Not much is known about the life of Manuel "Manny" Calavera. It is, however, known what happened to him after he died. The Land of the Dead is where all people are reincarnated after death, turning into skeletal figures. The Land of the Dead is also very similar to the world of the living: people work, have careers, fall in love, and can even die again, turning into flowers. And they all await their final destiny - a trip to the underworld. Depending on their deeds in life, they might get a good journey or be destined to walk there without any means.

Manny works in a travel agency that takes care of such trips. But recently, something has been going wrong. Manny is unable to get good clients, and he suspects that there is a scheme to falsify the dossiers of dead people, offering the best trips to scoundrels for bribes. Manny's grand adventure begins as he steps into the world of corruption and intrigues.

Grim Fandango is a puzzle-solving adventure game that describes several years of Manny Calavera's afterlife. Influenced by Mexican mythology, film noir and Art Deco, the game combines 3D characters with pre-rendered backgrounds. The traditional mouse interaction was abandoned in favor of keyboard control for movements and actions. Manny is navigated with arrow keys, and tilts his head whenever something attracts his interest; a list of interaction choices pops up, from which the player is able to choose the desired commands.

As usually in LucasArts' adventure games, conversations offer plenty of different responses that can be chosen by the player. Despite the lack of the option to combine items with each other within the inventory, the game still contains many challenging puzzles that require manipulating inventory items and the environment.

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Alternate Titles

"神通鬼大" -- Chinese spelling (traditional)
"Deeds of the Dead" -- Working title

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Part of the Following Groups

Merchant	Title	Platform	Price
	Grim Fandango	Windows	$29.95
	Grim Fandango
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User Reviews

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The Press Says

Puntaeclicca.it	Dec, 1998	10 out of 10	100
Aventura y Cía	Aug 14, 2001		100
GameBoomers	2004	A+	100
Thunderbolt Games	Sep 14, 2010	10 out of 10	100
Absolute Games (AG.ru)	Nov 08, 1998	95 out of 100	95
Gamezilla	Nov 30, 1998	93 out of 100	93
Adventure Gamers	May 20, 2002		90
Gamesmania	1998	90 out of 100	90
All Game Guide	1998		90
GameCola.net	Oct, 2007	8 out of 10	80

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Trivia

The game contains a reference to Frank Herbert's sci-fi cult novel Dune. At the end of the 4th year, when Salvador bites down on a fake tooth, releasing a cloud of poison that kills both him and his victim, he alludes to an almost identical event in Dune.

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This entry to the MobyGames database was contributed by Ryan Lucas (12) on Aug 10, 1999.