Tiny particles of Psychonauts info [now with more particles!]

[Marek]

Majesco has started drip-feeding new Psychonauts information to the eager public, today releasing one of them fancy fact sheets (those magical documents that reappear accross the internet with minor permutations as "exclusive previews").

Bulleted lists are generally frustrating, though not so with Psychonauts.

• Rise up in rank as you collect figments of other people’s imaginations, sort their emotional baggage, clear out their mental cobwebs, and crack open their memory vaults
  
• Complete special training missions to learn the power of Levitation and the ability to focus Raz’ mental energy into a powerful PSI-Blast
  
• Rank up to earn more psychic powers such as Telekinesis (toss enemies or objects with your mind), Invisibility (convince your foes they can’t see you), Pyrokinesis (set the world on fire), Clairvoyance (see through the eyes of another), and Confusion (cloud the minds of your enemies, play tricks on your friends)
  
• Put your thoughts to use—Raz can grab the thought bubble over his head and pull it down around himself as a shield, hang from it like a hot air balloon, or jump on top of it and ride it around like a skateboard.
  
• Non-linear gameplay with incredible depth offers players multiple paths and sub-challenges (digging up PSItanium arrowheads, finding lost brains, telekinetic canoeing, and winning the psychic scavenger hunt) so there is always a goal to accomplish
  
• Challenging puzzles span a range of difficulty, with alternate solutions that self-tailor themselves to the player’s own strengths and abilities
  

They might be aggrandizing the non-linear gameplay and adaptive puzzles, cause I didn't get the impression that this was the kind of game that has that as primary features -- though I'd love to be proven wrong.

I look forward to the telekinetic canoeing.

[Chris]

Woohoo!

[Twilo]

"F a m n s"

..r g e t..

A figment is invention dude. Or delusion!

[Marek]

Isn't it also "an emerging shape" ? *

*) Note that I'm Dutch and up until recently thought pepperoni was the same as "peppers".

[Chris]

Also you'd never had Mexican food.

[Moosferatu]

semi off topic: Andy and I were just discussing Psychonauts over e-mail (we both have Gmail), and one of the links generated was to Adventure Gamers. Sweet.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Ha! Looks to be like Jedi Knight II force powers in a cartoon setting.

[Jake]

Its slightly different than that. Sort of a half way (three way? ¬ ) combo between force powers, zelda style items, and adventure inventory. In addition to the psychic powers, as Tim mentioned way back at E3 2002, Raz also has an adventure game style inventory in his backpack .. which are used to solve very adventure game style puzzles

[Chris]

Hooray!

[Jake]

Go enjoy your summer. Get out of here.

[amishler]

  Moosferatu said:

semi off topic: Andy and I were just discussing Psychonauts over e-mail (we both have Gmail), and one of the links generated was to Adventure Gamers. Sweet.

Which proves once and for all that AG should provide complete coverage of Psychonauts.

That feature list sounds very cool. It takes the best aspects of my favorite genres and combines them into one ubergenre. ("Whoa. What kind of game is that? Platformer? Adventure? RPG?" "No, man...it's Psychonauts." "Whoa." "Indeed.")

[MrHoatzin]

  amishler said:

Which proves once and for all that AG should provide complete coverage of Psychonauts.

Heresy! Anathema! ABOMINATION!

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Jeezus, that is the first ironic orgasm I've seen, Kingz. Not surprised it came from you, of course.

[SiN]

uhh, dunno whether some1s already posted this, but gamespot interviews tim here ...

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/08/06/news_6104297.html

not much specifically about the game, but more on tims view on the industry/games ... very interesting (and obviously its funny) read.

SiN

[Chris]

And AGAIN he is erroneously credited to Curse of Monkey Island.

[pj-]

  SiN said:

uhh, dunno whether some1s already posted this, but gamespot interviews tim here ...

http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/08/06/news_6104297.html

not much specifically about the game, but more on tims view on the industry/games ... very interesting (and obviously its funny) read.

SiN

GS: What sales figures, year one, would make you happy?

TS: I want the kind of sales figures in the first year that encourage publishers to be more open to doing unique games with story, personality, and humor. Oh, and I want to sell enough so that I have tons and tons of money so that I can buy a big gold jacket and wear it all the time because gold is waterproof and if anyone spills anything on it I could just sponge it off. And I'd like a little holder for the sponge, so I can have it with me at all times. Same as everybody else.

[Udvarnoky]

  Chris said:

And AGAIN he is erroneously credited to Curse of Monkey Island.

Well, he is thanked in the credits.

[Lindset]

  Quote

TS: Well, I'm not in sales, but I did learn one thing from Full Throttle. PUT A BIG EXPLOSION ON THE BOX. Psychonauts is going to have two explosions on the cover, so it will probably sell twice as much as Throttle.

Who is this Tim Shoofer guy anyway?

[Marek]

The explosion sticker made me laugh quite a bit. Good interview though. There was some actual information contained in it, which doesn't happen all that often in Tim Schafer interviews. Erik Robson sounds like an important guy. Why have we never heard of him before?

[Chris]

We have heard of him before. He's from Old Man Murray (where that Adventure Games Committed Suicide came from, but I don't think the site has updated in years) and was featured several times in the Double Fine Action News.

[Moosferatu]

http://www.doublefine.com/news2004q1.htm

Scroll down to the post with a black background.

[Marek]

Erm, no.

  Herr Schafer said:

I work with the Lead Designer, Erik Robson, to come up with the basic designs for the levels.

  Herr Schafer said:

I still write most of the dialog. I had some help this time around from Erik Wolpaw from Old Man Murray.

[Chris]

Oh, whoops. Well I'm dumb and have a terrible memory. What can I say?