Support NeoGAF

[IbizaPocholo]

About the series

2 Player Productions and Double Fine Productions present Double Fine PsychOdyssey, an unprecedented documentary experience seven years in the making.

Ten years after the release of their flagship video game Psychonauts, Double Fine Productions returns to its most celebrated franchise with Psychonauts 2. Now facing the pressure to produce a worthy sequel, the studio must confront overly ambitious designs, poor morale, technical challenges and financial woes, all during a turbulent span of time for the world.

Double Fine PsychOdyssey is the direct continuation of the acclaimed series Double Fine Adventure, and offers even deeper insight into the passion, humor, and heartbreak of video game development.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Been waiting for this. Thanks for posting.

 

[RPS37]

with the way things have been going lately, I was legit thinking this was a game.

 

[CamHostage]

with the way things have been going lately, I was legit thinking this was a game.

Me too. And I'm happy for the doc, but it is reminding me that DoubleFine used to be an incubator which produced and published weird little games while working on its big titles (like Costume Quest, Headlander, Stacking,) so I did think maybe an offshoot project might be in there somehow even though they stopped their affiliate program. That, and the stealth-release of HiFi Rush.

But I'll take the doc while waiting for their next creation.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Watched the first 3 parts so far. This is a long one. Was fun watching the developers trying to work and kind of get sick in VR while making Rombus of Ruin.

 

[qbxwhi]

seems stressful. dang.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Marathoned this entire Doc. several hours a day (while also working) Cut and paste my thoughts.

While I found it interesting. It's really dry and almost aggravating with the majority of the Doc consisting of sitting around in meetings discussing the vision, design and arguments over what should and shouldn't be in a level.
There was a vast amount of communication and time needed to discuss various aspects of development.
It was bewildering to see it was possible to get anything done at all.
Very interesting seeing a concept go to a white box nothing into a mixing blender of ideas and art and programming. And meetings and more meetings.

The Doc starts off all sunshine and roses and just slowly, devolves into an organized chaos. A lot of unorganized chaos creeps in and starts to take a tole on every employee.
Entire months of work get thrown out over a design choice or story element into more design. Things that were obvious to the team building out concepts but had to go back to the drawing board when a concept just wasn't working in a play test.

There were a few drama bombs. But the technical and artistry on display was staggering. I wish they had spent more time with the programmers doing the impossible when big changes were needed.
All this while cameras are on you. Covid was only an icing on the cake near the end of the doc.

 

[Hugare]

Marathoned this entire Doc. several hours a day (while also working) Cut and paste my thoughts.

While I found it interesting. It's really dry and almost aggravating with the majority of the Doc consisting of sitting around in meetings discussing the vision, design and arguments over what should and shouldn't be in a level.
There was a vast amount of communication and time needed to discuss various aspects of development.
It was bewildering to see it was possible to get anything done at all.
Very interesting seeing a concept go to a white box nothing into a mixing blender of ideas and art and programming. And meetings and more meetings.

The Doc starts off all sunshine and roses and just slowly, devolves into an organized chaos. A lot of unorganized chaos creeps in and starts to take a tole on every employee.
Entire months of work get thrown out over a design choice or story element into more design. Things that were obvious to the team building out concepts but had to go back to the drawing board when a concept just wasn't working in a play test.

There were a few drama bombs. But the technical and artistry on display was staggering. I wish they had spent more time with the programmers doing the impossible when big changes were needed.
All this while cameras are on you. Covid was only an icing on the cake near the end of the doc.

The last 2 paragraphs dont shock me at all. Making games is chaos, and the bigger the game, the bigger the chaos. And this was their biggest game yet, by far.

Same thing was seen on the Raising Kratos documentary. At the end it felt like everyone was mad at each other. Tension was palpable by just watching it.

And Tim is genius, but he also seems like he doesnt have great management skills, to say the least. Watch the documentary for the first Psychonauts, and it was really, really chaotic. Broken Age also had some troubled development.

Directors who has too much artistic input in the game (Tim, Cory, Ken Levine and etc.) usualy cause too much trouble by micromanaging.

 

[Magic Carpet]

And Tim is genius, but he also seems like he doesnt have great management skills, to say the least. Watch the documentary for the first Psychonauts, and it was really, really chaotic. Broken Age also had some troubled development.

Directors who has too much artistic input in the game (Tim, Cory, Ken Levine and etc.) usualy cause too much trouble by micromanaging.

Most of the Drama was because Tim wanted to focus on story and not handle all the nuts and bolts. He hired a manager to be incharge of development and that was where most of the drama bombs came from. Many employee's missed Tim's thoughts on what they were doing and eventually Tim had to come in and take on more and more.

 

[SegaManAU]

Three episodes in and I'm hooked.

 

[Bartski]

INCREDIBLE documentary. I've watched some episodes in the middle, now I'm binging the whole thing from the start and I haven't even played the game.

Absolutely essential for anyone interested in game dev behind the scenes.

 

[AndrewRyan]

Raising Kratos documentary

Haven't seen it so thanks for the mention. Here's a link:

 

[SegaManAU]

I just finished watching this....wow. What a great experience. I was hooked from start to finish. What a journey!

 

[Tangerine]

Was cool to see that one documentary guy's idea for a game get picked, the gods are hungry or something was his pitch. Then over 10 working days he had to manage a team and create the prototype game concept... A thing the company does every 2 years it seems. To inspire creativity and increase team skills.

THEN how that became a whole brain level in the final psychonauts 2 game; The cooking show one. A guy with no game design experience. Was a good memorable level too.

His other game idea 2 years later, armoured slug, was also pretty cool.

 

[Bragr]

It is a really spectacular insight into game dev.

They did another one when they made Broken Age, called "Double Fine Adventure". It's also fantastic.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Was cool to see that one documentary guy's idea for a game get picked, the gods are hungry or something was his pitch. Then over 10 working days he had to manage a team and create the prototype game concept... A thing the company does every 2 years it seems. To inspire creativity and increase team skills.

THEN how that became a whole brain level in the final psychonauts 2 game; The cooking show one. A guy with no game design experience. Was a good memorable level too.

His other game idea 2 years later, armoured slug, was also pretty cool.

The "Amnesia Fortnight".
They had working games in only 2 weeks time.
I think they should have this kind of contest between other studios.
Get an elevator pitch for a game idea then ready set go.

 

[SegaManAU]

Was cool to see that one documentary guy's idea for a game get picked, the gods are hungry or something was his pitch. Then over 10 working days he had to manage a team and create the prototype game concept... A thing the company does every 2 years it seems. To inspire creativity and increase team skills.

THEN how that became a whole brain level in the final psychonauts 2 game; The cooking show one. A guy with no game design experience. Was a good memorable level too.

His other game idea 2 years later, armoured slug, was also pretty cool.

That was so good. As soon as that part came up I was like like "THAT'S IN THE GAME!"