Misplaced Pages

#341658

123-424: Psychonauts is a 2005 platform game developed by Double Fine Productions and published by Majesco Entertainment for Microsoft Windows , Xbox and PlayStation 2 . Psychonauts follows Razputin (Raz), a young boy gifted with psychic abilities, who runs away from a circus to try to sneak into a summer camp for those with similar powers to become a "Psychonaut", a spy with psychic abilities. He finds that there

246-543: A Humble Bundle in June 2012. In 2016, Double Fine also released Psychonauts as a classic title for use with the PlayStation 4 's emulation software. Psychonauts received positive reception, according to review aggregator Metacritic . Schafer and Wolpaw's comedic writing was highly praised, as well as the uniqueness and quirks that the individual characters were given. Alex Navarro of GameSpot commented favorably on

369-519: A cult following . It has since been cited as one of the greatest video games ever made . In 2011, Double Fine acquired the rights for the title, allowing the company to republish the title through digital distribution with updates for modern gaming systems and ports for Mac OS X and Linux . Double Fine reported that their own sales of the game have far exceeded what was initially sold on its original release, with cumulative sales of nearly 1.7 million as of December 2015. A sequel, Psychonauts 2 ,

492-608: A true 3D platformer is a French computer game called Alpha Waves , created by Christophe de Dinechin and published by Infogrames in 1990 for the Atari ST , Amiga , and IBM PC compatibles . Bug! , released in 1995 for the Saturn , has a more conservative approach. It allows players to move in all directions, but it does not allow movement along more than one axis at once; the player can move orthogonally but not diagonally. Its characters were pre-rendered sprites, much like

615-488: A "running/jumping/climbing game" while developing it. Miyamoto commonly used the term "athletic game" to refer to Donkey Kong and later games in the genre, such as Super Mario Bros. (1985). Donkey Kong spawned other games with a mix of running, jumping, and vertical traversal, a novel genre that did not match the style of games that came before it, leaving journalists and writers to offer their own terms. Computer and Video Games magazine, among others, referred to

738-452: A 1980 arcade release by Universal , is sometimes credited as the first platformer. Another precursor to the genre from 1980 was Nichibutsu 's Crazy Climber , in which the player character scales vertically scrolling skyscrapers. The unreleased 1979 Intellivision game Hard Hat has a similar concept. Donkey Kong , an arcade video game created by Nintendo and released in July 1981,

861-401: A 2D plane are called 2.5D , as they are a blend of 2D and 3D. The first platformers to simulate a 3D perspective and moving camera emerged in the early-mid-1980s. An early example of this was Konami 's Antarctic Adventure , where the player controls a penguin in a forward-scrolling third-person perspective while having to jump over pits and obstacles. Originally released in 1983 for

984-614: A 3D Sonic game, Sonic Adventure , for its Dreamcast console. It used a hub structure like Super Mario 64 , but its levels were more linear, fast-paced, and action-oriented. Emotional baggage Emotional baggage is an idiom that generally refers to unresolved psychological trauma such as stressors , trust issues , fears , paranoia , guilt , regret , despair or grief that are usually detrimental to one's overall mental well-being and social relationships. The unresolved trauma can be rooted in issues such as emotional abuse , childhood trauma or prior stressful events. As

1107-462: A balance between open-ended and guided exploration. Another platform-adventure released that year, Pony Canyon 's Super Pitfall , was critically panned for its vagueness and weak game design. That same year Jaleco released Esper Boukentai , a sequel to Psychic 5 that scrolled in all directions and allowed the player character to make huge multistory jumps to navigate the vertically oriented levels. Telenet Japan also released its own take on

1230-481: A bouncing car that jumps on various platforms such as buildings, clouds, and hills. Jump Bug offered a glimpse of what was to come, with uneven, suspended platforms, levels that scroll horizontally (and in one section, vertically), and differently themed sections, such as a city, the interior of a large pyramid, and underwater. Irem's 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol combines jumping over obstacles and shooting attackers. A month later, Taito released Jungle King ,

1353-525: A brief burst of episodic platformers where the first was freely distributed and parts 2 and 3 were available for purchase. The abundance of platformers for 16-bit consoles continued late into the generation, with successful games such as Vectorman (1995), Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995), and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995), but the release of new hardware caused players' attention to move away from 2D genres. The Saturn , PlayStation , and Nintendo 64 nevertheless featured

SECTION 10

#1732780608342

1476-510: A common approach for games during the early 2000s, while Schafer and his team felt such confusion was simply the nature of the adventure-based platform that they were developing. Double Fine was also resistant to make changes that Microsoft had suggested from play-testing, such as making the humor secondary to the story, removing the summer camp theme, and drastically altering the story. Fries departed Microsoft in January 2004; shortly thereafter,

1599-534: A common term for the genre by 1989, popularized by its usage in the United Kingdom press. Examples include referring to the " Super Mario mould" (such as Kato-chan & Ken-chan ) as platform games, and calling Strider a "platform and ladders" game. The genre originated in the early 1980s. Levels in early platform games were confined to a single screen, viewed in profile, and based on climbing between platforms rather than jumping. Space Panic ,

1722-406: A development studio that Tim Schafer founded after leaving LucasArts following their decision to exit the point-and-click adventure game market. Schafer's initial studio hires included several others that worked alongside him on Grim Fandango . The backstory for Psychonauts was originally conceived during the development of Full Throttle , where Tim Schafer envisioned a sequence where

1845-450: A forward-scrolling effect similar to Sega's 1985 third-person rail shooter Space Harrier . 3-D WorldRunner was an early forward-scrolling pseudo-3D third-person platform-action game where players were free to move in any forward-scrolling direction and could leap over obstacles and chasms. It was notable for being one of the first stereoscopic 3-D games . Square released its sequel, JJ , later that year. The earliest example of

