Minecraft developer makes "serious" offer to fund Psychonauts sequel

Minecraft developer makes “serious” offer to fund Psychonauts sequel

In response to an interview in which Psychonauts creator Tim Schafer said it …

Kyle Orland – Feb 7, 2012 11:52 am | 63

We'd like to think Raz's eyes are watering with happiness at the prospect of a sequel in this screenshot Credit: Image courtesy of Double Fine

In the annals of video gaming, 2005’s mind-bending platformer Psychonauts is right up there with Earthbound and Beyond Good and Evil in the ranks of games that have a devoted cadre of fans eagerly demanding sequels. Now, those Psychonauts fans might have a decent chance of getting their wish, thanks to an odd, indirect Internet back-and-forth involving Psychonauts creator Tim Shafer and Minecraft creator Markus “Notch” Persson.

It all started with a recent interview Schafer did with tech site Digital Spy, where he said he has pitched the idea of a Psychonauts sequel to publishers “several times” without any interest. “I’d love to do that game, but I’d have to convince someone to just give me a few million dollars, that’s all,” Schafer told the site.

Enter Persson, who probably has a few million dollars lying around after the wild success of Minecraft, which recently passed 20 million paid, registered users. After tweeting a rhetorical “How many millions exactly?” in response to the Schafer quote, he followed up with a tweet directed at Schafer, simply saying “Let’s make Psychonauts 2 happen.” Minutes later, he added a follow-up saying, in part, “Also, I’m serious.”

“They might not even be interested!”

“Their about page told me to contact Tim via Twitter, so I did!” Persson told Ars Technica about the odd way he made his funding offer public. And while Persson says he doesn’t want to comment more until he hears from Schafer himself (“They might not even be interested!” he points out), he did say that the original Psychonauts has definitely stuck with him over the years.

“As with a lot of people, I didn’t even learn about Psychonauts for a long time,” Persson told Ars. “When I played it, it had been out for over a year already. It was a wonderfully bizarre experience that almost refused to stay within expected game limits while still feeling very much like a game. Some of the levels stand out as one of the most memorable game experiences I’ve ever had: The Milkman Conspiracy, for example.”

Could it really happen?

Double Fine didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the offer (see update below), but there’s some evidence in the original interview that money might not be the only thing preventing a sequel from happening. “If I did a sequel to any of the games I had before, it would have prevented one of the [new games],” Schafer told Digital Spy. “If I did a sequel to Full Throttle there wouldn’t have been Grim Fandango, and so on and so on down the line,” he said.

Then again, Schafer added that the studio’s new, multiteam structure, which has already led to experimental titles like Costume Quest and Happy Action Theater, could allow one team to work on a potential Psychonauts sequel while another worked on an original game. To which we say: work on whatever else you want, just make this happen.

Update: Since this story was first published, Double Fine’s Greg Rice has gotten in touch to confirm that “Tim and Markus are talking. Who knows what might happen?”

Meanwhile, Persson continues to tweet about the developments, saying explicitly that while he and Schafer are talking and plan to meet at GDC, “Nothing has been decided either way.” He stressed that “everything is extremely vague” and warning fans “please don’t get your hopes up too high yet.”