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Grim Fandango was lauded by critics and adventure game fans as one of the best games in the genre and beyond (see Reactions section), but was not a commercial success. The game was the brain-child of Tim Schafer who had previously worked on LucasArts' Monkey Island series as well as Full Throttle and Day of the Tentacle. Grim Fandango is based on Aztec beliefs of afterlife; the game charts protagonist Manny Calavera's four year journey through the Land of the Dead towards the Ninth Underworld, the final destination of all dead souls. GameplayGrim Fandango was the first game to use the GrimE engine. The control system was somewhat different from a traditional point and click adventure game. Instead of using the mouse to move the character around the screen and interact with objects, the protagonist, Manuel Calavera (Manny for short) is controlled with the arrow keys, or even a joystick. While walking around the various environments, Manny will turn his head to look at objects with which he can interact; the player can then press the enter key to get Manny to do so. This is sometimes considered one of the game's few weaknesses, though it is only problematic where there is more than one item for the player to view as the player has to have Manny in a certain position to avoid him looking at the wrong object (this occasional issue was resolved in Escape from Monkey Island which included the use of action-lines). Pressing Del (in the numerical pad) or period also switches between different objects. Pressing E will make Manny comment on whatever he's looking at. Inventory is accessed by pressing the I key. Objects in inventory can then be scrolled through using the arrow keys, and brought out of Manny's pocket by pressing enter. Specific items can also be pulled by using the number-keys 1-9. With an inventory item in hand, Manny can then use that item on his environment by interacting with environmental objects as usual.
StoryThe story unfolds in four episodes, each set a year apart on the Day of the Dead. It is from this festival that much of the game's imagery is drawn — most of the game's characters look very much like the skeletal calaca figures (based on the work of Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada). Various flowers are also used as tools of murder, in the form of a substance known as "Sproutella", which reacts with bone, destroying it by causing flowers to grow in it extremely rapidly. Characters refer to this manner of death as "sprouting". There is also unique fauna scattered throughout the game, such as bone-eating fire beavers and gigantic race cats.
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