1968-584: A giant tank. Raz defeats him, but when he approaches the tank, it releases a cloud of sneezing powder, causing him to sneeze his brain out. Raz uses his telekinesis to place his brain inside the tank, merging it with Oleander's. Inside, Raz discovers that Coach Oleander's evil springs from his childhood fear of his father, who ran a butcher shop. At the same time, Raz's own father appears and the two dads join forces. However, he turns out to be an imposter, with Raz's real father, Augustus, appearing and using his own psychic abilities to fix his son's tangled mind and beat

2091-609: A high quality of animation. The 1988 shareware game The Adventures of Captain Comic was one of the first attempts at a Nintendo-style platformer for IBM PC compatibles . It inspired Commander Keen , released by id Software in 1990, which became the first MS-DOS platformer with smooth scrolling graphics. Keen's success resulted in numerous console-styled platformers for MS-DOS compatible operating systems, including Duke Nukem , Duke Nukem II , Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure , and Dark Ages all by Apogee Software . These fueled

2214-405: A huge crater. The psitanium affected the local wildlife, giving them limited psychic powers, such as bears with the ability to attack with telekinetic claws, cougars with pyrokinesis , and rats with confusion gas. The Native Americans of the area called psitanium "whispering rock", which they used to build arrowheads. When settlers began inhabiting the region, the psychoactive properties of

2337-414: A level where the local gravity would change for Raz, thus allowing him to move across the warped setting that was created. The level's unique gameplay aspect, where Raz would need to give specific G-men a proper object as in point-and-click adventure games , was from gameplay developer Erik Robson as a means to take advantage of the inventory feature that they had given Raz. Schafer had wanted Wolpaw to write

2460-438: A metaphor, the term refers to one's carrying of the collective emotional load of the past into the present moment. In adult life, emotional baggage comes to the fore in relationships in two main forms. Behind adult problems, however, there may be deeper forms of emotional baggage rooted in the experiences of childhood, but continuing to trouble personality and behavior within the adult. Men and women may be unable to leave

2583-559: A named character—Mario, which became a mascot of the company. The term platform game gained traction in the late 1980s, as did the alternate form platformer . During their peak of popularity, platformers were estimated to comprise between a quarter and a third of all console games. By 2006, the genre had experienced a decline in sales, representing a 2% market share as compared to 15% in 1998. In spite of this, platformers are still being commercially released every year, including some which have sold millions of copies. A platformer requires

SECTION 20

#1732780608342

2706-631: A number of successful 2D platformers. The 2D Rayman was a big success on 32-bit consoles. Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4 helped revitalize interest in Capcom 's Mega Man character . Castlevania: Symphony of the Night revitalized its series and established a new foundation for later Castlevania games. Oddworld and Heart of Darkness kept the subgenre born from Prince of Persia alive. The difficulties of adapting platformer gameplay to three dimensions led some developers to compromise by pairing

2829-473: A person known as " the Milkman "; Fred Bonaparte, an asylum orderly struggling control over his mind by a hallucination of his ancestor, Napoleon Bonaparte ; Gloria Van Gouton, a former actress driven insane by a family tragedy; Edgar Teglee, a painter whose girlfriend cheated on him; and Linda, the gigantic lungfish that brings campers to the asylum. Razputin, having fled from the circus, tries to sneak into

2952-401: A selection screen. The game includes both the "real world" of the camp and its surroundings, as well as a number of "mental worlds" which exist in the consciousness of the game's various characters. The mental worlds have wildly differing art and level design aesthetics, but generally have a specific goal that Raz must complete to help resolve a psychological issue a character may have, allowing

3075-470: A shift in design. Later 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie , Spyro the Dragon , and Donkey Kong 64 borrowed its format, and the "collect-a-thon" genre began to form. In order to make this free-roaming model work, developers had to program dynamic, intelligent cameras. A free camera made it harder for players to judge the height and distance of platforms, making jumping puzzles more difficult. Some of

3198-607: A short series of slides providing extra information on that character's backstory. Most of these worlds culminate in a boss battle that fully resolves the character's emotional distress and advance the story. The player is able to revisit any of these worlds after completing them to locate any additional collectibles they may have missed. Razputin is given some items early in the game, one that allows him to leave any mental world at any time, and another that can provide hints about what to do next or how to defeat certain enemies. Raz can take damage from psychically empowered creatures around

3321-406: A side-scrolling action game some platform elements: jumping between vines, jumping or running beneath bouncing boulders. It was quickly re-released as Jungle Hunt because of similarities to Tarzan . The 1982 Apple II game Track Attack includes a scrolling platform level where the character runs and leaps along the top of a moving train. The character is little more than a stick figure , but

3444-725: A teenager with a rebellious personality to appeal to gamers who saw the previous generation of consoles as being for kids. The character's speed showed off the hardware capabilities of the Genesis, which had a CPU clock speed approximately double that of the Super NES. Sonic 's perceived rebellious attitude became a model for game mascots. Other companies attempted to duplicate Sega's success with their own brightly colored anthropomorphisms with attitude. These often were characterized by impatience, sarcasm, and frequent quips. A second generation of platformers for computers appeared alongside

3567-503: A vision of Dr. Loboto, an insane ex-dentist, extracting Dogen's brain, but is unable to intervene. Raz eventually realizes that the vision is true after finding Dogen without his brain, but the Psychonauts refuse to believe him. After receiving additional training from Agent Vodello, Raz learns that Dr. Loboto is working on behalf of Coach Oleander, who intends to harvest the campers' brains to power an army of psychic death tanks. Lili

