Tim Schafer
Tim Schafer
Timothy John "Tim" Schaferis an American computer game designer. He founded Double Fine Productions in July 2000, after having spent over a decade at LucasArts. Schafer is best known as the designer of critically acclaimed games Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, and Broken Age and co-designer of The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge and Day of the Tentacle. He is well known in the video game industry for his storytelling and comedic writing style...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionBusinessman
Date of Birth26 July 1967
CountryUnited States of America
genre good
I like any good game. I don't care what the genre is.
bets
What I learned at LucasArts was, you don't make your bets on ideas: ideas are cheap. You make your bets on people.
appreciate details dialogue funny games happen line object people solve time weird
Adventure games are all about details - if you happen to take this one object and use it with this other object, in a really weird place, at a weird time. If you happen to write a really funny dialogue line for that, even if it didn't solve the puzzle, people will appreciate that.
guaranteed lean licenses might publishers towards
Publishers are very risk-averse, so they lean towards licenses and sequels. But the fact is that even those are not guaranteed hits. So, if 'playing it safe' does not guarantee hits, they might as well leave it up to the really creative, risk-taking people, because they couldn't do any worse.
gamers great guys reach represent usual
I would like to reach non-gamers. It's always great when guys come up to me who are gamers and represent my usual audience, but they'll say, 'You know, Psychonauts is the only game I can actually get my girlfriend to play with me.'
videogames
I guess I didn't have a lot of friends, so that's what made videogames so important. They played back. I could do them myself. Solitaire can't surprise you; there's no AI. But videogames play back with you.
heavy last music time tv
The last time I really got into new music that wasn't heavy metal was probably like... TV on the Radio? I think that was it. That's the last time.
breaking half laid learned loyal meant message money sent sign team time work
After 'Psychonauts,' we could have laid off half our team so that we'd have more money and time to sign 'Brutal Legend.' But doing so would have meant breaking up a team that had just learned how to work well together. And what message would that have sent to our employees? It would say that we're not loyal to them, and that we don't care.
access afraid allowed change coming creative effect ending entitled internet people possibly time voices
The Internet has allowed a lot of access - people feel entitled to change the ending of games, for example. So there are a lot more voices coming at you all the time, which I think has its effect on creative decision making and possibly makes people more afraid to take risks.
eventually rely
If you're not loyal to your team, you can get by for a while, but eventually you will need to rely on their loyalty to you, and it just won't be there.
alone games liked loneliness lonely lots people playing sad talk understand war
People talk about games and loneliness - it's a lonely activity. I didn't understand that. 'Gears of War' was the first multiplayer game for me that I enjoyed. But I wasn't sad. I liked being alone. I liked playing games by myself. I had lots of companionship at the house.
flirting rocks singing
I've always seen this overlap between medieval warfare and heavy metal. You see heavy metal singers and they'll have like a brace around their arm and they'll be singing about Orcs. So let's just make a world where that all happens. That all gets put together, the heavy metal, and the rock, and the battling, actually does happen. Let's not flirt around with this let's just do it.
priorities flavor way
When you have a programmer-founded company it often gets really techy, if you have a producer or a business-person, it all really sets the flavor of the company, just the priorities and the way you deal with everything.
jobs writing fishing
Oh yeah - you have to write every day. Or every weekday. Because writing is a job. It's not eureka moments over and over. It's grueling work, panning for gold. You just keep at it and eventually you get a few grains. Or flakes. Or whatever gold looks like in rivers. Or maybe it's like fishing. Who cares? You just have to do it every day because you never know which day is going to be your productive day.