Double Fine’s wasted no time at all as an independent game studio (again) after splitting from former owner Xbox earlier this summer. The storied developer is releasing its whacky driving sim, Thank You Bus Driver, in roughly two weeks time.
Announced mere weeks ago, Double Fine’s first post-Xbox release is a black-and-white “chaotic bus driving game where you take on the role of a town’s bus driver just trying to get through the day with minimal rule breaking and maximum gratitude.” And, as the studio announced this weekend, it’s coming to various PC storefronts on 14 October.
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You can find Thank You Bus Driver on Steam, GOG and Itch.io.
Thank You Bus Driver asks you to take passengers to their destinations within a time limit, but the comedy simulation game has an unexpected dash of Paper, Please as well. As the day goes on, you’ll need to enforce various rules by turning around and slapping passengers across the face with your freakishly long arms – in case you were wondering where the signature Double Fine twist was hiding.
Of course, this also marks Double Fine’s first game since regaining its independence. Xbox’s ongoing corporate restructure has seen the console maker spin off five first-party studios, including Double Fine, with plans to lay off around 3,200 staff by next summer. The Psychonauts and Brutal Legend studio laid off a quarter of its own workforce as a result.
So, this time around, Double Fine is delivering Thank You Bus Driver differently. The game is set to launch Double Fine Action Labs, a label for “weird, little games” that can come to fruition much quicker than you’d expect. The developer’s new Amnesia Fortnight Kickstarter campaign will likely yield another Action Labs entrant, too.
Tim Schafer – the studio’s founder and the beloved designer behind many of its biggest games – recently said there was no ill will between Xbox and Double Fine. “I love it as an idea,” he said of subscription service Game Pass. “I liked it for Double Fine games. If you’re sitting in a store and holding a disc, and it costs $70, and it’s about a walking lighthouse, there’s a barrier there. But if you’ve just got to download a game you’ve already paid for, it might lead people to trying weird games like Double Fine makes. So I’m very pro Game Pass, and hope it succeeds and goes forward.”
Asked about why the games industry seems so fragile nowadays, Schafer was unsure: “People are playing games, people are making money, so I don’t know why there is a big loss of jobs. I assume someone is being greedy somewhere.”