3690-416: Is "The Milkman Conspiracy ", which takes place in the mind of Boyd, one of the patients at the mental hospital who is obsessed with conspiracy theories . Schafer had been interested in knowing what went on inside the minds of those that believed in conspiracy theories, inspired by watching Capricorn One as a child. During a Double Fine dinner event, someone had uttered the line "I am the milkman, my milk

3813-457: Is a sinister plot occurring at the camp that only he can stop. The game is centered on exploring the strange and imaginative minds of various characters that Raz encounters as a Psychonaut-in-training/"Psycadet" to help them overcome their fears or memories of their past, so as to gain their help and progress in the game. Raz gains use of several psychic abilities during the game that are used for both attacking foes and solving puzzles. Psychonauts

Psychonauts - Misplaced Pages Continue

3936-434: Is delicious.", which led Schafer to create the idea of Boyd, a milkman bent on conspiracy theories. Schafer then worked out a web of conspiracy theories, wanting the level to be a maze-like structure around those, tying that in to Boyd's backstory as a person who had been fired from many different jobs, partially inspired by a homeless person that Double Fine occasionally paid to help clean their office front. Schaefer had wanted

4059-474: Is in a vector game called Major Havoc , which comprises a number of mini-games, including a simple platformer. One of the first raster -based platformers to scroll fluidly in all directions in this manner is 1985's Legend of Kage . In 1985, Enix released the action-adventure platformer Brain Breaker . The following year saw the release of Nintendo's Metroid , which was critically acclaimed for

4182-474: Is near the large concentration of Psitanium does his psyche come together enough to form his real personality. During his time at camp, Raz meets several of the other gifted children including Lili Zanotto (voice actress Nicki Rapp ), the daughter of the Grand Head of the Psychonauts, who falls in love with him at first sight (which he eventually reciprocates); and Dogen Boole (voice actress Nika Futterman ),

4305-473: Is now Lake Oblongata . The asylum still stands, but has fallen into disrepair. The government took advantage of the psitanium deposit to set up a training camp for Psychonauts, a group of agents gifted with psychic abilities used to help defeat evil-doers. The training ground is disguised as a summer camp for young children, but in reality helps the children to hone their abilities and to train them to be Psychonauts themselves. Due to this, only those recruited by

4428-457: Is soon abducted as well, and with both Agents Nein and Vodello missing, Raz takes it upon himself to infiltrate the abandoned Thorny Towers Home of the Disturbed insane asylum where she was taken. Agent Cruller gives him a piece of bacon which he can use to contact Agent Cruller at any time, and tasks him with retrieving the stolen brains so that he can return them to the campers. Raz frees

4551-626: The Atari 2600 , with 256 horizontally connected screens, became one of the best-selling games on the system and was a breakthrough for the genre. Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle was released on the ColecoVision that same year, adding uneven terrain and scrolling pans between static screens. Manic Miner (1983) and its sequel Jet Set Willy (1984) continued this style of multi-screen levels on home computers . Wanted: Monty Mole won

4674-683: The MSX computer, it was subsequently ported to various platforms the following year, including an arcade video game version, NES , and ColecoVision . 1986 saw the release of the sequel to forward-scrolling platformer Antarctic Adventure called Penguin Adventure , which was designed by Hideo Kojima . It included more action game elements, a greater variety of levels, RPG elements such as upgrading equipment, and multiple endings . In early 1987, Square released 3-D WorldRunner , designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nasir Gebelli . Using

4797-530: The Master System with Alex Kidd in Miracle World . It has horizontal and vertical scrolling levels, the ability to punch enemies and obstacles, and shops for the player to buy power-ups and vehicles. Another Sega series that began that same year is Wonder Boy . The original Wonder Boy in 1986 was inspired more by Pac-Land than Super Mario Bros. , with skateboarding segments that gave

4920-694: The Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, became the archetype for the genre. It was bundled with Nintendo systems in North America, Japan, and Europe, and sold over 40 million copies, according to the 1999 Guinness Book of World Records . Its success as a pack-in led many companies to see platformers as vital to their success, and contributed greatly to popularizing the genre during the third and fourth generations of video game consoles. Sega attempted to emulate this success with their Alex Kidd series, which started in 1986 on

5043-454: The Sega arcade game Congo Bongo (1983) adds a third dimension via isometric graphics . Another popular game of that period, Pitfall! (1982), allows moving left and right through series of non-scrolling screens, expanding the play area. Nintendo 's flagship Super Mario Bros. (1985) was a defining game for the nascent genre, with horizontally scrolling levels and the player controlling

Psychonauts - Misplaced Pages Continue

5166-537: The virtual camera , it had to be constrained to stop it from clipping through the environment. In 1994, a small developer called Exact released a game for the X68000 computer called Geograph Seal , which was a 3D first-person shooter game with platforming. Players piloted a frog-like mech that could jump and then double-jump or triple-jump high into the air as the camera panned down to help players line up their landings. In addition to shooting, jumping on enemies

5289-596: The "Raz Action Status Meeting" (RASM). These were held bi-weekly with each meeting focusing on one specific movement or action that Raz had, reviewing how the character controlled and the visual feedback from that so that the overall combination of moves felt appropriate. With extensive use of the Lua scripting language, they created their own internal Lua Debugger nicknamed Dougie, after a homeless man near their offices they had befriended, that helped to normalize their debugging processes and enable third-party tools to interact with

5412-447: The "bizarre" cast of characters, their conversations that the player can overhear while exploring the camp, and how these conversations will change as the story progresses, eliminating repetition that is typical of such non-player characters in platform games. Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer found that he was incentivized to go back and explore or experiment in the game's level to find more of the comedic dialog that others had observed. The game

