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Tim Schafer: the story on HearLore | HearLore
Tim Schafer
Timothy John Schafer once botched a job interview by mispronouncing the name of a video game, calling it Ballblaster instead of Ballblazer, and nearly lost his chance to work at Lucasfilm Games because of it. The error was so specific that interviewer David Fox had to correct him, noting that only the pirated version of the game was known by the wrong name. Yet, instead of rejecting Schafer, Fox asked him to submit his resume anyway. To make up for the disastrous phone call, Schafer drew a comic strip of himself applying for and getting the job, presenting it as a text adventure game. This creative pivot worked, and he was hired in 1989 as a scummlet, a programmer who helped implement features and ideas proposed by lead developers within the LucasArts SCUMM engine. Born on the 26th of July 1967 in Sonoma, California, Schafer was the youngest of five children to a doctor father and a nurse mother. While studying computer science at UC Berkeley, he found inspiration in Kurt Vonnegut, who wrote short stories in the evenings while working as a publicist at General Electric. Schafer tried to follow a similar path, interning to develop databases for small companies, but was rejected by major corporations like Atari and Hewlett-Packard. The Lucasfilm Games opening for programmers who could also write game dialog was the perfect fit for his unique blend of technical and narrative skills.
The Monkey Island Legacy
Ron Gilbert approached Schafer and his colleague Dave Grossman to work on a new project that would become The Secret of Monkey Island, a pirate-themed adventure game that would define a generation of gaming. According to Gilbert, Schafer and Grossman were responsible for about two thirds of the game's dialogue, establishing a comedic writing style that would become Schafer's signature. The team went on to create the sequel, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, further cementing their reputation in the industry. Schafer's first lead role came with Day of the Tentacle, a time-travel comedy adventure and the sequel to Ron Gilbert's Maniac Mansion, which he co-designed with Grossman. His first solo project, Full Throttle, was released in 1995 and was a biker adventure that showcased his ability to create immersive worlds. The game was followed by Grim Fandango, a noir adventure 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, and Computer Adventure Game of the Year at the 2nd Annual Interactive Achievement Awards. These early successes established Schafer as a master storyteller who could blend humor, history, and gameplay into something truly unique.
Tim Schafer was born on the 26th of July 1967 in Sonoma, California. He was the youngest of five children to a doctor father and a nurse mother.
How did Tim Schafer get hired at Lucasfilm Games in 1989?
Tim Schafer was hired in 1989 after submitting a comic strip text adventure game to interviewer David Fox to make up for a botched job interview. He was hired as a scummlet, a programmer who helped implement features and ideas proposed by lead developers within the LucasArts SCUMM engine.
What happened during the Tim Schafer Kickstarter campaign for Broken Age?
Tim Schafer launched a crowdfunded project for an unnamed adventure game via Kickstarter on the 1st of February 2012, which reached $3,336,371 in funding by the 13th of March 2012. The project became the first Kickstarter to reach a $2 million figure and culminated in the release of Broken Age in two acts over 2014 and 2015.
When was Psychonauts 2 released and what was its critical reception?
Psychonauts 2 was released on the 25th of August 2021 and received critical praise. The game retained several gameplay elements from the original while being developed under the financial security provided by Microsoft's acquisition of Double Fine.
What awards did Tim Schafer receive in 2018?
Tim Schafer received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards in March 2018 and a BAFTA Fellowship at the British Academy Games Awards in April 2018. These honors recognized him as a true pioneer of game design who has pushed the boundaries of the medium.
Schafer left LucasArts in January 2000 to found Double Fine Productions, a decision driven by the studio's shift away from adventure games and the desire to create PlayStation 2 games independently. He initially felt secure in his position at LucasArts but was approached by colleagues who believed they could succeed on their own. The studio's first major release was Psychonauts, a platform game released on Xbox in North America on the 19th of April 2005. While the game received 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. Double Fine reacquired full rights to Psychonauts by 2012, allowing them to release the game with improvements for modern systems. In that year, Schafer stated that they made more on Psychonauts than they ever had before. The financial struggles of the early days of Double Fine forced Schafer to innovate, leading to the creation of the Amnesia Fortnights, an internal game jam where the company was split into four teams to make pitchable game prototypes. This process allowed Double Fine to develop smaller games like Costume Quest, Stacking, Iron Brigade, and Once upon a Monster, which helped keep the studio financially stable and marked the first games in Double Fine's history to have project leaders other than Schafer.
The Crowdfunding Revolution
On the 1st of February 2012, Schafer launched a crowdfunded project for an unnamed adventure game via the crowd-sourced Kickstarter, using the placeholder title Double Fine Adventure. 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 a specific amount, but 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. When the project ended on the 13th of March 2012, funding reached a level of $3,336,371 in Kickstarter with an additional $110,000 from premium pledges. Ultimately, the project culminated in Broken Age, released in two acts over 2014 and 2015. This success allowed Double Fine 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. Double Fine subsequently released remastered versions of all three games over the following years, bringing classic titles to a new generation of players. The crowdfunding model also allowed Schafer to retain creative control and independence, setting a precedent for future game development projects.
The Gamergate Backlash
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. He hosted the 2015 Game Developer's Choice Awards on the 5th of March, during which 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. Following the event, Gamergate supporters targeted Schafer for harassment by claiming he had been making a joke that mocked the minorities using this hashtag. 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. Despite the challenges, Schafer remained committed to supporting diversity and inclusion in the gaming industry, using his platform to advocate for change.
The Heavy Metal Hero
Schafer led the development of Double Fine's next game, Brütal Legend, released on the 13th of October 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. 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. The game received 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. Despite the commercial challenges, Brütal Legend remains a cult classic and a testament to Schafer's ability to blend music, culture, and gameplay into a unique experience. The game's development process also highlighted the importance of creative freedom and the risks involved in pursuing passion projects in the video game industry.
The Industry Pioneer
Schafer has received numerous accolades throughout his career, including a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards and a BAFTA Fellowship for his contributions to the industry. In 2006, Schafer and Erik Wolpaw won the award for Best Writing for Psychonauts, and 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. 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. In 2015, he won the Vanguard Award at Bilbao's Fun & Serious Game Festival. Schafer received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Game Developers Choice Awards in March 2018. 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. 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. These awards reflect his enduring impact on the industry and his commitment to pushing the boundaries of what video games can achieve.
The Future of Games
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. Through this support, Double Fine was able to retain several gameplay elements within Psychonauts 2, which was eventually released on the 25th of August 2021, to critical praise. 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. Through Fig, Schafer announced the sequel Psychonauts 2 in December 2015. The acquisition by Microsoft ensured that Double Fine could continue to innovate and take risks, while also providing the stability needed to develop complex projects like Psychonauts 2. Schafer's vision for the future of games remains focused on integrating story into gameplay, setting a creative goal of someday creating a video game without any cutscenes at all. His influence continues to shape the industry, inspiring a new generation of developers to push the boundaries of what is possible in video games.