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MinnMax Interview - Tim Schafer’s Ultimate Push For Transparency With PsychOdyssey
🕑 Added 2023-03-03 19:15:01 +0000 UTC
MinnMax's Ben Hanson interviews the head of Double Fine Tim Schafer about the new release of Double Fine PsychOdyssey, the 32-part documentary about the development of Psychonauts 2. We talk about how and why he felt it was so important for 2 Player Productions to create an honest look at every aspect of game development and what it was like for him to watch the finished documentary. This interview is the grand finale for The Celebration Of Double Fine PsychOdyssey from MinnMax, so don't miss our interview with 2 Player Productions, game industry roundtable with Jason Schreier, or Max Spoilers with Jacob Geller.
You can watch the video version here - https://youtu.be/wIn4WEHNj6M
To jump to a particular discussion, check out the timestamps below...
00:00:00 - Intro
00:02:07 - Tim Schafer’s AIAS Hall of Fame Award
00:04:01 - Launching Double Fine PsychOdyssey
00:05:34 - The meetings too sensitive to film
00:08:31 - Protecting 2 Player Productions’ vision
00:11:16 - Tim’s push for transparency in game development
00:17:28 - Watching the documentary for the first time
00:22:36 - Lessons from watching Double Fine PsychOdyssey
00:24:53 - New staff and Double Fine’s studio pillars
00:32:33 - The struggle for bold brains/worlds in Psychonauts 2
00:37:40 - Not getting stressed about not having a publisher
00:38:47 - The Microsoft acquisition
00:41:14 - Microsoft’s feedback on the documentary
00:43:43 - How selling to Microsoft improved his house
00:45:46 - Misconceptions about the documentary
00:47:34 - Why the crunch meeting is hard to watch
00:51:34 - The emotions of the documentary
00:52:56 - More takeaways from watching the documentary
00:53:57 - Stressing out producers 00:59:29 - In conclusion
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Comments
Ben Hanson
That's a good guess, thanks for listening!
Also, Tim mentions at one point that a publisher was interested around the time the project hit Fig, but pulled out because they stopped publishing games. That timeline kind of lines up with Disney pulling out of games. Interesting.
Amazing interview!
Ben Hanson
Thank you, Sleepless! We couldn't do it without support on Patreon!
It’s so cool that y’all are going hard on creating so much content about PsychOdyssey! I had no idea this existed until hearing about it on MinnMax. I’m less than halfway through the doc and completely invested. Thanks Ben and team for your thorough coverage!
Jared R
Ben, at this point you need to make a documentary about the making of this documentary