5535-464: The 1950s suburban vibe to the level as it would fit in with the spy theme from the same period. Artist Scott Campbell fleshed out these ideas, along with the featureless G-men modeled after the Spy vs. Spy characters. Peter Chan came up with the idea of vaulting the suburban setting into vertical spaces as to create a maze-like effect, which inspired the level designers and gameplay developers to create

5658-468: The Enchanted Castle , which was only modestly successful. That same year, Capcom released Strider in arcades, which scrolled in multiple directions and allowed the player to summon artificial intelligence partners, such as a droid, tiger, and hawk, to help fight enemies. Another Sega release in 1989 was Shadow Dancer , which is a game that also included an AI partner: a dog who followed

5781-532: The Hedgehog into 3D. Their project, titled Sonic Xtreme , was to have featured a radically different approach for the series, with an exaggerated fisheye camera and multidirectional gameplay reminiscent of Bug! . Due in part to conflicts with Sega Enterprises in Japan and a rushed schedule, the game never made it to market. In the 1990s, platforming games started to shift from pseudo-3D to "true 3D," which gave

5904-519: The Maxis deal, he instead provided Double Fine a loan of funds that kept them afloat over the next several months. Wright is credited for this support within the game. By August 2004, Double Fine had negotiated a new publishing deal with Majesco Entertainment to release the game on Windows as well as the Xbox. Tim Schafer was quoted as saying "Together we are going to make what could conservatively be called

6027-601: The Psychonauts are allowed into the camp. The protagonist and playable character of the game is Razputin Aquato (or Raz for short) (voice actor Richard Horvitz ), the son of a family of circus performers, who runs away from the circus to become a Psychonaut, despite his father Augustus' wishes. His family is cursed to die in water, and a watery hand called the Hand of Galochio attempts to submerge Raz whenever he approaches any significantly deep water. When at camp, Raz meets four of

6150-502: The Psychonauts that run the camp: the cool and calculating Sasha Nein (voice actor Stephen Stanton ), the fun-loving Milla Vodello (voice actress Alexis Lezin), the regimental Agent/Coach Morceau Oleander (voice actor Nick Jameson ), and the aged, Mark Twainesque Ford Cruller (voice actor David Kaye ), said by Razputin to have been the greatest leader the Psychonauts ever had, until a past psychic duel shattered Ford's psyche and left him with dissociative identity disorder . Only when he

6273-529: The acrobatics evoke the movement that games such as Prince of Persia would feature. B.C.'s Quest For Tires (1983) put a recognizable character from American comic strips into side-scrolling, jumping gameplay similar to Moon Patrol . The same year, Snokie for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers added uneven terrain to a scrolling platformer. Based on the Saturday morning cartoon rather than

SECTION 50

#1732780608342

6396-427: The area they were in was not safe or readily accommodating, slowing down their development. With the collapse of the dot-com bubble, they were able to secure better office space, though this further delayed production. Schafer was also handling many of the duties for both the studio and the development of the game. Though some of the routine business tasks were offloaded to other studio heads, Schafer brought Esmurdoc onto

6519-415: The basis for the non-linear mission structure found in most open-world, multi-mission, sidequest -heavy games. Another Capcom platformer that year was Bionic Commando , which popularized a grappling hook mechanic that has since appeared in dozens of games, including Earthworm Jim and Tomb Raider . Scrolling platformers went portable in the late 1980s with games such as Super Mario Land , and

6642-412: The camp and woods setting as a natural place that children would want to wander and explore. The game's mental worlds were generally a result of an idea presented by Schafer to the team, fleshed out through concept art and gameplay concepts around the idea, and then executed into the game with the asset and gameplay developers, so each world had its own unique identity. One of the game's most famous levels

6765-401: The camp at night, or by censors in the mental worlds; due to a curse placed on his family, Raz is also vulnerable to water. If Raz's health is drained, he is respawned at the most-recent checkpoint. However, this can only be done so many times while Raz is within a mental world, indicated by the number of remaining astral projections ; if these are expended through respawning, Raz is ejected from

6888-468: The camp, but is caught by the Psychonauts. They agree to let him stay until his parents arrive, but refuse to let him take part in any activities. However, they do allow him to take part in Coach Oleander's "Basic Braining" course, which he easily passes. Impressed, Agent Nein invites Raz to take part in an experiment to determine the extent of his abilities. During the experiment, Raz comes across

7011-485: The character's mind and must re-enter to make another attempt. Health and additional projections can be collected throughout the levels, or purchased at the camp store. The story is set in the fictional Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp, a remote US government training facility under the guise of a children's summer camp . Centuries ago the area was hit by a meteor made of psitanium (a fictional mineral that can grant psychic powers or strengthen existing powers), creating

7134-400: The characters to the rest of the development team. To help flesh out character dialog outside of cut scenes, Schafer developed an approach that used dozens of spoken lines by a character that could be stitched together in a random manner by the game as to reduce apparent repetition; such stitching included elements like vocal pauses and coughs that made the dialog sound more natural. Schafer used

7257-585: The company soon pulled the publishing deal for Psychonauts . Esmurdoc said that Microsoft's management considered Double Fine to be "expensive and late", which she agreed had been true but did not reflect on the progress they had been making at this point. Schafer also noted that at the time of Microsoft's cancellation that they were planning on transitioning to the Xbox 360 and were not funding any further development of games that would not be released after 2004; even though Schafer had set an approximate release date in

7380-478: The complications the real development time was closer to 2 years — with a team of 42 full-time developers and additional contractors, with a final budget of $ 11.5 million. The soundtrack to Psychonauts was composed by Peter McConnell , known for his work on LucasArts titles such as Grim Fandango and Day of the Tentacle . Schafer's familiarity with McConnell, having worked with him on numerous projects in

