Lucasarts classic Grim Fandango is one of the smartest, funniest video games ever made. It’s also a drag to play, thanks to its sluggish controls.
One of the first true 3D adventure games when it was released in 1998, Grim Fandango – like another Lucasarts game, the kinda-forgotten Escape from Monkey Island – thought this meant it needed to employ clunky keyboard movement controls.
They were awful, and made moving hero Manny around the screen about as graceful and enjoyable as parallel parking a garbage truck.
Fifteen years later, we’ve finally got a fix, though, with fan Tobias Pfaff modding the game to scrap the 3D controls in favour of a more traditional point-and-click interface.
Tobias, you deserve a medal.
If you want to try it out, Redditor Prezombie has the lowdown:
To play with this yourself, Either clone and build the github project or download the binary here.
Install residualvm and use it to set up Grim Fandango normally.
Copy the file mouse.lab from dists/engine-data into your game data folder (where data000.lab etc. are located), and overwrite the ResidualVM.exe and the SDL.dll with the files in the zip, then run ResidualVM.exe.
It’s a working alpha, it’s playable, but expect bugs. Report bugs to the github.
Now all you need to do is track down a copy of the game itself, since it’s not really available…anywhere.
Comments
16 responses to “Hooray, Someone Finally Fixed Grim Fandango”
Now I have to find my copy of Grim… I have no idea where it is.
It’s on the CD spindle in the second drawer, the one with the Diablo 2 install disc on top.
thats scary how close to correct you are, spindle and D2 disk is correct, but in a box not a drawer lol.
Like the use of Broken Age icons.
Think I remember playing it with a gamepad on one playthrough which worked okay.
This looks good though. I waited years for the final residualvm release so I could play this again but I’ve kept relegating it over the last year or so to finish games off my list of shame. It reminds me of mod which brought mouselook into the original System Shock.
Holy crap… I bought this game and never got past the first couple of chapters because I just couldn’t stand the horrible controls. Maybe now I can actually play it for realsies!
As much as I despise tablets they should release this game on iPad/Android so people actually get a shot to play it with a point and click style of play.
Aren’t I lucky I have a mint condition copy, complete with box sitting right here!!! The benefit of having worked in a videogame store in the late 90s/early 2000s that shut down while I was working there. We took home an ASSLOAD of games. Even have a boxed copy of Xwing vs TieFighter in the roof somewhere.
To ebay!
Hell no. lol! I’ve got a few boxed games in the roof still, Diablo 2 and Lord of Destruction, the boxes alas the discs degraded and rotted over a decade as the boxes got opened. I HAD Sam and Max hit the road, but it got water damaged and thrown out. I was *so* pissed about that 🙁
I admit, I think I have GF in a box in the garage from when I moved to AZ, but Dog knows what state it is in. But I am so tempted, my kids are old enough to enjoy a good adventure game, and GF was sublime (Hence why it made the trip with me!)
It still remains one of the best ever made! Mine are only in good condition because I gladwrapped mine. They were already out of their original shrinkwrap, so I ended up wrapping heaps of layers of gladwrap around them. lol. Just checked it before and that stuffs gone brittle as hell, so I’ll be changing it all today sometime.
Not sure I understand what the problem with the controls is. Up to walk forward, down to walk backwards, left and right to turn left and right. I guess Luke Plunkett also hated Relentless and Twinsen’s Odyssey.
The only time I remember annoyances is when the camera would unexpectedly change and you’d change direction. 😛
I have my copy in storage.
oh man… i sold my copy over a year ago on ebay 🙁