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Interview with Tim Schafer - pt. 1
Industry legend Tim Schafer discusses Brutal Legend and the possibility of a second Psychonauts in part 1 of our exclusive interview.
Written by David Scammell, 28 September 2009
Having created a portfolio of classic video games over the last twenty years, BAFTA-winning Tim Schafer is often considered somewhat of an industry legend. But despite this, his success at retail has been less than stellar, with critical hits like Grim Fandango and Psychonauts failing to achieve commercial success and relegated to the depths of many a bargain bin.
With his latest game Brutal Legend just around the corner, in the first of our exclusive three part interview we sit down with Schafer to discuss his influences, Jack Black and whether another Psychonauts is on the cards...
GamerZines: We've been told that Brutal Legend's intro video is one of the funniest things ever seen in a video game...
Tim Schafer: Good! That's awesome! I was worried about that because we have this band in there, Cabbage Boy, whose lead singer throws the horns like this throws the horns, which is wrong. This is metal changes finger position but this changes back means "I love you" in sign language and people do it at concerts all the time - it drives me crazy. So we deliberately have the lead singer throwing the horns wrong because they're a really shitty band, and I was terrified that some metal guys would watch it and be like, 'they don't even know how to throw the horns'.
GZ: You've spoken a lot about Brutal Legend's musical influences and your personal interest there, but where did the game's art style come from? It's not the typically gritty environments we're used to seeing at the moment...
TS: There were two things, really. Heavy metal album covers - they have this unbounded creativity as far as I can see it, mixing together all these different elements of Tolkien-esque fantasy, religious icons, blood, gore, medical equipment, laser beams? you know, whatever looks cool. And no one worries about it being too much, no one ever thinks 'did we go too far with that album cover?', it's just like, 'no, go crazy with it', which is why it's the perfect world for video games. But then also, I would say artists like Frank Frazetta with the covers for Conan etc. He has these crazy, stylized warriors with their extreme poses and the skies lit in a really epic way, so that's been a heavy influence on our game.
GZ: Is taking a more realistic approach something you'd be interested in doing in the future, because even mature themes like death in Grim Fandango you've handled fairly comically? Is that just your style?
TS: I just like expressive art. Photorealistic stuff just doesn't seem like the most interesting thing to pursue. It's like photorealistic painting - why would people really want to do photorealistic painting when you have photos? I don't know, some day if it made sense to do it with the story we were trying to tell I would do it, but I like working with artists and I like the creativity involved.
GZ: What was it like working with Jack Black? Did you always have it in mind for him to play the character of Eddie Riggs?
TS: I never thought we'd get someone like Jack Black, but we were always inspired by him, and when we were designing the character we thought about him a lot and how his character in School of Rock just loved music so much. I always secretly hoped he would play the game and like it...
P3Zine Issue 32
For our latest Brutal Legend coverage, click here to download P3Zine Issue 32 for free.GZ: Yeah, he seems quite behind it with his promotional work.
TS: Yeah, we showed it to him and he said he liked it, which meant a lot to me, let alone wanting to be in it - just the fact that he liked it meant a lot.
GZ: Brutal Legend focuses more on action than anything you've done before. Do you think that a true point & click adventure is lost on today's audience?
TS: I don't know. I personally just got interested in other kind of games by playing console games. When Grim Fandango was done I started playing Super Mario 64 and Rayman 2, and those games that are fun to drive the character around with that direct control method. I thought that even if we did an adventure game I'd like to control them like this because there's no reason to be separated from the character through point and click; you get to be the character, which is why Psychonauts ended up how it did.
GZ: Do you see Psychonauts as more of a transitional game for you, helping you to understand what worked and what didn't within the framework of an action-oriented game rather than a point-and-click?
TS: Looking back it definitely fits in the space between adventure games and Brutal Legend, which is an action game. But it's not like that's the direction I was moving in, it happened to just fit in there. If I was to do another Psychonauts it would still be like it was, a platform adventure game.
GZ: Would you want to do another one?
TS: Oh, I'd love to do another one. I've got a lot of ideas for one, but we also just want to do new stuff too...
GZ: Is your focus at the moment purely on creating new IPs, then? Would you not want to revisit older titles outside of Psychonauts?
TS: I do want to. I would love to revisit all of them because I had a good time working on them, but if I did that I wouldn't be making a new game. You know, if I made Full Throttle 2 I would never have made Grim Fandango. People might have asked for Full Throttle 2, but did they really want that or did they want Grim Fandango? I think when people ask for sequels they want something new, really.
Check back tomorrow for the second part of our exclusive interview with Tim Schafer.
Brutal Legend releases on Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 on October 16th.
Brutal Legend coverage available in P3Zine Issue 32 - click here to download it for free!
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