7503-609: The console as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in North America, along with Super Mario World , while Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis . Sonic showcased a new style of design made possible by a new generation of hardware: large stages that scrolled in all directions, curved hills, loops, and a physics system allowing players to rush through its levels with well-placed jumps and rolls. Sega characterized Sonic as

SECTION 60

#1732780608342

7626-421: The criteria of a platformer, and was billed as an action adventure . It used true 3D characters and set pieces, but its environments were rendered using a rigid engine similar to the one used by Wolfenstein 3D , in that it could only render square, flat corridors, rather than suspended platforms that could be jumped between. Sega had tasked their American studio, Sega Technical Institute , with bringing Sonic

7749-405: The development process. She also believes that their own lack of a clear vision of the ultimate product made it difficult to solidify a development and release schedule for the game as well as created confusion with the publisher. Schafer stated that Microsoft also found some of their gameplay decisions to be confusing based on play-testing and requested them to include more instructional information,

7872-419: The earlier Clockwork Knight . The game plays very similarly to 2D platformers, but lets players walk up walls and on ceilings. In 1995, Delphine Software released a 3D sequel to their 2D platformer Flashback . Entitled Fade to Black , it was the first attempt to bring a popular 2D platformer series into 3D. While it retained the puzzle-oriented level design style and step-based control, it did not meet

7995-521: The first award for Best Platform game in 1984 from Crash magazine. Later that same year, Epyx released Impossible Mission , and Parker Brothers released Montezuma's Revenge , which further expanded on the exploration aspect. The first platformer to use scrolling graphics came years before the genre became popular. Jump Bug is a platform-shooter developed by Alpha Denshi under contract for Hoei/Coreland and released to arcades in 1981, only five months after Donkey Kong . Players control

8118-423: The first quarter of 2005 by this point, Microsoft still opted to cancel. Following this, Schafer and Esmurdoc worked to secure a new publishing deal while using internal funds and careful management to keep the project going. One source of funds that helped keep the company operational came from Will Wright , who had recently sold his company Maxis to Electronic Arts . Prevented from investing into Double Fine by

8241-482: The foreground and background, and the camera panning and curving around corners. Meanwhile, Pandemonium and Klonoa brought the 2.5D style to the PlayStation . In a break from the past, the Nintendo 64 had the fewest side scrolling platformers with only four; Yoshi's Story , Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards , Goemon's Great Adventure , and Mischief Makers —and most met with a tepid response from critics at

8364-470: The game a greater sense of speed than other platformers at the time, while its sequel, Wonder Boy in Monster Land added action-adventure and role-playing elements. Wonder Boy in turn inspired games such as Adventure Island , Dynastic Hero , Popful Mail , and Shantae . One of the first platformers to scroll in all four directions freely and follow the on-screen character's movement

8487-541: The game on Xbox and Windows was April 19, 2005, with the PlayStation 2 port following on June 21, 2005. Psychonauts was re-released via Valve 's Steam digital distribution platform on October 11, 2006. Although initially unplayable on the Xbox 360 , Tim Schafer spearheaded a successful e-mail campaign by fans which led to Psychonauts being added to the Xbox 360 backwards compatible list on December 12, 2006, and on December 4, 2007, Microsoft made Psychonauts one of

8610-683: The game progresses, Razputin gains additional psychic powers such as telekinesis , levitation , invisibility , and pyrokinesis . These abilities allow the player to explore more of the camp as well as fight off enemies. These powers can be awarded either by completing certain story missions, gaining psi ranks during the game, or purchasing them with hidden arrowheads scattered around the camp. Powers can be improved — such as more damaging pyrokinesis or longer periods of invisibility — through gaining additional psi ranks. The player can assign three of these powers to their controller or keyboard for quick use, but all earned powers are available at any time through

8733-407: The game's main characters, Schafer undertook his own exercise to write out how the characters would see themselves and the other characters' on a social media site similar to Friendster , which Schafer was a fan of at the time and from where he met his wife-to-be. This helped him to solidify the characters in his own head prior to writing the game's dialog, as well as providing a means of introducing

8856-411: The game's plot to progress. Within the mental worlds are censors that react negatively to Raz's presence, and attack him. There are also various collectibles within the mental worlds, including "figments" of the character's imagination which help increase Razputin's psi ranking, " emotional baggage " which can be sorted by finding tags and bringing them to the baggage, and "memory vaults" which can unlock

8979-572: The game. This was compounded when Majesco announced a PlayStation 2 port to be developed by Budcat Creations in October 2004, which further stretched the availability of Double Fine's staff resources. The game went gold in March 2005; Esmurdoc attributes much of the success of this on the solidarity of the development team that kept working towards this point. Esmurdoc stated that Psychonauts took about 4.5 years to complete — though that without all

9102-498: The gameplay from its precursor but traded the frog-like mech for a cartoony rabbit mech called Robbit. The title was successful enough to get two sequels and is remembered for being the first 3D platformer on a console. Rob Fahey of Eurogamer said Jumping Flash was perhaps "one of the most important ancestors of every 3D platformer in the following decade." It holds the record of "First platform videogame in true 3D" according to Guinness World Records . Another early 3D platformer

9225-419: The genre are walking, running, jumping, attacking, and climbing. Jumping is central to the genre, though there are exceptions such as Nintendo 's Popeye and Data East 's BurgerTime , both from 1982. In some games, such as Donkey Kong , the trajectory of a jump is fixed, while in others it can be altered mid-air. Falling may cause damage or death. Many platformers contain environmental obstacles which kill

9348-471: The genre as "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style" games. "Climbing games" was used in Steve Bloom's 1982 book Video Invaders and 1983 magazines Electronic Games (US)—which ran a cover feature called "The Player's Guide to Climbing Games"—and TV Gamer (UK). Bloom defined "climbing games" as titles where the player "must climb from the bottom of the screen to the top while avoiding and/or destroying

