Psychonauts 2 developer Double Fine has given a rare peak behind the curtain at the decision inside the studio to ship the game with some hilarious, innocent bugs.
As explained at the beginning of the above video, Psychonauts 2's developers had to be prudent and selective about which bugs were bad enough to justify spending time fixing them in the final hour of development. The ones they deemed acceptable were marked "known shippable" and were left alone, and of those there were 10 that made the cut for Double Fine's own official ranking of Psychonauts 2's best bugs.
It's one thing seeing a developer release a top 10 video poking fun at its own goof-ups, but the novelty is way more entertaining when you get to see them discovering the bugs for the first time, laughing gleefully as they relish in the absurdity.
- Balatro creator started "properly playing the game myself about a week before launch" and had "a pretty emotional moment" where he realized it's "actually fun"
- Balatro creator initially considered a Steam release in part to help "get a game developer job somewhere," and after 5 million sales I'd say he found one
For aspiring developers, or just anyone curious about what it's like working at a game studio, it's also fun to see such a weird process play out over various video calls. The video shows the developers navigate a database of known bugs, watch videos showing the bug in action, and then decide whether it's worth killing. Sometimes it's a whole bunch of people watching the bug happen and other times it's just Double Fine boss Tim Schafer and another developer, but it's highly entertaining throughout.
In one case, the developers discuss a potential plot hole that involves a random NPC named Frank, who complains about not having psychic powers, but then later on in the game, clearly uses psychic powers. Schafer defends the bug by raising points: another psychic could've been making Frank appear to have psychic powers "to make him feel good about himself," and also, "no one but Jerry knows what the [random NPCs] are called."
Valid, honestly.
ICYMI: Double Fine's next game won't be Psychonauts 3, but rather "new, original stuff."
