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ResidualVM emulator brings Tim Schafer's Grim Fandango to Android

Life after death

ResidualVM emulator brings Tim Schafer's Grim Fandango to Android
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| Grim Fandango

Grim Fandango is now available for Android handsets - provided you're willing to fire up an unofficially ported emulator and nab the appropriate APK file.

The emulator which has made this possible is ResidualVM, a "cross-platform 3D game interpreter" specifically designed for games built with the Lua scripting language.

While the sentence above might seem very dull indeed, it's worth pointing out that these games include LucasArts titles like Escape from Monkey Island, and Tim Schafer's legendary post-mortem point-and-click adventure Grim Fandango.

Though an official Android port of the emulator has not been released, a member of the ResidualVM forum has knocked up a version that will work on Google-powered devices.

Work in progress

There are a couple of things to be aware of if you decide to give the emulator a bash, however.

Firstly, there is no built-in support for control overlays at the moment. This means that you'll have to download a interface app like like GamePad or GameKeyboard if you want to do more than stare at the title screen.

The most important caveat is that this is an unofficial port of an emulator designed to run unofficially-released APK files. As with any side-loading app, proceed with due caution.

However, there is already talk of the Android port of ResidualVM being integrated into the official app. And hey, anything that lets you play Grim Fandango on the bus can't be bad, can it?

DroidGamers
James Gilmour
James Gilmour
James pivoted to video so hard that he permanently damaged his spine, which now doubles as a Cronenbergian mic stand. If the pictures are moving, he's the one to blame.