9471-457: The genre continued to maintain its popularity, with many games released for the handheld Game Boy and Game Gear systems. By the time the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 launched, platformers were the most popular genre in console gaming. There was a particular emphasis on having a flagship platform title exclusive to a system, featuring a mascot character. In 1989, Sega released Alex Kidd in

9594-412: The genre. A modern variant of the platform game, especially significant on mobile platforms, is the endless runner , where the main character is always moving forward and the player must dodge or jump to avoid falling or hitting obstacles. Various names were used in the years following the release of the first established game in the genre, Donkey Kong (1981). Shigeru Miyamoto originally called it

9717-465: The grandson of one of the Psychonaut's founders who can communicate with animals and goes around with a tin foil hat to prevent his abilities from causing anyone's head to explode. Raz also meets the residents of the insane asylum including ex- dentist and brain surgeon Dr. Caligosto Loboto; as well as Boyd Cooper, a former security guard that holds a number of government conspiracy theories about

9840-400: The greatest game of all time ever, and I think that's awesome." Though the publishing deal ensured they would be able to continue the development, Esmurdoc stated they had to forgo plans for hiring new developers to meet the scope of the game as agreed to with Majesco. Subsequently, the studio entered, as described by Esmurdoc, "the most insane crunch I have ever witnessed" in order to complete

9963-403: The idea because he strongly believes in games being "wish fulfillments," guessing that not many people fantasize about being an insane ostrich. Double Fine created a number of internal tools and processes to help with the development of the game, as outlined by executive producer Caroline Esmurdoc. With the focus of the game on Raz as the playable character within a platform game, the team created

10086-542: The initial launch titles made available for direct download on the Xbox 360 through their Xbox Originals program. In June 2011, the original publishing deal with Majesco expired, and full publication rights for the game reverted to Double Fine. When Majesco's rights expired, the game was temporarily removed from the service in August 2011, as Microsoft does not allow unpublished content on its Xbox Live Marketplace . Schafer worked with Microsoft to gain their help in publishing

10209-454: The levels were open and had objectives. Completing objectives earned the player stars, and stars were used to unlock more levels. This approach allowed for more efficient use of large 3D areas and rewarded the player for exploration, but it meant less jumping and more action-adventure . Even so, a handful of boss levels offered more traditional platforming. Until then there was no settled way to make 3D platformers, but Super Mario 64 inspired

10332-471: The lines for the G-men, but as he was too busy, Schafer ended up writing these himself. The art design crew included background artist Peter Chan and cartoonist Scott Campbell. Voice actor Richard Steven Horvitz , best known for his portrayal of Zim in the cult favorite animated series Invader Zim , provides the voice of Raz, the game's protagonist. Initially the team tried to bring in children to provide

10455-489: The maze game, Namco's 1984 Pac-Land is a bidirectional, horizontally-scrolling, arcade video game with walking, running, jumping, springboards, power-ups , and a series of unique levels. Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani described the game as "the pioneer of action games with horizontally running background." According to Iwatani, Shigeru Miyamoto described Pac-Land as an influence on the development of Super Mario Bros. . Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. , released for

10578-480: The meteor slowly drove them insane. An asylum named Thorny Towers Home of the Disturbed ;was built to house the afflicted, but within fifteen years, the asylum had more residents than the town did and the founder Houston Thorny committed suicide by throwing himself from the asylum's tower. The government relocated the remaining inhabitants and flooded the crater to prevent further settlement, creating what

10701-405: The more linear 3D platformers like Tork: Prehistoric Punk and Wario World used scripted cameras that limited player control. Games with more open environments like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie used intelligent cameras that followed the player's movements. Still, when the view was obstructed or not facing what the player needed to see, these intelligent cameras needed to be adjusted by

10824-450: The mutated lungfish Linda from Coach Oleander's control, and she takes him safely across the lake. At the asylum, Raz helps the inmates overcome their illnesses, and they help him access the upper levels of the asylum, where Loboto has set up his lab. He frees Lili and restores Agents Nein and Vodello's minds, allowing them to confront Coach Oleander. The inmates subsequently burn down the asylum, allowing Coach Oleander to transfer his brain to

10947-417: The name. With a large number of planned cutscenes , Double Fine took the time to create a cutscene editor so that the scriptwriters could work directly with the models and environments already created by the programmers without requiring the programmer's direct participation. For level design, though they had initially relied on the idea of simply placing various triggers throughout a level to create an event,

11070-534: The new wave of consoles. In the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, the Amiga was a strong gaming platform with its custom video hardware and sound hardware . The Atari ST was solidly supported as well. Games like Shadow of the Beast and Turrican showed that computer platformers could rival their console contemporaries. Prince of Persia , originally a late release for the 8-bit Apple II in 1989, featured

11193-511: The obstacles and foes you invariably meet along the way." Under this definition, he listed Space Panic (1980), Donkey Kong , and despite the top down perspective, Frogger (1981) as climbing games. In a December 1982 Creative Computing review of the Apple II game Beer Run , the reviewer used a different term: "I'm going to call this a ladder game, as in the 'ladder genre,' which includes Apple Panic and Donkey Kong ." That label

11316-524: The pain of childhood behind, and look to their partners to fix this, rather than to address more adult concerns. Cultural and parental expectations and patterns of behavior drawn from the family of origin and still unconsciously carried around, will impact a new marriage in ways neither partner may be aware of. Similarly, as parents, both sexes may find their own childhood pasts hampering their efforts at more constructive child-rearing, whether they repeat, or seek to overcompensate for, parental patterns of

