Sometimes you really shouldn’t see how the sausage is made. Say, with sausage.
But sometimes it can be fun. Maybe not as fun as eating sausage, but still a lot of fun in its own way.
Which brings me to The Art Of Psychonauts (hardcover), a new making-of book about the titular 2022 platforming video game, which was the sequel to 2005’s cult classic Psychonauts.
In the following email interview, Ashley Esqueda — who wrote the text and assembled the art (and who is one of my video game journo buddies) — talks about how this book came together, as well as what sets it apart from other video game art books.
For people who’ve never looked at an art book for a video game before, what is in The Art Of Psychonauts 2 in terms of both the images and the text?
This is a great question, since this book is a bit different than most video game art books I’ve ever seen.
You can think of The Art Of Psychonauts 2 as a kind of visual documentary. Not only does it include concept art for characters, locations, and other aspects of Psychonauts 2, it also tells the story of how those elements came to be in their shipped form. So you might read about how a location in the game started one way, and ended up looking like something completely different in the final version.
Whose ideas was it to include these elements in The Art Of Psychonauts 2?
Fun fact: I not only organized a great deal of the artwork into something resembling a clear file tree structure, I also handpicked every single piece of artwork included in the book, which was a huge responsibility. I wanted to make sure I was honoring the artists who worked on each part of the game. There was a mountain of concept art and doodles and other amazing pieces from the Psychonauts 2 art team at Double Fine. So much so that what started out as a much smaller book ended up being over 400 pages.
Something unique about Psychonauts as a universe is what Double Fine calls “wonk,” which is why the game looks so dreamlike and askew. But that also means that every area, boss, and character is a bespoke thing, with its own pile of concept art.
So how do you condense 6 years of work into a few pages for each of those? It’s really, really hard! And then you have to figure out the actual design of the book, which means placing the art, but also making frames, backgrounds, and other thoughtful touches to make it feel worthy of a game as lovingly crafted as Psychonauts 2. Thanks to the amazing Eliza Marzec (the lead designer for the book from Lost In Cult), I was also able to sit in during some of the design sessions and walk through how I wanted the book to look and feel. So the look of the book was a collaborative effort.
How did that actually work?
I would look at all the elements of a section and generally organize them chronologically, picking out what I felt were key images that helped tell the visual story of that particular section. Once I had a general idea of what I wanted to see in each chapter, they were handed off to Eliza and the fantastic team at Lost In Cult, who would put together drafts of each chapter’s layout. Then, Eliza and I would hop on an hours-long Zoom call where she would share her screen and the two of us would literally make adjustments and changes in real time. There was definitely some asynchronous work done on both our ends — Lost In Cult is based in the U.K. and I’m here in Los Angeles — but a lot of the final layouts were completed over Zoom, together. I couldn’t have done it without Eliza, so I can’t possibly take sole credit for the book’s look and feel.
As you said, you chose all of the art included in The Art Of Psychonauts 2. But how much input into that aspect did you get from the good people at Double Fine who made Psychonauts 2?
I gotta say, it is wild thinking about how Double Fine put their full confidence in me for this book. Honestly, they should have reigned me in more, those people were way too brave and way too trusting of a first time author. [laughs]
Genuinely, Double Fine was nothing but supportive (and pretty hands off) as I worked on the book. If I needed something or asked about a piece of art I knew existed (or needed a higher-res version of), they would do their best to hunt it down. And I had minimal notes on the text, too. They were incredibly open about the artistic process, they gave me access to their internal forum even though I wasn’t an official employee, and they made sure I knew they believed in me the whole way.
I did ask for [Psychonauts 2 Creative Director] Tim Schafer’s permission to directly quote some of his real feedback for the Vaults chapter of the book, though. Thanks for saying yes to that, Tim.
So, was there anything that they suggested you include that surprised you? Like, a really terrible character sketch or an idea for a level that was super bad?
Like I said, I had almost full carte blanche. Even for little napkin doodles and the earliest bits of concept art, no matter how much it ended up changing.
As for the text, The Art Of Psychonauts 2 includes interviews with the developers. In doing those, did you learn anything about the game, or the way it was made, that really surprised you or made you laugh really hard?
The developer interviews were so much fun, and really helped give the chapters much more texture and personality. Nobody wants to hear me drone on for 55,000 words; they’re Psychonauts fans. They want to hear from the people who made the game. I learned so much about how Psychonauts 2 came together through my conversations with the dev team. It was really fun mining their memories for nuggets of information.
