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Dialogue and musicEdit

The game featured a large cast for voice acting in the game’s dialog and cutscenes, employing many Latino actors to help with the Spanish slang.[2] Voice actors includedTony Plana as Manny, María Canals as Meche, Alan Blumenfeld as Glottis, and Jim Ward as Hector. Schafer credits Plana for helping to deepen the character of Manny, as the voice actor was a native Spanish speaker and suggested alternate dialog for the game that was more natural for casual Spanish conversations.[36] The game’s music, a mix of an orchestral score, South American folk music, jazz, swing and big band sounds, was composed at LucasArts by Peter McConnelland inspired by the likes of Duke Ellingtonand Benny Goodman as well as film composers Max Steiner and Adolph Deutsch.[37] The score featured live musicians that McConnell knew or made contact with in San Francisco‘s Mission District, including a mariachi band.[37] The soundtrack was released as a CD in 1998.[38]

Original releaseEdit

Originally, the game was to be shipped in the first half of 1998 but was delayed;[8] as a result, the game was released on October 30, 1998, the Friday before November 2, the actual date of the Day of the Dead celebration.[2] Even with the delay, the team had to drop several of the puzzles and characters from the game, including a climactic five-step puzzle against Hector LeMans at the conclusion of the game; Schafer later noted that they would have needed one to two more years to implement their original designs.[32]

Remastered versionEdit

Acquisition of rights and announcementEdit

A remastered release of Grim Fandango was announced in June 2014 during Sony Computer Entertainment‘s press event of the2014 Electronic Entertainment Expo, with a simultaneous release for the PlayStation 4,PlayStation Vita, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux platforms on January 27, 2015.[39][40][41][42] It was later released forAndroid and iOS on May 5, 2015.[43]

The remastered version was predicated on the transition of LucasArts from a developer and publisher into a licensor and publisher in 2013 shortly after its acquisition by Disney. Under new management, LucasArts licensed several of its intellectual properties (IP), including Grim Fandango, to outside developers. Schafer was able to acquire the rights to the game with financial assistance from Sony, and started the process of building out the remaster within Double Fine Productions.[31] Schafer said that the sale of LucasArts to Disney had reminded them of the past efforts of former LucasArts president Darrell Rodrigeuz to release the older LucasArts titles as Legacy Properties, such as the 2009 rerelease of The Secret of Monkey Island.[36] Schafer also noted that they had tried to acquire the property from Lucasarts in the years prior, but the frequent change in management stalled progress.[44] When they began to inquire about the rights with Disney and LucasArts following its acquisition, they found that Sony, through their vice president of publisher and developer relations Adam Boyes, was also looking to acquire the rights. Boyes stated that Sony had been interested in working with a wide array of developers for the PlayStation 4, and was also inspired to seek Grim Fandango‘s after seeing developers like Capcom and Midway Games revive older properties. Boyes’ determination was supported by John Vignocchi, VP of Production for Disney Interactive, who also shared memories of the game, and was able to bring in contacts to track down the game’s assets.[44] After discovering they were vying for the same property, Schafer and Boyes agreed to work together to acquire the IP and subsequent funding, planning to make the re-release a remastered version.[36][44] Sony did not ask for any of IP rights for the game, instead only asking Double Fine to give the PlayStation platforms console exclusivity in exchange for funding support, similar to their Pub Fund scheme they use to support independent developers.[44]

ChallengesEdit

A comparison of Grim Fandango from its original release (top) and the remastered version. Double Fine increased texture resolution and improved lighting models to improve the looks of the characters.

A major complication in remastering the original work was having many of the critical game files go missing or on archaic formats. A large number of backup files were made onDigital Linear Tape (DLT) which Disney/LucasArts had been able to recover for Double Fine, but the company had no drives to read the tapes. Former LucasArts sound engineer Jory Prum had managed to save a DLT drive and was able to extract all of the game’s audio development data from the tapes.[44] Schafer noted at the time of Grim Fandango‘s original development, retention of code was not as rigorous as present day    .