2012, Double Fine had reacquired full rights to the game. In that year Schafer noted that the studio made more from Psychonauts than it ever had before, suggesting the reacquisition turned a critical success that had been a commercial disappointment into a sustainable asset.
Brütal Legend, released on the 13th of October, 2009, was Schafer's tribute to the music and art of heavy metal. The game featured voice work from Jack Black and cameo appearances from Lemmy Kilmister, Rob Halford, Ozzy Osbourne, and Lita Ford. Its development was complicated: original publisher Vivendi Games dropped the title following its 2008 merger with Activision, and Electronic Arts eventually picked it up.
During that development period, Schafer instituted what he called Amnesia Fortnight, starting in 2007. Once a year, Double Fine's staff took two weeks away from the main project to split into four teams and each produce a pitchable game prototype. Schafer compared the approach to methods used by film director Wong Kar-Wai.
When Brütal Legend received generally positive reviews but underperformed commercially, and Electronic Arts cancelled preliminary sequel work, Amnesia Fortnight proved its practical value. Schafer selected past prototypes that could realistically be expanded into full releases. Four games emerged from this process: Costume Quest, Stacking, Iron Brigade, and Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster. Each was led by a project leader other than Schafer, marking the first time in Double Fine's history that happened. The titles stabilized the studio financially, and Amnesia Fortnight has continued as a yearly practice.
In February 2012, Schafer launched a Kickstarter campaign for an adventure game under the working title "Double Fine Adventure," explaining that publishers had grown deeply reluctant to back the genre. The campaign asked for a specific amount to cover the game and an accompanying documentary. Within less than 24 hours, contributions exceeded that target by more than three times, making it the first Kickstarter project to reach two million dollars and the second most successful project on the site at that time.
When the campaign closed on the 13th of March, it had raised $3,336,371 through Kickstarter plus an additional $110,000 from premium pledges. The project became Broken Age, released in two acts across 2014 and 2015.
The Kickstarter's success also triggered a separate negotiation. Schafer and Double Fine worked with The Walt Disney Company, which acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, to secure rights to three games Schafer had directed at LucasArts: Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. Double Fine held those rights by 2014 and released remastered versions of all three in subsequent years. Schafer also helped found the crowdfunding platform Fig in August 2015, serving on its advisory board until March 2020, and announced Psychonauts 2 through Fig in December 2015.
In June 2019, Microsoft announced that Double Fine had joined Xbox Game Studios. Schafer said he had not been looking for an acquisition but found the terms promising after talks with the company. The deal preserved Double Fine's independence, allowed the studio to publish pending titles on platforms of its own choosing, and provided financial security that let the team focus on quality.
Psychonauts 2 shipped on the 25th of August, 2021, to critical praise. The Microsoft acquisition had made it possible to retain gameplay elements that might otherwise have been cut under tighter commercial constraints.
Recognition for Schafer's body of work arrived in concentrated form around this period. He received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards in March 2018 and a BAFTA Fellowship in April 2018, the Fellowship citation describing him as "a true pioneer of game design, who has pushed the boundaries of the medium through his extraordinary talents." In February 2023, the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences inducted him into its Hall of Fame at the 26th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards, calling him "a beacon of creativity and innovation in the games industry."
Common questions
Who is Tim Schafer and what games is he known for?
Tim Schafer is an American video game designer born on the 26th of July, 1967, in Sonoma, California. He is best known for designing Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, and Broken Age, and for co-designing Day of the Tentacle at LucasArts before founding Double Fine Productions in July 2000.
What awards has Tim Schafer won in his career?
Schafer received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards in March 2018 and a BAFTA Fellowship in April 2018. He also won a BAFTA Best Screenplay award for Psychonauts in October 2006, and was inducted into the Hall of Fame at the 26th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards in February 2023.
How did Tim Schafer get his start at LucasArts?
Schafer was hired by LucasArts in 1989 after applying in response to a job listing seeking programmers who could also write game dialog. Despite a rough phone interview with David Fox, in which he confused the name Ballblazer with its pirated variant, he submitted his resume alongside a comic strip of himself getting the job and was offered a position.
How much money did Tim Schafer raise on Kickstarter for Broken Age?
The campaign, launched in February 2012 under the working title "Double Fine Adventure," raised $3,336,371 through Kickstarter plus an additional $110,000 from premium pledges. It was the first Kickstarter project to reach two million dollars and the second most successful on the site when the campaign closed on the 13th of March.
Why did Double Fine make smaller games like Costume Quest and Stacking?
After Brütal Legend underperformed commercially and Electronic Arts cancelled sequel development, Schafer turned to prototypes created during Double Fine's Amnesia Fortnight game jams to keep the studio financially stable. Four of those prototypes, Costume Quest, Stacking, Iron Brigade, and Sesame Street: Once Upon a Monster, were expanded into full releases by project leaders other than Schafer.
When did Microsoft acquire Double Fine and how did it affect Tim Schafer?
Microsoft announced the acquisition of Double Fine as part of Xbox Game Studios in June 2019. The deal preserved the studio's independence and provided financial security that allowed Schafer and his team to complete Psychonauts 2, which shipped on the 25th of August, 2021.