Psychonauts was the debut title for Double Fine Productions, a development studio that
Tim Schafer founded after leaving
LucasArts, following their decision to exit the
point-and-click adventure game market. Schafer's initial studio hires included several others that worked alongside him on
Grim Fandango (1998).
Super Mario 64 (1996) had introduced him to direct player character movement in a 3D space, along with
Final Fantasy VII (1997) and
The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time (1998), which also prominently featured storytelling and puzzle-solving, like Schafer's previous works. He said, "I think that was the moment where I was like, 'I don't think I want to make a point-and-click adventure anymore. I think I want to make a console game. I want to make a character-driven console game that is just really immediate and has more action, but, you know, still has a lot of narrative.'" The conception of
Psychonauts can be traced as far back as during the development of
Full Throttle, where Schafer envisioned a sequence in which the protagonist Ben goes under a
peyote-induced
psychedelic experience. This was eventually ejected from the game for not being family-friendly enough, though Schafer still held a fascination with products of the subconscious, feeling that one could "understand your mind better" through dreams rather than thinking consciously. In his later years at LucasArts, Schafer pitched a "spy game" featuring martial arts and meditation, in which the player character would solve puzzles by embarking on
vision quests through their mind. One of Schafer's co-workers misinterpreted his pitch, believing that the player would go into other peoples' minds, and Schafer realized that he preferred this idea. Other influences include the film
Dreamscape (1984), in which the main character can enter into other peoples' dreams, and in a child's dream, his father is portrayed in an exaggeratedly negative manner, as is Razputin's father in
Psychonauts; the
Haruki Murakami novel
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1985), which inspired the concept of visiting dream-like constructs inside a character's head; the
Jet Li films
The New Legend of Shaolin (1994) and
My Father Is a Hero (1995), in which the main character is accompanied by a child who is abnormally determined and mature for his age, much like Raz;
The Fly II (1989), where a group of children with psychic abilities are held in a research facility and experimented on (this evolved into the idea of
Psychonauts taking place at a summer camp);
The Nightmare Before Christmas (1993), as the team was inspired by the visuals of the scene where
Jack Skellington confronts
Oogie Boogie when creating the level "Black Velvetopia", as well at the film's overall craftsmanship, and initially desired to recreate the
stop-motion style, though they were limited by a lack of technical expertise; the work of artist
Joe Sorren, who was drawn from heavily when designing the characters, with their unconventional proportions and color schemes; the video game
Skies of Arcadia (2000), which features collectibles that are hidden underground and make the player's controller vibrate when they stand over them, much like the arrowheads in
Psychonauts; both
The Suffering (2004) and the work of artists
Jean-Michel Basquiat and
Paul Klee inspired the idea for figments according to different members of the team. Most of the game's dialog and script was written by Schafer and
Erik Wolpaw, who at the time was a columnist for the website
Old Man Murray. After establishing the game's main characters, Schafer undertook his own exercise to write out how the characters would see themselves and the other characters' on a social media site similar to
Friendster, which Schafer was a fan of at the time and from where he met his wife-to-be. Schafer used the camp and woods setting as a natural place that children would want to wander and explore. The art design crew included background artist Peter Chan and cartoonist Scott Campbell. Raz was originally conceived as an
ostrich suffering from mental imbalance and multiple personalities. Tim Schafer killed the idea because he strongly believes in games being "wish fulfillments," guessing that not many people fantasize about being an insane ostrich. Double Fine created a number of internal tools and processes to help with the development of the game, as outlined by executive producer Caroline Esmurdoc. Schafer believes that Fries was a proponent of "pushing games as art", which helped to solidify Double Fine's concept of
Psychonauts as an appropriate title for the console after the team's collected experience of developing for personal computers. Double Fine was also resistant to make changes that Microsoft had suggested from play-testing, such as making the humor secondary to the story, removing the summer camp theme, and drastically altering the story. Fries departed Microsoft in January 2004; shortly thereafter, the company soon pulled the publishing deal for
Psychonauts. By August 2004, Double Fine had negotiated a new publishing deal with
Majesco Entertainment to release the game on Windows as well as the Xbox. Tim Schafer was quoted as saying "Together we are going to make what could conservatively be called the greatest game of all time ever, and I think that's awesome." Though the publishing deal ensured they would be able to continue the development, Esmurdoc stated they had to forgo plans for hiring new developers to meet the scope of the game as agreed to with Majesco. Subsequently, the studio entered, as described by Esmurdoc, "the most insane crunch I have ever witnessed" in order to complete the game. This may have been partially due to the game's extensive use of
FMVs and voice recordings, resulting in a large file size (about 4.7 GB), which would have presented difficulties with the GameCube's
MiniDVD format (about 1.5 GB). Esmurdoc stated that
Psychonauts took about 4.5 years to complete — though that without all the complications the real development time was closer to 2 years — with a team of 42 full-time developers and additional contractors, with a final budget of $11.5 million.
Music The soundtrack to
Psychonauts was composed by
Peter McConnell, known for his work on
LucasArts titles such as
Grim Fandango and
Day of the Tentacle. Schafer's familiarity with McConnell, having worked with him on numerous projects in the past, led Schafer to select him for the soundtrack composition. The following year, in late 2006, Double Fine released a second soundtrack,
Psychonauts Original Cinematic Score, containing music from the game's cutscenes as well as a remix of the main theme and credits. ==Release==