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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: etc.

"I often feel that I have an age anxiety that is not quite the same as other people, which is to forget how old I am."

From an early age, Tim Schafer aspired to make games for a living and worshipped people who had realized their dreams. During his career, he has worked on many classic adventure games with a lot of humorous elements, such as Monkey Island Secret, Underworld Rhapsody and, of course, the Psychonauts series.

When he was a child, Schaefer used to play video games at home since his father bought a Magnavox Odyssey (the world's first commercial home video game console). It wasn't long before Schaefer's dream of making games began to take root. "then I had another Atari 400 and 800, so I often thought, how can I get a job making games?"

"I remember writing to a magazine called Analog when I was still in high school, probably in the seventh or eighth grade, asking how to find a job related to games, but I didn't get any reply!" "it made me sad," Schaefer recalls sadly. "I thought I might not be the material, and I couldn't imagine who made those games."... they seemed too far away from me, a level higher than me, so they gave up. "

Schaefer was born in California and was the youngest of five children in high school. Schaefer tried to make some simple games with his classmates, but did not consider starting a company. In Schaefer's view, this idea is too impractical. "I don't think we can do it because the game developers are different from us. We are losers, and they are very smart."

Fortunately in the golden age, although Schaefer thought it was impossible to work in the gaming industry, after graduating from college, he joined LucasArts, the gaming company owned by the great director George Lucas. There, he participated in the production of high-praise games such as "tentacles are crazy", and gave full play to his wild imagination, giving them a sense of humor. At that time, in the early 1990s, adventure games ushered in a prosperous era with the advantage of sound and light pictures, and LucasArts was the producer of a large number of famous adventure games, training a large number of well-known developers. Schaefer described LucasArts as a "magical place" and said the company gave him the confidence to explore the funny side of his personality.

"it helped me learn how to create more economically." The level of technology in the 1990s forced Schaefer to find ways to break through the restrictions of software and hardware on game production. "during the development of 'Little Hero of Monkey Island,' we had a crisis that we couldn't put a lot of text on a floppy disk, so we had to cut a lot of content. I said at the time, I can't delete my work, it's perfect!"

On one occasion, Schaefer needed to write some conversations for "Monkey Island Little Heroes," but the director, Ron Gilbert, rejected it. " I thought the conversations were temporary, so I wrote something strange in my own tone. However, Ron ran up to us and told us, "No, this is a conversation in the game, and you can't scribble!" If I had known in advance, I wouldn't have started writing at all. It was then that I realized that casual, inspiration-driven writing was interesting. Some ideas seem stupid, you may want to hide them, do not want to be seen by others, but are often the best. "

In 2000, Schaefer left LucasArts to start his own game company, Double Fine Productions,5, which released its first work, brain Navigator. In this platform adventure game, players play young people with powers and use their powers to enter people's minds of the cartoon world to help them solve problems.

The brain navigator in Double Fine's office has received wide acclaim from players, and Schaefer says many of the company's employees are die-hard fans. Over the past decade, Double Fine has launched a number of games with a similar style and a good sense of humor, such as heavy metal rock fantasy strategy games Br ü tal Legend and Costume Quest. In 2021, the studio seemed to be back where it started, releasing a sequel to brain Navigator.

Brain Navigator 2 has been a great success for Double Fine, but Schaefer admits that they encountered unprecedented challenges during development. On the one hand, it encountered difficulties in raising funds. The initial R & D funding for the sequel came from crowdfunding, and the original publisher, Starbreeze, was also restructured. On the other hand, Schaefer said it was one of the most intensive overtime projects he had ever worked on, with many developers working until 5 a.m. for several days in a row.

When we developed the first generation of brain navigators, overtime was so serious that we all thought it was so terrible that we never wanted to do that again. Up to now, we still cannot completely avoid overtime, but we will definitely not normalize it. If a team goes into overtime mode, it often means that something is wrong, either the project is too large, the team is less efficient for some reason, or something bad has happened. As long as you don't think overtime is normal and can find ways to solve the problem, you can gradually get better and better. "

Eighteen years ago, brain Navigator challenged the player's imagination all the time. Schaefer said that the whole development process of brain Navigator 2 was like a roller coaster, and for a time he even thought that "the game is over." In spite of this, brain Navigator 2 is still well received by players after its release. As a cartoon-style platform game, it deals with mental health-related topics such as depression, trauma and addiction. Schaefer said he was particularly relieved to see someone point out that brain Navigator 2 is an empathic expression of human thinking. "it's really important, it's like a comedy, but I want people to know that we don't laugh at anyone, but look at people's hearts in a humorous and loving way."

Compared with the original works, the overall tone of brain Navigator 2 has undergone some subtle changes. Schaefer admits that during Double Fine's development of brain Navigator, the team had few concerns and was less sensitive to many topics. "times have changed and we are older and more sensitive to many natural problems in the game. We want brain Navigator 2 to have a similar sense of humor to its predecessor, but also more concerned about people's feelings than in the past."

