Grim Fandango
Description official descriptions
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; the object or character in question can then be examined or interacted with.
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.
Spellings
- 冥界狂想曲 - Simplified Chinese spelling
- 神通鬼大 - Traditional Chinese spelling
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Credits (Windows version)
188 People (187 developers, 1 thanks) · View all
| Project Leader | |
| Lead Artist | |
| Lead Programmer | |
| Conceptual Artist | |
| Music Composed and Produced By | |
| Assistant Designers | |
| Production Manager | |
| Production Coordinator | |
| Programmers | |
| Character Animation | |
| Background Artists | |
| [ full credits ] | |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 92% (based on 55 ratings)
Players
Average score: 4.2 out of 5 (based on 412 ratings with 23 reviews)
The Good
Good graphics - 10 year later still the graphics are good and smooth for an adventure game, in which the graphics are not the primary important thing for the genre. Great story and great story telling, unique characters, clever puzzles, good reflection of the Mexican culture. Voice acting is great, especially Manny's. Music is delicious and harmonic with the atmosphere of the game (do something good for yourself, also buy the soundtrack album with the game) There are lots of things to say about this game because overall this is a wonderful piece of art.
The Bad
Is that a joke? How can I find something to dislike about this game? Well ok let me try; I think the keyboard based control system sucks a little bit.
The Bottom Line
Grim Fandango is a Lucas Arts classic, featuring all the classical Lucas Arts elements. I think this is the greatest adventure game of all times. A must-play.
Windows · by kulke (1) · 2008
The Good
This game has an amazing story-line. It works perfectly, and as you go through the game, you keep discovering new things which just add to the plot, and make it even more in-depth.
The backgrounds are top-notch, still looking great even today. They are pre-rendered scenes, which look very realistic. The characters are well animated, but they look a little dated, with low poly count and low res textures. The pre-rendered cutscenes also look amazing, and are full of action.
The puzzles are also great. They all make sense, and work well together. The dialogue is also great, with humorous jokes packed in along the way. The voice actors are also great, and they fit the characters perfectly.
The music fits right in with the amazing atmosphere, and it is composed really well.
All of these factors put together make the game absolutely amazing.
The Bad
The only downside of this game is that the graphics on the characters are getting a little dated. They have a low poly count, and low res textures by todays standards. But it isn't that bad - the game is still perfectly playable, and you hardly notice the bad characters.
The Bottom Line
This game is amazing. The plot is huge, and it completely sucks you in. I love this game so much, that I have replayed it countless times, have made a website dedicated to it, and I always visit my favourite Grim Fandango forums. This game is outstanding, and better than any other game. If you play it, I can almost guarantee that you will love it.
Windows · by James Isaac (238) · 2006
Move over Monkey Island ... here comes the new adventure king
The Good
Let's just say that any adventure game developed by the people that created the highly entertaining Monkey Island series will always be a classic. Thank God, then, that Grim Fandango proved me right.
I don't think I've ever played a game with such an enjoyable storyline. It seems that everything is packed into it, yet it works so well. And thanks to many years of Monkey Island madness, playing the game itself was just as enjoyable. And the style of the game really is amazing, from the crisp and detailed graphics to the funny dialogue and character development. It really is a gem of a game.
The Bad
The fact that it still didn't impact the way I was hoping. Such a huge game has been followed up by little in the way of future Adventure games (apart from another LucasArts title, Escape from Monkey Island). I just wish that other developers would take the same risk that LucasArts have made so many times. They have never failed.
The Bottom Line
Be glad, all adventure fans, that George Lucas built LucasArts. If they never lived, gamer world wide would have missed out on possibly the greatest advanture game of all time. In fact, they would have missed out on 5 of the best games of all time (possibly 6, if another Monkey Island goes ahead).
Grim Fandango is pure art. Everything is just so right.
Windows · by Kartanym (12418) · 2006
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Grim Fandango appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Cut dialogue
Originally, Manny could find out the entire conspiracy in a conversation with Domino in Year Three. The audio files shipped with the game, but the dialogue tree was cut.
