![]() It's why you see G-Men using red stop signs to hammer in imaginary nails, or playing a bouquet of flowers like a guitar, and it's the root of much of the level's humour. "I just loved that spies always wore those overcoats and people were supposed to not notice them in hotel lobbies or on park benches with their newspapers covering their faces, with just their eyes showing."Ĭampbell says the team found it funny to simply give the G-Men a single object as a disguise, and have them act out what was clearly the wrong use for that object. "I based their outfits on the classic '50s G-Men detectives in their overcoats and hats, reminiscent of the Spy vs Spy comics in Mad magazine and every single TV show from that time period," he says. He also came up with the G-Men, who kept an eye out for suspicious activities. He gave the concept to his artists.Īrt director Scott Campbell tells me he wanted to emphasise paranoia, and he drew eyes and binoculars popping out of trashcans, mailboxes and bushes to make the player feel like they were being watched. He also wanted it to give it a retro, '50s spy vibe, and thought a suburban neighborhood would be the perfect setting: Relatively mundane on the surface, but hiding a dark secret. ![]() Visually, Schafer imagined Boyd's mind world as a giant spider's web, with Boyd's house at the centre. That alter-ego was, of course, the Milkman. For Boyd, that meant showing the problems he'd been wrestling with: Being fired from a string of jobs and having an alter-ego implanted in his mind by Psychonauts villain Oleander. Psychonauts was an exercise in dealing with mental illness in a comic way-the team were conscious of never "punching down" and wanted players to empathise with the characters, Schafer says. I still see him around the neighbourhood." It was interesting to talk to him… trying to get inside of his head was very inspirational for the level. Certain days he thought the government was trying to do things with him, and some days he didn't. "We'd pay him $10 a week to sweep our driveway," Schafer says. Some were inspired by office chats, others by a homeless man named Doug, who lived on the streets nearby. Some of the theories were famous, or taken from movies. He drew up a chart of conspiracies and linked them all to a central character, Boyd. Just the idea that someone would think was so funny to me, in the same way some people think flat earthers are funny now, but I find it very sad, because it's just a symptom of how scary and misleading the internet can be," he says. "I loved the movie Capricorn One when I was a kid, on faking the moon landing. Schafer has always been fascinated by people who genuinely believed conspiracy theories, and wanted to know what was going on inside their heads. How did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game? So how did The Milkman Conspiracy go from a simple, silly phrase to one of the most beloved levels in a beloved game? It's how most levels for the zany platformer started: Schafer brought the concept, the artists re-imagined it, the designers dreamt up the gameplay, and then the world builders and programmers brought it to life. "I wish someone had said it at the restaurant, because their milk was delicious," he says.Įither way, those eight words unified ideas that had been buzzing around his head for a conspiracy theory-themed Psychonauts level. ![]() Somebody-perhaps him-came up with the phrase 'I am the milkman, my milk is delicious', and it may or may not have been during a Double Fine team meal. The Milkman Conspiracy started, as many great things do, in a Thai restaurant. ![]()
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