THE HISTORY OF PSYCHONAUTS
When Tim Schafer walked 2000, having just released the great swan song of adventure gaming, Grim Fandango, he’d already established himself as one of the most brilliant minds in the business. However, he was just getting started. After setting up his own company, Double Fine, he set the wheels in motion on a game that had been brewing for years.
The project was rooted in Tim’s long-time fascination with psychology. He recalls, “I studied dreams in college, and thinking about how people represent emotional states in abstract imagery and metaphors, especially in their sleep, was always interesting to me.” Years prior, he’d even briefly considered working these ideas into the legendary point-and-click title, Full Throttle. “In Full Throttle, I wanted to have this interactive peyote trip where Ben would take peyote in the desert and then wander through his own mind; kind of like Jim Morrison in The Doors movie – where he just goes off into the desert and tries to see the elephant. What could that mean? That kind of symbolism was really fun.” Although that Throttle”, Tim held onto it.
“IT CAME FROM BRAINSTORMING OVER ALL THE GREAT PSYCHIC POWERS THAT PEOPLE FANTASISE ABOUT HAVING, AND HOW YOU COULD MAKE PUZZLES OUT OF THAT”
TIM SCHAFER
Later, while working on an unrealised spy game (supposedly a cross between , , kung-fu cinema and ) he returned to the idea; designing a mechanic where gamers could meditate on objects in order to experience visions about them, and gain clues about their significance.
