Grim Fandango
by Tim Schafer, Designer

Saturday, August 20, 1995

Dear Diary,

Oh, things here in the future just ain't what they used to be. Times are tough, let me tell you. I've got deadlines like you wouldn't believe. I know what you're thinking: In the future, the world isn't going to have problems like we have back here in 1995. Game development technology will have advanced to the point where everything is planned and anticipated, and no one will have to work the kind of crazy hours we have to - late into the night, up against a wall, trying to meet some impossible deadline. At least that's what I was thinking back in 1995. You are undoubtedly much smarter than I was then. (Of course, I'm much smarter than you now, what with all the brain pills and space food we eat here in 1997.) Every time I go into "crunch mode," I always swear that it will be the last time, that we will never have another crunch mode again. I'm always wrong.

I'm just going to whine about this for one second.

So, it's like this. You wake up late for work because you were up working until 4:00am.... OK, so you were only up working until 2:00am, but then you went home and couldn't sleep so you watched two hours of scrambled movies on premium cable channels that you don't subscribe to. You stumble into work at 10:00am dodging the evil looks from your small-minded coworkers who feel that the one hour of work they've already put in before you arrive makes them superior somehow. You lock yourself in your office all day to try to get some dialogue written, leaving only to get coffee or go to the bathroom. And when you're in the hallways, you try to look as irritated as possible so that no one comes up to talk to you. Someone always does, though, and they always have a long, involved, technical question about the game.

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