Gags
- In the hallway of the DOD there is a picture of a boat. If you look at in Manny says "Not that I have a choice, but I wonder if I would be happier working on a ship. Then again I'm so competitive I wouldn't be able to rest until I was Captain." At the end of year two on the ship he is just the cleaner, and then a year later he is the captain.
- The main character in this game is a skeleton, take a look at the side of the box and you'll see a different LucasArts logo. The usual golden figure who raises his arms (towards the sun?) is replaced by a skeleton.
References
- The game's hero is Manny Calavera. Calaveras are actually those skeleton-dolls, which the majority of the characters in this game are.
- One of the characters is called Olivia Ofrenda. "Ofrenda" is a Mexican celebration of the dead.
- As in many others LucasArts games, you can find Max, from Sam & Max. Go to the tattoo parlor (in Rubacava, you must walk all the way to the right). Take a look to the poster and you will find him in the tattoo designs.
- In year 2, there is a part of the game where you see a Blimp/Zeppelin hovering in the air above the Cat Tracks... As you cross the bridge under it, a short melody plays which is part of the opening theme to Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe... and older World War 2 flightsim from Lucasarts (or Lucasfilm Games as it was known back then)
- Including the references mentioned below, the game's characters have many similarities to actual Day of the Dead objects. There is, for example, Don Copal - Copal is a festive resin from tropical trees often burned in special bowls on graves during the Day of the Dead in Mexico.
- You soon end up working for an underground organisation called the L.S.A., or the Lost Souls Alliance. As stated in the manual Grim Fandango is steeped in references to Aztec and Mayan culture and art (as well as Mexican folklore and film noir of the 1930's, 40's and 50's). LSA (for short) is the psychoactive ingredient of 'Ololiuqui' - the Aztec name for the seeds of certain plants that have been used and held sacred by the Aztecs for many years. This may or may not be intentional but trivia nonetheless!
- 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.
Budget & Sales
The budget was a whopping 3 million dollars but the sales didn't live up to that investment. As of 2004, Grim Fandango is the only game that didn't make LucasArts a profit.
Saving screen
As you progress through the game, more of the design over the save screen will show.
Title
The game was originally going to be named Deeds of the Dead but the management at LucasArts didn't want a reference to death in the title.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- April 1999 (Issue #177) – Best Adventure Game of the Year (together with Sanitarium)
- January 2001 (Issue #199) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
- March 2001 (Issue #200) - #7 Best Game Of All Time
- GameStar (Germany)
- Issue 12/1999 - #87 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
- PC Gamer
- April 2000 - #41 in the "All-Time Top 50 Games" poll
- PC Player (Germany)
- Issue 01/2000 - Best Adventure in 1999
- PC Powerplay (Germany)
- Issue 11/2005 - #2 Game Which Absolutely Needs A Sequel
- Power Play
- Issue 02/1999 – Best Adventure in 1998
Information also contributed by Adam Baratz, Emepol, James Isaac. PCGamer77, Roedie, Scott Monster, [SDfish, [Tom Murphy](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,66915/), [WildKard](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,16566/), [Unicorn Lynx](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,6226/) and [Zack Green](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,9727/)](http://www.mobygames.com/user/sheet/userSheetId,45163/)
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Related Sites +
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3DGamers
Location for downloading the Grim Fandango Demo and Patch -
Department of Death
A huge Grim Fandango fan site, with screenshots, movies, fan fiction and much more! -
Gamespot's Grim Fandango Game Guide
a good walkthru for the game -
Grim Fandango - FAQs & Guides
Many different walkthroughs and guides on GameFaqs.com -
Grim Fandango Network
A fan site. -
Hints for Grim Fandango
Stuck? These hints will help you solve the game. -
ResidualVM
A cross-platform, open-source interpreter capable of making Grim Fandango run on a number of modern operating systems. -
The D.O.D. Travellers' Guide
A site with a drawn out map of the "Land of the Dead", with information about all of the locations.
Identifiers +
Contribute
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Ryan Lucas.
Additional contributors: Swordmaster, Xa4, Unicorn Lynx, Jeanne, Zack Green, Shoddyan, James Isaac, Zeppin, CaesarZX, Paulus18950, Cantillon, Thomas Helsing, Patrick Bregger, Ingsoc, FatherJack.
Game added August 10, 1999. Last modified March 27, 2024.