Digital archeology: How Double Fine, Disney, LucasArts and Sony resurrected Grim Fandango

[The_Imp_ZA]

Although it doesn't happen that often anymore, Polygon can really put out some fantastic articles. If anyone is interested in getting the remaster, or has already bought it, I recommend reading though the article to find out a little bit more about the process they had to go through to get it running again.

Digital archeology: How Double Fine, Disney, LucasArts and Sony resurrected Grim Fandango

Grim Fandango survived for 15 years on a mess of ancient storage devices that are about as easy to access today as eight-track tapes.

The frozen bits and bytes that combined to form the Land of the Dead and populate it with characters like Manuel "Manny" Calavera were released to critical acclaim in 1998, when Grim Fandango arrived in retail stores inside of boxes holding CDs. It was a time before widespread broadband and direct download services made purchases easy and games evergreen. In time, like all retail products, new boxes arrived and demanded shelf space. To those who hadn't purchased LucasArts' PC adventure game, Grim Fandango effectively disappeared.

Inside the LucasArts archives, the source files got backed up, categorized, shuffled and handed down.

There's also a 3 series called 'The Making of Grim Fandango Remastered' if you're more visually inclined and/or don't like to read - tsk tsk shame on you