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Grim Fandango Remastered
So, there’s perhaps three aspects to the debate over GF’s controls…
Direct control vs. point-and-click
I can understand why some people prefer point-and-click controls since they’re easier to use and you rarely if ever have to finagle to get your character in the right spot. That’s why many people were so happy about Tobias Pfaff’s patch adding point-and-click controls to GF. If the GF remaster comes to PC or tablets, Double Fine may include this patch or something similar.
Personally I didn’t have a problem with Grim Fandango’s direct control scheme at the time. I agree with this article that GF’s interface features (direct control, Manny makes eye contact with interesting objects, Manny pulls inventory items from his coat pocket) all were very forward-thinking design choices that make the player feel more like they’re actually in the game world.
Character-relative “tank” controls vs. camera-relative controls
In my earlier post I made a mistake and suggested that the remaster might add an option for camera-relative controls. I forgot that GF already has one; I just tended not to use it because I found the character-relative “tank” controls, while clunkier, to be more precise when dealing with keyboard input, tight spaces, and a fixed camera angle. I think that’s why tank controls used to be popular in games like the early Resident Evils.
But over time, tank controls have fallen out of favor as real-time 3-D, analog sticks, more open spaces, and more sophisticated camera code has become the norm. So even when going back to play an older game like GF, tank controls may feel awkward to many people. Instead, camera-relative controls that have been tuned to feel good on a gamepad may become the default setting for GF on the PS4. It’s possible tank controls may still be there as an alternative option, since some people are used to it, and since the spaces you navigate in the game are still going to be tighter sometimes than they tend to be in many more open, modern games.
Keyboard vs. gamepad
I agree with Lambonius on this. Direct control with the analog stick on a gamepad rather than the binary keys of a keyboard will help a lot.
I think DF might just accommodate everyone with the controls. They already showed witn Broken Age that they are willing to do that, as you can play it with a pad, mouse and touch controls. It’s already been proven that GF works very well with a mouse driven interface, so that can be done. Remapping keyboard controls to a pad should not be an issue either.
Yeah I don’t actually see why it should be so hard to just please everybody. I actually had Syberia 2 on xbox and you controlled Kate Walker directly using the gamepad (and that worked quite well), and I believe it’s on iOS as well so I don’t see why it should be major problem to implement with Grim Fandango as well as it’s pretty similar in that is has 2D backgrounds/3D characters.
This game is not coming out on a system that uses a mouse. Just a reminder.
This game is not coming out on a system that uses a mouse. Just a reminder.
Direct from Schafer: ”Talk about other platforms soon! Sony’s been a great help making this happen & we’re excited to be working with them on the console version!”
It’s coming out on PC. An iPad version wouldn’t surprise me, either, because why not?
The more I read about this “remake” (Tim saying they want to utilise fan patches etc.), the more I’m starting to think it’s going to be a straight-up port, with some extras like a documentary from 2 Player, concept art gallery etc.
The biggest problem they need to overcome is A) resolution and B) aspect ratio, unless they’re planning to sell it as a budget “classic” game.
It will come out for PC certainly. After Broken Age Tim cannot let himself be a part of another fiasco in such a short time.
PS4 is a nice toy, but those who still prefer toys generally have a “slightly” different taste in games and it doesn’t include ones like Grim Fandango.
It will come out for PC certainly. After Broken Age Tim cannot let himself be a part of another fiasco in such a short time.
PS4 is a nice toy, but those who still prefer toys generally have a “slightly” different taste in games and it doesn’t include ones like Grim Fandango.
Hahaha!
It will come out for PC certainly. After Broken Age Tim cannot let himself be a part of another fiasco in such a short time.
PS4 is a nice toy, but those who still prefer toys generally have a “slightly” different taste in games and it doesn’t include ones like Grim Fandango.
I hope it doesn’t come out for PC just because of this comment.
I’m sure it’ll eventually come out for PC, but regardless, I still hope it doesn’t include a point-n-click option. The game was designed from the ground up with direct control in mind. PnC completely undoes that. Now, that said, I do think there is some room to tweak the current controls to make them feel a bit more fluid—but full-on point and click would fly in the face of the game’s inherent design; and that, in my opinion, would be a net negative.
Eh. While I agree that Grim Fandango was designed originally with direct control in mind, I see no reason why Double Fine shouldn’t include point-and-click for the inevitable PC re-release if it’s feasible for them to do so. I don’t think PnC controls will undo the experience any more than they do in Frogwares’ or Telltale’s games. PnC also makes the game playable for people like my dad who aren’t that comfortable with gamepad controls—what’s wrong with that? (Controls are the main reason my dad has finished The Longest Journey but never finished Dreamfall.) I think player choice and accessibility are both worthwhile goals for the game industry, within reason.