11439-404: The past, led Schafer to select him for the soundtrack composition. The Psychonauts Original Soundtrack , featuring all the in-game music, was released in 2005. The following year, in late 2006, Double Fine released a second soundtrack, Psychonauts Original Cinematic Score , containing music from the game's cutscenes as well as a remix of the main theme and credits. The final U.S. release date for

11562-465: The personal demons. At the camp's closing ceremony, Agent Cruller presents him with a uniform and welcomes him into the Psychonauts. Raz prepares to leave camp with his father, but word arrives that the Grand Head of the Psychonauts—Lili's father, Truman Zanotto—has been captured. Thus Raz and the Psychonauts fly off on their new mission. Psychonauts was the debut title for Double Fine Productions,

11685-408: The platform-action game, Valis , which contained anime -style cut scenes . In 1987, Capcom 's Mega Man introduced non-linear level progression where the player is able to choose the order in which they complete levels. This was a stark contrast to both linear games like Super Mario Bros. and open-world games like Metroid . GamesRadar credits the "level select" feature of Mega Man as

11808-561: The player around and aid in battle. In 1990, Hudson Soft released Bonk's Adventure , with a protagonist positioned as NEC 's mascot. The following year, Takeru's Cocoron , a late platformer for the Famicom allowed players to build a character from a toy box filled with spare parts. In 1990, the Super Famicom was released in Japan, along with the eagerly anticipated Super Mario World . The following year, Nintendo released

11931-405: The player more control over the character and the camera. To render a 3D environment from any angle the user chose, the graphics hardware had to be sufficiently powerful, and the art and rendering model of the game had to be viewable from every angle. The improvement in graphics technology allowed publishers to make such games but introduced several new issues. For example, if the player could control

12054-481: The player to maneuver their character across platforms to reach a goal while confronting enemies and avoiding obstacles along the way. These games are either presented from the side view, using two-dimensional movement, or in 3D with the camera placed either behind the main character or in isometric perspective . Typical platforming gameplay tends to be very dynamic and challenges a player's reflexes, timing, and dexterity with controls. The most common movement options in

12177-498: The player's character upon contact, such as lava pits or bottomless chasms. The player may be able to collect items and power-ups and give the main character new abilities for overcoming adversities. Most games of this genre consist of multiple levels of increasing difficulty that may be interleaved by boss encounters, where the character has to defeat a particularly dangerous enemy to progress. Simple logical puzzles to resolve and skill trials to overcome are other common elements in

12300-1048: The player. In the 1990s, RPGs , first-person shooters , and more complex action-adventure games captured significant market share. Even so, the platformer thrived. Tomb Raider became one of the bestselling series on the PlayStation , along with Insomniac Games ' Spyro and Naughty Dog 's Crash Bandicoot , one of the few 3D games to stick with linear levels. Moreover, many of the Nintendo 64 's bestsellers were first- and second-party platformers like Super Mario 64 , Banjo-Kazooie , and Donkey Kong 64 . On Windows and Mac , Pangea Software 's Bugdom series and BioWare 's MDK2 proved successful. Several developers who found success with 3D platformers began experimenting with titles that, despite their cartoon art style, were aimed at adults. Examples include Rare 's Conker's Bad Fur Day , Crystal Dynamics 's Gex: Deep Cover Gecko and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver , and Shiny Entertainment 's Messiah . In 1998, Sega produced

12423-423: The project in 2004 to help produce the game while he could focus on the creative side. The intent to allow all developers to have artistic freedom with the game created some internal strife in the team, particularly in the level design; they had initially scoped that level designers would create the basic parts of a level - main paths, scripted events, and the level's general design, while the artists would build out

12546-518: The protagonist Ben goes under a peyote -induced psychedelic experience . While this was eventually ejected from the original game (for not being family friendly enough), Schafer kept the idea and eventually developed it into Psychonauts . While still working at LucasArts, Tim Schafer decided to use the name "Raz" for a main character because he liked the nickname of the LucasArts animator, Razmig "Raz" Mavlian . When Mavlian joined Double Fine, there

12669-428: The publishing rights, making the game's future unclear. Double Fine was able to secure Majesco as a publisher a few months later allowing them to complete the game after four and a half years of development. The game was well received, but publisher Majesco encountered severe financial loss after the game's release and departed from the video game market . Psychonauts has earned a number of industry awards and gained

12792-420: The resulting Lua code was large and bulky with potential for future error. They assigned eight of the game programmers to assist the level developers to trim this code, and instituted an internal testing department to overlook the stability of the whole game which had grown beyond what they could do internally. Initially this was formed from unpaid volunteers they solicited on Double Fine's web site, but following

12915-681: The signing of the Majesco publication deal in 2004, they were able to commit full-time staff to this team. Esmurdoc described the development of Psychonauts as difficult due to various setbacks, compounded by the new studio's lack of experience in how to manage those setbacks. The game's initial development began in 2001 during the dot-com boom . Due to the cost of office space at that time, Double Fine had established an office in an inexpensive warehouse in San Francisco that initially fit their development needs. By 2003, they had come to realize

13038-516: The time of Psychonauts ' s initial development in 2001, was looking to develop a portfolio of games for the new console system. Schafer believes that Fries was a proponent of "pushing games as art", which helped to solidify Double Fine's concept of Psychonauts as an appropriate title for the console after the team's collected experience of developing for personal computers. However, according to Esmurdoc, Microsoft had also created some milestones that were unclear or difficult to meet, which delayed

13161-489: The time. Despite this, Yoshi's Story sold over a million copies in the US, and Mischief Makers rode high on the charts in the months following its release. The term 3D platformer usually refers to games with gameplay in three dimensions and polygonal 3D graphics. Games that have 3D gameplay but 2D graphics are usually included under the umbrella of isometric platformers , while those that have 3D graphics but gameplay on

