Grim Fandango finally a point-and-click adventure game, thanks to modder

Grim Fandango is one of the best adventure games ever made—an epic journey through a world that meshes Casablanca with Día de Muertos , as brilliantly imagined by Tim Schafer.

, as brilliantly imagined by Tim Schafer. First released in 1998, it was just about the peak of storytelling in the genre, but it always had one huge problem: the controls. But a new mod may solve those problems, changing the game's controls from keyboard-based "tank" movements to a point-and-click interface.

The modder in question is Tobias Pfaff. “I got annoyed by Grim Fandango's tank controls, so I made a classic point & click interface,” he says on ResidualVM's forums. “The game is now 100% playable with mouse only.”

Grim Fandango was the first LucasArts adventure game that ditched the SCUMM engine in favor of the newer, 3D Grim Engine, hence its name. With the transition to 3D, LucasArts also changed the controls to keyboard or gamepad, instead of the point-and-click mouse controls the genre is known for.

Navigating 3D environments from changing, fixed camera angles was problematic enough at the time, especially with “tank controls” (think about the first Alone in The Dark). The controls were even worse here, in an adventure game that required you to interact with specific items in the environment.

Pfaff says that the mod is still in alpha and probably rotten with bugs, but you can get it from GitHub, test it, and report them to make it better.