"We learned a lot, for example, when we were tested, we were asked if we knew what a word in the game meant to a particular group of people." "I don't know anything about it," Schaefer explained.... so people criticize me, but as a creator, I also think about how the audience interprets my works of art. This may not have been considered too much in previous works. "

Brain Navigator 2 won the Game of the year nomination for the Game Awards in 2021, but lost to the "double trip" Schaefer believes that good comedy can never float on the surface. " If you make a comedy and make some audiences feel hurt, that's a problem. Comedy shouldn't hurt anyone. You will naturally start to think about how your words affect people and make sure you can successfully express your artistic intentions. "

More than 20 years after leaving the big tree of LucasArts, Schaefer thinks he is lucky that Double Fine is still running. At the same time, he wants to see his peers be more creative and make games that don't look like existing games.

"if you go to the cinema, you will find that audiences of all ages, from your children to your grandparents, can find movies that suit you, such as romantic comedies, action movies and so on. From this point of view, the current types of games are still quite limited." "I always think that we can make many different types of games to attract people who don't see themselves as players," he explained. I want to continue to expand the boundaries of the game and expand people's understanding of the concept of the game. "

"where is our romantic comedy? Early games were simple and straightforward, bringing happiness to people, and over time, like TV dramas, the atmosphere of game works became darker and darker. I don't want to be like this all the time. I've always wanted to see characters running around in big bright red shoes, or making shows similar to the Simpsons: the Horror Tree House for big serious games like "Ancient Scrolls: Skyline."

Schaefer also said that if he had the chance, he would be more than happy to make a derivative comedy for the Elden Ring.

When he was a teenager, Schaefer felt that he could never embark on this career path and remain young forever. Schaefer still spends a lot of time playing games. In 2022, his favorites include "returning to Monkey Island" by former colleague Ron Gilbert, "Stray", an adventure game produced by French studio BlueTwelve Studio, and "Tunic" inspired by the Legend of Zelda. "in the gaming industry, it's easy to say they don't have time to play games anymore." But Schaefer found that these games can stimulate creativity and encourage him to expand his creative ideas in a new direction.

"when playing other games, you can't think about how to steal the ideas behind them, but think about why you can bring a particular feeling and whether you can use other technologies to give players a similar feeling. In order to get inspiration, you need to disassemble these components."

In a sense, it is this creative spirit that supports Schaefer to work in the game industry for decades. Schaefer has always been more interested in projects that make him happy than looking for the next "my world". Schaefer, who is 55 years old, still has a youthful mentality and never seems to feel tired. "I often feel that I have an age anxiety that is different from other people, which is to forget how old I am." Schaefer joked.

"I've always been very focused on having fun in this job. You may be forced to take a position or make a game you don't like, simply because other people want you to do it, or you think it's marketable. Over time, your career may fall into a dead end, lose the enthusiasm and excitement of creating games, do something numb every day that you don't want to do, and finally give up. I always devote my time and energy to the projects that make me happiest, so after 30 years in the industry, I am still happy to create games. "

As the founder of Double Fine, Schaefer's relentless pursuit of innovation shaped the studio's creative direction. "We always put innovation first and are eager to make games that people have never seen before." "it's very important to me," Schaefer said. we are also lucky to create a safe space for everyone to give full play to their creativity. within the company, all employees can come up with all kinds of crazy ideas, trial and error over and over again, without any restrictions. "

Under this concept, Schaefer's favorite home game is the 2012 release of "Happy Action Theater" (Happy Action Theater). This is a young game, and Schaefer hopes it will bring happiness to his daughter and friends. "every time I come up with this game at my daughter's birthday party, the room full of energetic children will jump up and down excitedly. It's probably the lowest-selling game in the company's history, but I still love it."

"Happy Action Theater" includes more than a dozen Mini Game that can have fun with friends, and Double Fine was acquired by Microsoft in 2019. Schaefer revealed that Microsoft rarely interferes with the studio's operations, but will provide more resources to support Double Fine to develop more ambitious projects. 'Today, Double Fine is limited by creativity,'he says.

Schaefer also mentioned that Microsoft's deep pockets made him excited about the future of Double Fine. In the past, Schaefer used to lose sleep all night for fear of studio bankruptcy. This feeling was particularly severe during the development of brain Navigator 2, but fortunately he survived.

Interestingly, as a veteran of the game industry, Schaefer never forgot the time when he wrote to the magazine when he was young. "at that time, I thought I might never have a chance to make a living by making games. But now I want you to see that game developers are human beings, just like everyone else. If you want to make games, come on. Now, you can do it."

This article is compiled from: https://www.nme.com/ features / gaming-features / boss-level-2022-tim-schafer-double-fine-productions-3366510

Original title: "For Tim Schafer, creativity is king"

Original author: Andy Brown

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