Stamping down the stapler on my freshly printed script analysis essay today was a pleasing sound. It meant that I was finished my assignment and that I could move onto creative writing once again. Not that I have anything against academic work, but I prefer it when I get to cite my resources from my mind and imagination.
So what’s next in store? Well, our next assignment is back to being creative but we still have to source from an original text. Our next objective is to adapt an existing text, whether it be a book, comic, television series or video game to a different medium. Since I can remember I’ve always wanted to adapt one item to film and that is Grim Fandango. Grim Fandango is a computer game developed by Tim Schafer back in 1997 and is one of my all time favorite video games. It’s a film-noir esque story of crime and corruption set in the land of the dead and you play as the smooth talking, Mexican compatriot Manny Calavera. You play as a travel agent, masked as the Grim Reaper in the human world and you must pay off your dept before you can seek eternal rest in the Ninth Underworld. You’re not the only Grim Reaper though, it’s a business called the Department of Death and you must take your newly deceased clients into a sale pitch and sell them the best travel package to the Ninth Underworld. If you led a bad life, you must take a 4 year journey of the soul and mind before you can find eternal rest. If you led a good life you are rewarded with a Double N ticket which is a 4 minute journey that takes you straight to the Ninth Underworld. The only problem is that Manny is struggling to find such clients and eventually finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy that involves crime, corruption and a bit of romance too.
As it’s an old game I did struggle get it to work on modern computers but fortunately for me, the good people at Double Fine Productions have released an updated version of Grim Fandango and now I can get it working flawlessly. So this month alone I will be playing Grim Fandango (for research purposes of course) and working it into my film adaption.