Tim Schafer: An Artist of Gaming

Known for his unique and creative development of video games, Tim Schafer was a great innovator for the gaming industry. He helped make games such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Psychonauts, and Brutal Legends, all with an immersive and unusual story.

Tim Schafer went to college at UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz. He had a chance to work at Lucasfilm Games. During his interview, he accidentally mentioned that he loved their past game called Ballblaster which was actually the pirated version of their game that is actually called Ballblazer. He was still asked to apply with a cover letter of his dream job, which he wrote in a form of a text adventure game. They hired him as a game tester at first. Later Tim was promoted to a writer and designer for the game The Secret of Monkey Island. The game was an adventure game that emphasized Exploration and puzzle solving. The sequel to the game was in development soon after the first one's release. Tim was offered a chance to work as a project lead on a sequel for Maniac Mansion.

During the time that 3D gaming started to rise in popularity, Tim wanted to make a game using the 3D mechanics, but didn't like the look of the graphics at the time. He then came up with the idea to make a game where the characters are 3D models of paper mache skeletons to merge the 2D look with a 3D feel. The game was called Grim Fandango. Although the game was a huge hit for critics in the gaming industry, the game did not sell well due to the rising trend for the shooter genre. LascasArts shut down Shafer's adventure game division.

Tim Schafer left LucasArts and started a company of his own called Double Fine. Microsoft liked Tim's idea for the game Psychonauts at first and agreed to publish it as an Xbox exclusive, then later decided to pull out. Many publishers rejected his game because it wasn't the popular trend. Finally, Majesco Entertainment took the risk in publishing the game, although the game ended up not selling. It's a game where you play as a kid in a government training summer camp learning to use his psychic abilities. Although Psychonauts was not very popular, it started a tight knit fan base that wanted more games like it. Microsoft noticed this surprisingly large group of fans and decided to re-release the game on Xbox 360 on the marketplace.

Double Fine started developing a new game called Brutal Legends. The game was hyped up for it's comedic gameplay and it's rockstar voice actors such as Jack Black and Ozzy Osbourne. The game was well received by gamers but still wasn't a huge seller.

Although Tim Schafer has had struggles keeping adventure games on its feet, he successfully helped bring it to it's peak in popularity and watched as the genre dropped to the ground. Regardless, he is a developer that should be appreciated for what he has done to define games in a fun and creative way.