What Made Psychonauts Special

Let's look at how Double Fine weaved characterisation into level design, in the 2005 cult classic Psychonauts.

Recommended viewing:

Psychonauts Retrospective // The Color of the Sky in Your World

Games shown in this episode (in order of appearance):

Psychonauts (Double Fine Productions, 2005)
Grim Fandango (LucasArts, 1998)
Day of the Tentacle (LucasArts, 1993)
Full Throttle (LucasArts, 1995)
Banjo Kazooie (Rare, 1998)
BioShock (Irrational Games, 2007)
Portal (Valve Corporation, 2007)
The Last Guardian (genDesign, 2016)

Music used in this episode:

animeistrash
Whispering Rock Psychic Summer Camp (Psychonauts)

[romantistcaveman]

Raz is one of my favorite videogame protagonists of all time. Not only does he adapt to the mental worlds he's in with a cheery boy-scout gusto, he always seems genuinely sympathetic to the mental trauma that his various "patients" have endured. (And I would personally nitpick that Pyschonauts doesn't trivialize mental illness by having Raz "cure" most of his patients, rather he seems to relieve that outside circumstances (masked tokatsu villains, harsh inner critics) that have made their life a living Hell.)

It would've been so easy for Pyschonauts to have a 'tude infused protagonist who gives the player an aside glance at "wow, what a basket case, am I right, guys?" but Raz demonstrates both critical curiosity and empathy, both traits for an actual therapist trying to help an actual patient.

[Hoffyman]

It's worth mentioning that the clairvoyance is pretty underutilized after the level it's introduced, but can be used later in passive way on all of the characters you meet in the camp. Lili sees you as a handsome prince, Milla sees you as an infant, etc.

[endermage]

One of the cool things about Psychonauts is that literally every single item will produce *unique dialogues* on *every single character.* Even the interactions that are impossible in the game, like Confusion Grenades on Boyd (Which would paradoxically make him lucid enough to almost realize he's a conspiracy theorist before dropping back into paranoid insanity).

[lukesterling]

Possibly my favorite thing about Psychonauts is its use of symbolism, and also its use of foreshadowing. The latter is especially well done because in a lot of instances, it's not very obvious and you actually have to look for it. For example, in Oleander's "basic braining" level, there's a fairly straightforward moment where Lili prevents Raz from crashing into the ground because he would have crushed an unusual plant she was attempting to communicate with, and that plant very clearly shows up later in the game. But further into the level, there's a snowy field full of rabbits wearing army helmets, which seems somewhat random, and if clairvoyance is used on the rabbits, they see Raz as a big scary butcher. This is foreshadowing the final levels of the game in which Raz and Oleander's minds are intertwined and it's revealed that Oleander is deeply traumatized by his father, a butcher, who killed a rabbit Oleander wanted to play with.

[Beefster]

Whoa... I never even noticed that Boyd's mind didn't have censors. That's deep.

[elfensing]

This game made me, years later, a real life psychologist

[jarerarebear]

One level that gets mentioned less frequently than any other in Psychonauts is Waterloo World. Sure it doesn't have any re watchable fully rendered cut scenes. But its design is as interesting as any of the other levels in the game. My theory on it is that Fred Bonaparte is indeed a descendant of Napoleon, but he doesn't have the same love for war as his ancestor. He decided to be an orderly to help people at Thorny Towers home for the Disturbed. The different peasants that you have to recruit as soldiers in Fred's army represent the many people that Fred would have helped as a nurse, and when Fred wasn't able to beat Crispin, another patient in the strategy board game he grew up loving, Fred became obsessed and he lost the ability to care for all his patients.

[dennis_duran]

The best part of Psychonauts to me, is the theming. Long gone are the days of Mario’s water world, sand world, cave word, etc. Everything is a combination of multiple, very specific and fresh themes.

[widget]

"You may call me by my true name. The name given to me by my fellow lung fish. Linda."

[hongquiao]

"The Milkman Conspiracy" gives us a terrifying glimpse inside the mind of Alex Jones.

[Kaijudomage]

Also the whole thing with Raz's "curse" dying in water, I've always thought of it being his own powers manifesting his fear.

[mothersbasement]

Psychonauts is one of my all time favorite games. I did an in-depth analysis of Gloria's theatre over on my channel like a year ago, and this is making me want to go back to it.

[chunkystains]

Grieving Widow: "The dead people are underground. And I have brought flowers because...I am sad."
Haha, what a great game. I still have mine and kinda wanna play now.

[brianbierlein]

"Although over time, my husband will desire me less, sexually, he will always enjoy my pies."

[ProperlyGaming]

I was so lucky to play this as a child. I was like 10 or 11, and in my house on Easter my mom doesn't just give us a shit ton of candy instead gifts and a single chocolate bunny. And she brought home a new football and this game I had never heard of. She just bought it cause she said the cover art looked cool, and then I got to play it. And it easily became one of the games of my childhood I look back on constantly and sometimes replay every year or so and have as good a time as i had as a kid. Something I probably never would've asked for but my mom just so stumbled upon a gem that I hold next to the jak and Daxter series and the ratchet and clabk series, the only other game I constantly look back on with fond memories of from my childhood

[dDodo]

Psychonauts biggest problem was that it was released in a time when no one cared about platformers anymore.

[FrMZTsarmiral]

Always cool to see stories in which mental instability and illness aren't portrayed as just something evil in need of a beating or nothing but an evil counterpart of a person, might give this a try.

[BlackSeaOtter]

What made "The Milkman Conspiracy" so amazing for me was the fact that while playing it, the curvature of the level actually gave me vertigo and made me feel sick. But for some reason I still enjoyed it. I feel like the dizziness I felt while playing that level ties into the Milkman's character which is really cool because he's supposed to be insane, his mind is supposed to be all out of whack and disorderly.

[tveye]

Nice vid. One mistake I noted though is that Edgar had OCD, not rage. The bull was the manifestation of his obsession to do things over and over again.

[jevinday]

This game tripped me out as a kid and absolutely blew my mind in the best way possible. I still have yet to play a game that is so unique. The story, the colors, the surrealist level and character design. Man, this game was truly one of a kind. It really stimulated my imagination as a kid, and because of that i really hold it in a really high regard.