13284-685: The title under the Microsoft Studios name, and the game returned to the Marketplace in February 2012. In September 2011, Double Fine released an updated version for Microsoft Windows and a port to Mac OS X and Linux through Steam . The new version provided support for Steam features including achievements and cloud saving. The Mac OS X port was developed in partnership with Steven Dengler's Dracogen . In conjunction with this release, an iOS application, Psychonauts Vault Viewer! ,

13407-437: The video game industry internationally. The following year, Donkey Kong received a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. and later Mario Bros. , a platformer with two-player cooperative play . It laid the groundwork for other two-player cooperative games such as Fairyland Story and Bubble Bobble . Beginning in 1982, transitional games emerged with non-scrolling levels spanning multiple screens. David Crane's Pitfall! for

13530-455: The visual flash of 3D with traditional 2D side scrolling gameplay. These games are often referred to as 2.5D. The first such game was Saturn launch title , Clockwork Knight (1994). The game featured levels and boss characters rendered in 3D, but retained 2D gameplay and used pre-rendered 2D sprites for regular characters, similar to Donkey Kong Country . Its sequel improved upon its design, featuring some 3D effects such as hopping between

13653-416: The voices for the main cast, similar to Peanuts cartoons, but struggled with their lack of acting experience. Schafer had selected Horvitz based on his audition tapes and ability to provide a wide range of vocal intonations on the spot, providing them with numerous takes to work with. Raz was originally conceived as an ostrich suffering from mental imbalance and multiple personalities. Tim Schafer killed

13776-405: The world from that. As development progressed, they determined that the artists should be the ones constructing the level geometry, which the level designers resented. Subsequently, levels that were generated were not to the expected standards due to conflicts in the toolsets they used and Schafer's inability to oversee the process while handling the other duties of the studio. In 2003, the decision

13899-413: Was Floating Runner , developed by a Japanese company called Xing and released for PlayStation in early 1996, before the release of Super Mario 64 . Floating Runner uses D-pad controls and a behind-the-character camera perspective. In 1996, Nintendo released Super Mario 64 , which is a game that set the standard for 3D platformers. It let the player explore 3D environments with greater freedom than

14022-505: Was a primary way to attack. This was the first true 3D platform-action game with free-roaming environments, but it was never ported to another platform or released outside Japan, so it remains relatively unknown in the West. The following year, Exact released their follow-up to Geograph Seal . An early title for Sony's new PlayStation console, Jumping Flash! , released in April 1995, kept

14145-469: Was also noted for its innovations, such as the use of a second-person perspective during a boss battle. Platformer The genre started with the 1980 arcade video game Space Panic , which has ladders but not jumping. Donkey Kong , released in 1981, established a template for what were initially called "climbing games". Donkey Kong inspired many clones and games with similar elements, such as Miner 2049er (1982) and Kangaroo (1982), while

14268-562: Was also used by Video Games Player magazine in 1983 when it named the Coleco port of Donkey Kong "Ladder Game of the Year". Another term used in the late 1980s to 1990s was "character action games", in reference to games such as Super Mario Bros. , Sonic the Hedgehog , and Bubsy . It was also applied more generally to side-scrolling video games , including run and gun video games such as Gunstar Heroes . Platform game became

14391-459: Was announced at The Game Awards in December 2015 and was released on August 25, 2021. Psychonauts is a platform game that incorporates various adventure elements. The player controls the main character Raz in a third-person, three-dimensional view, helping Raz to uncover a mystery at the Psychonauts training camp. Raz begins with basic movement abilities such as running and jumping, but as

14514-433: Was based on an abandoned concept that studio founder Tim Schafer had during his previous development of Full Throttle . The game was initially backed by Microsoft 's Ed Fries as a premiere title for the original Xbox console , but several internal and external issues led to difficulties for Double Fine in meeting various milestones and responding to testing feedback. Following Fries' departure in 2004, Microsoft dropped

14637-532: Was found in any previous game in the genre. With this in mind, Nintendo put an analog control stick on its Nintendo 64 controller, a feature that had not been seen since the Vectrex but which has since become standard. The analog stick provided the fine precision needed with a free perspective. In most 2D platformers, the player finished a level by following a path to a certain point, but in Super Mario 64 ,

14760-419: Was increased confusion between the character and the animator. The game's associate producer, Camilla Fossen, suggested the name "Rasputin". As a compromise, Double Fine's lawyer suggested the trademarkable name "Razputin", which was used for the game. Most of the game's dialog and script was written by Schafer and Erik Wolpaw , who at the time was a columnist for the website Old Man Murray . After establishing

14883-489: Was made to dismiss all but one of the level design team, and unify the level design and art into a World Building team overseen by Erik Robson, the remaining level designer and who would go on to become the game's lead designer; the change, which Esmurdoc stated was for the better, disrupted the other departments at Double Fine. Psychonauts was to be published by Microsoft for release exclusively on their Xbox console; Schafer attributes this to Microsoft's Ed Fries , who at

15006-637: Was released at the same time, featuring the memory vaults from the game with commentary by Tim Schafer and Scott Campbell. The game was added to the PlayStation Network store as a "PS2 Classic" for the PlayStation 3 in August 2012. As part of a deal with Nordic Games , who gained the rights to Costume Quest and Stacking after THQ 's bankruptcy, Double Fine took over publishing rights for both games, while Nordic published and distribute retail copies of all three games for Windows and Mac OS X systems. Double Fine offered Psychonauts as part of

15129-418: Was the first game to allow players to jump over obstacles and gaps. It is widely considered to be the first platformer. It introduced Mario under the name Jumpman. Donkey Kong was ported to many consoles and computers at the time, notably as the system-selling pack-in game for ColecoVision , and also a handheld version from Coleco in 1982. The game helped cement Nintendo's position as an important name in

#341658