I think my favorite bit of information was learning that Senior Concept Artist Emily Johnstone dreamed up the designs for The Senses while she was in the shower. Like, how cool is your brain that it can just dream up something so wild in such a mundane place?
And did anyone from Double Fine have any suggestions for you about the text? Like, did anyone suggest the verbiage should be less technical or get more into the nitty-gritty of game design?
Nope. Generally, I tried to keep it casual, and the focus of the book was more artwork and other visuals (as opposed to more technical information), so it wasn’t too hard to keep it conversational.
Another part of the text in The Art Of Psychonauts 2 is a forward by Richard Horvitz, who did the voice of Raz in Psychonauts and Psychonauts 2. Was having him do this your idea?
He was my first and only choice for the foreword. I know he is usually incredibly busy, but it just felt right to have the voice of Raz talk about the game and what starring in this franchise has meant to him over the past 20+ years. He’s been part of the franchise as long as just about anybody, and making sure he was part of the book was really important to me, especially since there isn’t an art book for the original Psychonauts out there…
Did you work with him on his forward?
I talked to him quite a bit about the game, transcribed and edited our conversation, and then he and his wife sat down and wrote up a really lovely finished piece.
Honestly, Richard is just a gem. I 100% understand why Voice Director Khris Brown adores him. He’s just so thoughtful and so funny. He has this ability to blend sincerity and comedy in a way that’s really, really rare. I’m honored he was willing to write the foreword.
So, in preparing to work on The Art Of Psychonauts 2, did you look at any other game-related art books or books about games to get a sense of what to do, and what not to do?
I did. It’s pretty interesting that there were two different kinds of approaches I kept seeing. The first is a book that’s very clean and minimalist, with much smaller amounts of text and a focus on the artwork within. I knew that wasn’t quite in the spirit of the artwork of Psychonauts 2, and so I looked at books that felt a little more…I guess “lived in” or “dreamlike” would be close to the right words?
This book had to match the game it was representing. So I checked out books for games that either had a specific aesthetic it leaned into for its art book, or games that featured the same whimsical, silly vibes as Psychonauts. Splatoon, in particular, has some incredible Japanese art books that are just jam packed with colorful art, from cover to cover.
But I didn’t try to look at too many art books, because I didn’t want to be influenced too heavily by them. Psychonauts is such a specific thing, and this was my first book, so I didn’t want to accidentally end up making something that felt inauthentic to the studio and the game.
What about making-of books that aren’t about games? Like a book about the making of a movie?
I have a ton of art books in the house, so I’m sure I flipped through a couple of movie art books, including ones we have for Blade Runner 2049 and The Grand Budapest Hotel. They usually feature a bit more text than video game art books, so it was nice to get a bit of an idea of what that looked like.
As we’ve discussed, you worked closely with the good people at Double Fine in assembling The Art Of Psychonauts 2. But in doing so, did you ever come up with any ideas for Psychonauts 3? And did you tell any of the Double Fine folk?
Oh god, well, obviously in my mind there are a billion ideas for what I want to see in a Psychonauts 3, if it ever happened. But you can’t pitch like that, for a couple reasons: One, there are some rights and legal issues at play that would effectively nullify any cool idea I’d have for a game like that, similar to pitching a writer on a TV show an episode idea; and two, it wasn’t my job to pitch, it was my job to make an art book the team was proud of.
Maybe someday I’ll get a chance to take that shot, but I’m also very respectful of the creative process (up to and including the hairy legal issues of an unsolicited pitch), so for now, I’ll keep all my dumb little ideas written down in a note on my phone.
So, is there anything else you think people need to know about The Art Of Psychonauts 2?
It is my love letter to the hardworking weirdos at Double Fine, and it’s so heavy you can use it as a bludgeoning weapon in a pinch.
Finally, if the opportunity presented itself, what game would you most want to do a making-of art book for, and why that game?
Oh. Well that’s easy: The Art Of Psychonauts. Because we need that art book, and we’ve needed it for almost 20 years. It’s time for everyone to pore over pages of Linda The Lungfish and Black Velvetopia and the G-Men.
I would also die to make a massive, three-volume art book for the Final Fantasy VII remake project.
But really, my answer is, if you’re a game studio making a cool game, I’ll make an art book for it. Because I loved making The Art Of Psychonauts 2, and I’d love to do it again for another rad video game from a studio looking to create something unique. Email me, studios!
