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The new and much improved Department of Death site launched today at the new address:
Many months of work have gone into the site, which was completely rebuilt from scratch with a completely new design and site structure.
The most notable new feature is the user registration system which allows visitors to sign up in a matter of seconds with an account that is associated with all of their fan work, comments and profile information for the rest of the members to see. With their profile, any member will be able to submit fan work, update their own fan work, post comments on other members' fan work and news articles and fill out a profile so that everyone else can find out a little more about them and set up their preferences for viewing the site. All of the member's stats, such as how many comments they have posted or how many fan fictions they have contributed, are all kept track of with the profile.
Browsing the site is now much easier than before with the new customisable front page which shows you all of the latest content to be added to the site, as well as the three quick links at the top of each page for viewing a printer friendly version of the current page, adding the page to your favourites or sending the page to a friend
Adding fan work and comments is now as easy as it could ever be, with the ability to submit and edit content instantly from your account, so there's no need to worry about making mistakes. And if you don't notice, our new team of moderators will be able to inform you or even correct the mistake for you. Forum style BB-code is now used in comments and fan work. Tags such as [b][/b] and [url=http://www.grim-fandango.com] all work.
After all that work the site is now finished and ready for use, already with a massive collection of fan work. We urge everyone to sign up now and take a look round.
Some content from the old site is still to be transferred over from the old site (e.g. easter eggs), so it will remain open until everything has been carried over. But for now, enjoy the new site |
"Tim Burton’s future projects: “Well, I’m currently woerking on Sweeny Todd, which will be released in mid-2007. After that, I’m gonna start working on a new script that was sent to me recently: Grim Fandango. It sort of follows the style of The nightmare before Christmas and Corpse Bride. It’s about a surreal land of the dead, some sort of purgatory where everyone goes when they die. In that place, dead people have to make a four-year transition before they can rest in peace for all the eternity. I still don’t know when we’re going to start filming this, though."
Source: Nick Virago |
The ninth and final chapter has been added to Scorpicus' excellent murder mystery series 'Murder at Vertigos Tower'. Check it out here in our fan fiction section find out once and for all who the murderer was! |
We've had a couple of emails in commenting on the fact that there have been no updates on this site for two months. So, just to set things straight, this site is in no way dead, and neither is the Grim Fandango Half-Life 2 mod. The reason for the lack of updates is that I've been pretty busy recently preparing for major exams, so I haven't really had time to update the site much.
Just to prove that the site is still in action, an excellent new 'murder mystery' fan fiction by Scorpicus has been added. All 8 chapters can be found here (the final chapter is still to be written).
As for the Grim Fandango Half-Life 2 mod, some great progress is being made. The lobby of the Department of Death is pretty much complete, with many custom models and textures, and we have some truly outstanding concept art in the working for the mod. These will be posted within the coming weeks. |
A couple of days ago the Italian site Lucasdelirium carried out an interview with Peter McConnell, composer of the outstanding music of Grim Fandango and other LucasArts games. Make sure you take a look as it provides a lot of new information about his iMUSE system and work with LucasArts. |
Bgbennyboy, creator of the extremely helpful Grim Fandango Launcher, has just released a new tool - the Grim Fandango Dialog Editor. The editor makes it easy to import, view, edit and export the dialog from Grim Fandango, which can be very useful in some cases, such as when translating the game into another language.
The editor can be downloaded from our downloads section, aswell as the recently released latest version (1.3) of bgbennyboy's Grim Fandango Launcher, which fixes a small bug from the previous release. |
We have recently recieved these three pieces of fan art and added them to our ever-growing fan art gallery:
The first image is a photo of perhaps the only Grim Fandango tattoo in existence, submitted by Dave Keen. The other two images are representations of what could happen to the Land of the Dead if a Grim Fandango 2 is not made, submitted by ClemsPaw, webmaster of the french Grim Fandango website Le Pays des Morts sur Internet
In other news, steady progress is being made on the new version of this site, which includes a much nicer template, a fully integrated members system so that registered members (and guests if they do not wish to sign up) can submit fan content and comment on news, fan content etc. all under their account a lot more quickly and easily than in the current version. There are also loads of other neat features like that, and improvements made to the old version of the site. |
Ever since Tim Schafer left LucasArts a few years back, the chances of a Grim Fandango 2 have been pretty slim. However, I recently recieved this email from a Grim Fandango fan who would prefer to remain anonymous:
A good friend and computer animation colleague of mine who recently began working for the LucasArts studio in Singapore informs me that they're involved in a Grim Fandango sequel project, albeit in the development phase. Tim Schafer is apparently developing a story, and a team is putting together the project for a 'pitch' of sorts to LucasArts management. The only downside is apparently this pitch will be up against another project and only one will be put into production. Let's cross our fingers for GF2!!
This inside info is of course unofficial and best kept anonymous, but my own personal enthusiasm for the game encouraged me to share my excitement for a sequel with your GF community! |
If this is true, then it is really great news for any Grim Fandango fan. However, I wouldn't get your hopes too high. It is quite possible that the project may not be underway, taking into account the current situation at LucasArts (perhaps there was a misunderstanding, or something similar within the email). For example, "Tim Schafer is apparently developing a story", when it is known that Tim Schafer no longer works at LucasArts and has formed his own company (see update below). Even if it is true, there is always the fact mentioned in the email that the project is being put up against a different game, and only one will go through
However, whether this email is genuine or not, I posted it anyway, because if its true it's awesome news :D.
Update - 10th Februrary 2006
...in regards to Tim Schafer now at his own company Double Fine, I may have misunderstood - when I asked my friend if the "original guy" was involved in this one, he told me he was currently "working on a story" - my friend might not be speaking about Tim Schafer.
You're right, it is unlikely that Tim is involved (unfortunately!). | |
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