20 Facts About Grim Fandango

Grim Fandango is a 1998 adventure game directed by Tim Schafer and developed and published by LucasArts for Microsoft Windows.

Grim Fandango is set in the Land of the Dead, through which recently departed souls, represented as calaca-like figures, travel before they reach their final destination.

In 2014, with help from Sony, Schafer's studio Double Fine Productions acquired the Grim Fandango license following Disney's acquisition and closure of LucasArts as a video game developer the previous year.

Grim Fandango takes place in the Land of the Dead, where recently departed souls aim to make their way to the Land of Eternal Rest on the Four Year Journey of the Soul.

Grim Fandango development was led by project leader Tim Schafer, co-designer of Day of the Tentacle and creator of Full Throttle and the more recent Psychonauts and Brutal Legend.

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Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts noted that the pitching process for Grim Fandango was "a breeze" because of Schafer's earlier success, despite the new project's unusual theme.

Grim Fandango was an attempt by LucasArts to rejuvenate the graphic adventure genre, in decline by 1998.

Grim Fandango was partially inspired by novels written by Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett.

Several scenes in Grim Fandango are directly inspired by the genre's films such as The Maltese Falcon, The Third Man, Key Largo, and most notably Casablanca: two characters in the game's second act are directly modeled after the roles played by Peter Lorre and Claude Rains in the film.

Grim Fandango's voice was modeled after Greenstreet, complete with his trademark chuckle.

Boyes stated that Sony had been interested in working with a wide array of developers for the PlayStation 4, and was inspired to seek Grim Fandango after seeing developers like Capcom and Midway Games revive older properties.

Grim Fandango has an original soundtrack that combines orchestral score, South American folk music, jazz, bebop, swing, and big band music, inspired by the likes of Duke Ellington and Benny Goodman as well as film composers Max Steiner and Adolph Deutsch.

Grim Fandango has been included in several publishers' "Top Games" lists well after its release.

Grim Fandango sold another 16,157 units in the region during 2001, and 8,032 in the first six months of 2002; its jewel case SKU reached 5,621 sales during 2003.

Grim Fandango underperformance was seen as a sign that the genre was commercially "dead" to rival Sierra, as well.

Grim Fandango has found similar critical success with their first title, Psychonauts.

Grim Fandango Remastered has received similar positive reception as the original release, with many critics continuing to praise the game's story, characters, and soundtrack.

Many reviewers noted that the puzzles, though a staple of the day when Grim Fandango was first released, remain somewhat obtuse with solutions that are not clear even after the player solves them, and that a hint system, as was added to the Monkey Island remake, would have been very helpful.

Grim Fandango has been considered a representative title demonstrating video games as an art form; the game was selected in 2012 as a candidate for public voting for inclusion within the Smithsonian Institution's "The Art of Video Games" exhibit, while the Museum of Modern Art seeks to install the game as an exhibit as part of its permanent collection within the Department of Architecture and Design.

Grim Fandango felt the story would be a difficult component, as either they would have to figure a means to bring Manny back from his final reward, or otherwise build the story around a new character.