Trivia / Psychonauts

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• Acclaimed Flop: This game is considered to be one of the best on the original Xbox. The sales sadly don't reflect this. According to the Psychonauts 2015 documentary however, the sales were not as bad as others claimed it was. Tim Schafer said everyone said it sold 100,000 when it sold 400,000. Things would also turn around when Double Fine's deal with the publisher Majesco expired, enabling the studio to release a slightly Updated Re-release through digital platforms such as Steam. According to Double Fine, opening up for digital sales increased the sales numbers with about 1.2 million, making the game into what be described as a bit of a (very) late blooming Sleeper Hit, and it actually ended up turning enough of a profit to partially fund the sequel.
• Acting for Two:
  • André Sogliuzzo voices both halves of a split personality, Fred/Napoleon Bonaparte, who argues with himself. With such drastically different accents and tone it's uncanny.
  • There's also Nick Jameson as Coach Oleander, Dr. Loboto and Mr. Pokeylope.
  • Brett Pels plays Chloe, Maloof and Kitty.
  • Colleen O'Shaughnessey as Nils and Crystal.
• All-Star Cast: The voice cast is basically a who's-who of American voice acting. Among them are Richard Steven Horvitz, Nika Futterman, Jessica DiCicco, Ogie Banks, Lara Jill Miller, Colleen O'Shaughnessey, Crystal Scales, Nick Jameson, David Kaye, Stephen Stanton, Darin De Paul, Dwight Schultz, Alan Blumenfeld, André Sogliuzzo, Tara Strong, Steve Blum, Josh Keaton, Julie Nathanson, Dave Boat, Earl Boen, and Armin Shimerman. One member of the cast, Cristina Pucelli, later received retroactive recognition.
• Content Leak: When the game was first released on Steam, dataminers discovered a document in the game files called the "Li-Po Backstory Document", which filled in details on several major characters; it got Dummied Out of the game's directory shortly after its discovery. While its canonicity has never been addressed by Double Fine and some of it has been rendered non-canon by Psychonauts 2 (a lot of the lore about the Aquatos and Ford don't make sense in light of the events of the sequel, and Edgar's blurb in the document outright declares that someone else had a better idea for his backstory) other details— like the names of Raz's family members and Lili's dad, as well as the backstories for Oleander, Boyd, and Gloria— fit in with how the games have depicted the characters so far. If you're curious, you can read it here.
• Cross-Dressing Voices:
  • Dogen, Nils, Maloof, J.T., Quentin, Vernon, Elton, and Little Oly all had female voice actors (several of whose voice actors also voiced other, female characters).
    • According to Word of God, Double Fine originally tried to avert this, and attempted to use actual prepubescent boys to voice the characters, but the child actors proved too difficult to work with.
  • Stephen Stanton as Bonita Soleil and David Kaye as Linda are both men playing female characters.
• Development Gag: In the intro for the game, Oleander, after unsuccessfully attempting to probe his mind, says that Raz's name "Starts with a 'D'." The protagonist's name was originally d'Artagnan. And this design for the protagonist also briefly shows up in the epilogue coming out of the outhouse.
• Development Hell: The game was originally to be published by Microsoft as an Xbox exclusive, but dropped it. Majesco Entertainment ended up publishing the game, though that might have hurt sales since that publisher was best known for bad licensed ports.
• Dummied Out:
  • Unused voice lines hint that Milla's reaction to her orphanage burning down could have been seen. On a lighter note, there are also lines of her apparently making out with Sasha.
  • Multiple characters have reactions to PSI Powers that are only able to be seen via hacking.
• DVD Commentary: An iPhone app has been released of the memory vault pictures with an accompanying commentary track, featuring lead Tim Scafer and Scott Campbell, the artist who drew the images.
• Multi-Disc Work: The PC version is split to five CDs.
• No Port For You: Was released on the Xbox and PlayStation 2 but not on the GameCube, which, despite being the least successful console of the generation (besides the Sega Dreamcast), had an affinity for platformers. This likely didn't do the game any favors in sales ^note Although the game's large file size (about 4.5 GB) would have presented difficulties with the GameCube's 1.5 GB mini-DVD format.
• Playing Against Type:
  • Dwight Schultz, famous for being a Large Ham in other portrayals, voices Crispin Whytehead with a dry, sardonic monotone.
  • Richard Steven Horvitz is known for portraying over-the-top idiots like Zim and Billy, however Raz is calm, collected and the Only Sane Man and rarely raises his voice.
• Pre-Order Bonus: A deck of playing cards for the original Xbox version.
• Production Nickname: The creature that teleports Raz between different locations in Mental Worlds is called Oatmeal by the developers, after a scene in Frosty the Snowman where one of the kids suggests the name "Oatmeal!" for Frosty.
• Refitted for Sequel: A sequence from Full Throttle in which Ben experienced a peyote-influenced hallucinogenic trip, cut thanks to Executive Meddling, served as the genesis for Tim Schafer's original concept for Psychonauts.
• Tuckerization: A retroactive example: Tim Schafer's daughter Lili, who was born a few years after Psychonauts was released. Presumably Tim's fond of the name in general, but Lili-in-the-game now serves as a reference to real-life Lili.
• Troubled Production: The game's production faced numerous delays and difficulties. It was originally supposed to be published by Microsoft, who later dropped the game due to the aforementioned delays along with disagreements with Double Fine on the game's direction. Fortunately, Double Fine was able to get Majesco to publish it instead, allowing it to be finished and released.
• Vindicated by Cable: Though it sold very poorly when first released, it slowly built up a very positive reputation as a Cult Classic among gamers, eventually becoming a consistent top seller on Digital Distribution services like Steam, even outside of sales. The video accompanying the crowdfunding effort for the sequel boasts that its total sales after all these years are 1.7 million, which would be an impressive number of sales for any game, not to mention a marked improvement over how it sold during its initial release.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Raz was originally conceived as an ostrich suffering from mental imbalance and multiple personalities. Tim Schafer killed the idea because he strongly believes in games being "wish fulfillments," guessing that not many people fantasize about being an insane ostrich.
  • Originally there was going to be a subplot involving the nightmares in Milla's mindscape getting loose and abducting campers. Due to time constraints, unacceptable levels of scariness, or the developers realising Milla would never allow her own mind to endanger children, the subplot was dropped — but the bosses weren't, leading to no less than two Boss fights with one during The Milkman Conspiracy. There are still Nightmares in Milla's mind, too, but they're firmly caged and controlled, posing no threat.
  • According to the official Vault Viewer commentary, Milla was supposed to have mind control as a power at one point, but it was removed, as was a lot of dialogue from her Dance Party including her secret room, including some that may have cemented the Ship Tease mentioned earlier.
  • The concept art for Gloria's Theatre shows much more detail than the actual level.
  • Waterloo World originally had a small, functioning strategy game that would be played rather than the comparatively simple missions you're given, but it was taken out because it was boring.
  • The game was originally intended to be exclusive to the original Xbox and published by Microsoft, but after Microsoft and Double Fine parted ways due to Creative Differences PC and PlayStation 2 ports were commissioned very late into development.
  • The original protagonist for the game was a boy named d'Artagnan Alstublieft ("Dart" for short), who had blue skin and a big green hat. He was replaced with Raz because the developers found animating his hat difficult, as well as fearing audiences would mistake his hat for a ponytail and think he was a girl.
• Write Who You Know:
  • Boyd Cooper is allegedly based on somebody Tim Schafer knew.
  • Quentin's Totally Radical way of speaking is apparently based on the way art director Scott Campbell talks.

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