Here's How 'Creativity and Chaos' Spawned One of the Strangest Games in Recent Years
Psychonauts 2 is creative, chaotic and fun. The development process of the game was similar - except without the fun part. Check out the incredibly long video by Tim Schafer and his team.
Just over 16 years after the release of the original, the now legendary Tim Schafer and his studio Double Fine Productions have released Psychonauts 2. Released in 2021, the sequel to the iconic platformer turned out to be at least as good as the original. Both games received excellent ratings from industry critics, as evidenced by the average ratings on Metacritic.com oscillating from 86/100 to 91/100 (depending on the release and platform).
It's safe to say that we're dealing with some of the best games of recent decades - if not in general, then at least platform games. Due to the creativity of the authors pouring out of them, they are certainly among the strangest titles on the market. What determined their success? Now we have been given the opportunity to peek into the minds of the creators, so to speak.
This is because Double Fine Productions has published an extensive documentary on its YouTube channel, titled Double Fine PsychOdyssey, which takes a closer look at the development process of Psychonauts 2. The entire thing was divided into 32 episodes, making up a total of more than 20 hours of footage. Although it focuses on showing the work on the sequel, there is no shortage of references or comparisons to the original.
You can find the trailer for the video below. Clicking on the button underneath it, on the other hand, will take you to the list of episodes. Each of them is a real mine of interesting facts.
Double Fine PsychOdyssey - list of episodes
The developers describe the pressure to produce a worthy sequel, which was only increased by the project's ambitious goals. Moreover, the work was made even more difficult by poor morale, studio chaos, financial problems or - later - the coronavirus pandemic.
It is worth mentioning that this is not the first such material that Double Fine Productions has released. A few years ago a similar video was released for the adventure game Broken Age. The list of episodes can be found here. It's a shame that other developers don't spoil us like this.
