LucasArts' Grim Fandango is one of the best and most beloved adventure games ever made. But unlike the vast majority of games in its genre, Tim Schafer's 1998 dark comedy neo-noir adventure features a frustrating, unwieldy control scheme.
Where most adventure games utilize a point-and-click interface to move and interact with objects and the world, Grim Fandango uses a system that has come to be known as "tank controls." The left and right arrow keys rotate deceased travel agent Manny Calavera in place, and the up arrow moves him forward.
Tank controls aren't so bad in games in which "forward" is synonymous with "away from the camera" – a first-person shooter, for instance. But in games like Grim Fandango, where the camera position often changes, just playing it is like trying to fly a model airplane.
Given its place in the hearts and minds of adventure game fans — the kind who raised more than $3.3 million for Broken Age, Schafer's return to the genre — Grim Fandango deserves better.
An enterprising modder named Tobias Pfaff has created a mod for the game that changes its control scheme to a traditional point-and-click interface. Click where you want to go, and Manny will walk there automatically.
"I got annoyed by the Grim Fandango's tank controls," Pfaff said in a forum post, "so I made a classical point & click interface. The game is now 100% playable with mouse only (bugs to be expected, though)."
It sounds like a simple change, but it's significant for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it's simply better. Grim Fandango's "tank" controls were cumbersome, making movement a chore — in particular, maneuvering over to and interacting with some of the objects in the game.
It was also a challenge from a technical standpoint, as the game was originally designed without mouse controls in mind.
"[Fandango] contains a lot of puzzles with non-standard controls," Pfaff said. "This required massive modifications."
For an adventure game, point-and-click is simply the natural way to play. Grim Fandango finally has the fix it always deserved, and all is right with the world.