I’m in the minority of players who plays with an inverted Y-axis for camera controls on the right analog stick—it’s a habit from flight sims, though I can play the other way too—so I appreciate having that option given to me in most games. I’m therefore happy to see similar courtesies extended to other players with their own preferences about controls.
And yeah, it’s pretty clear that the GF remaster is coming to PC eventually. Tim Schafer’s hinted at it persistently and yet vaguely enough on Twitter that it seems likely that he is just bound by contract and does not have permission to announce it. Double Fine are very pro-multiplatform so I’m sure they’ll eventually bring GF remaster to as many places as they can within the terms of their agreement with Sony and Disney.
There’s a difference between mouse control and PnC though. Telltale’s version of mouse movement is not something I’d want to force on a game like Grim Fandango. I guess I’d be okay with PnC for Grim if it was implemented well and didn’t feel like an afterthought. Where I would start getting a bad taste in my mouth would be if implementing a PnC option ALSO meant doing hot-spot highlights (the head-turning was a brilliantly organic way to do it without OVER-doing it.) Contemporary PnC controls implies also allowing artificial hotspot highlighting, and that would ruin the atmosphere of the game for me.
There’s a difference between mouse control and PnC though. Telltale’s version of mouse movement is not something I’d want to force on a game like Grim Fandango.
Fair enough, I forget which Telltale games have which kinds of mouse controls because at a certain point I switched to playing their games with the gamepad. I remember Back to the Future had that weird mouse-based version of tank controls where you would hold down the mouse button and steer the direction of your character, or you could use WASD keys instead. I just checked The Walking Dead and it uses WASD for movement (seemingly no more mouse-based tank controls) but it seems like you would rarely need to use those WASD keys and you could often just click on an object to automatically walk there. (Presumably clicking on an object to walk is more convenient on tablet as well.) However, I’m not really the right person to speak to how well The Walking Dead mouse controls do or don’t play out in practice, since I used gamepad.
Anyway, based on the hope that Tim Schafer expressed in the Grim Fandango retrospective video to reach out to fans about using some of their enhancements in the remaster, if Grim Fandango gets point-and-click controls as an added option for PC or tablet, they might just be a polished version of Tobias Pfaff’s patch which I mentioned. If so, that would begin to answer your question about how hotspots might be highlighted—it seems to be just a cursor change currently in the patch, though the official remaster could do more explicit highlighting or a different approach entirely. This is all just speculation for now.
My main sadness with that patch (based on the video—I’ve never used it) is that Manny’s inventory isn’t nearly as cool. 
The point-and-click patch is a different experience, for sure, but it has advantages (ease of use) as well as disadvantages (less organic). And for people who want or need it, it’s much better than not playing Grim Fandango at all.
I’m sure it’ll eventually come out for PC, but regardless, I still hope it doesn’t include a point-n-click option.
Gotta agree with Caliburn’s “Eh”! Why on earth would you want to deny an option which would make the game more playable for an awful lot of people just because you don’t like it? YOU wouldn’t use it. I’m in the camp who found GF’s controls (especially Manny’s turning head and the inventory system) had a major negative impact on my enjoyment of the game. It was very hard to trust that you had found all the objects in the room and so you had to go over locations ultra carefully - a “fun” variation of a pixel search. As for the inventory system, slow slow slow…
Contemporary PnC controls implies also allowing artificial hotspot highlighting, and that would ruin the atmosphere of the game for me.
Am I being dense. If it would ruin the atmosphere for you, then you simply wouldn’t play it with them. No-one’s suggesting it should ONLY be released with PnC and artificial hotspot highlighting.
The game was designed from the ground up with direct control in mind. PnC completely undoes that.
But considering the amount of people who dislike them, I think it’s fair to say they weren’t well designed with direct control in mind. I prefer PnC in total, but the controls for Dreamfall, Tex, GK3 etc are (for me at least) a lot better than those in GF. I’d definitely prefer straight PnC, but if that’s not possible, something like Tex would be an improvement. Anything other than the Manny turning head.
I really suggest trying GF with the mouse control patch. It really makes the game work very much like any othet point and click game out there. I’d go even as far as to claim that it actually makes the game better than it was and not only from the technical POV.
It will come out for PC certainly. After Broken Age Tim cannot let himself be a part of another fiasco in such a short time.
PS4 is a nice toy, but those who still prefer toys generally have a “slightly” different taste in games and it doesn’t include ones like Grim Fandango.I hope it doesn’t come out for PC just because of this comment.
Thank you for proving my point 
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