Double Fine Productions is ten years old today, July 27th 2010!

Ten years ago today, Tim Schafer and some like-minded individuals thought it would be a good idea to start an independent videogame development company, after years of working at LucasArts making classic titles such as Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle and Grim Fandango.

What fools.

Creators of the Excellent Game Psychonauts as well as 2009’s awesome action adventure game Brütal Legend, Double Fine has had to overcome some mighty hurdles during its ten years in the business.

Both Psychonauts and Brütal Legend were dropped at the last second by their initial publishers (Microsoft and Activision respectively), leaving Double Fine to scramble and find new publishers for each game (in Majesco and EA respectively).

The effort was well worth it in the end, though, and resulted in two of the game industry’s most creative titles to release in recent years.

Now, after ten years and two games, Double Fine is working on four smaller games all at once, with respected and experienced members of the studio leading development on each game, while Tim Schafer himself does… something. Designing and writing a completely new game, perhaps, or overseeing the creation of the four new games?

Hopefully we won’t have to wait too much longer to find out what’s going down at Double Fine!

While you wait, you can read a new comic on Double Fine’s website drawn up by the studio’s very own Scott Campbell (or Scott C.), which reveals a few character designs for Psychonauts and Brütal Legend that never made it into the game.