…Okay, that’s only one thing. But it’s super important.

Psychonauts was Double Fine‘s first game, and it came out for the PlayStation 2 way back in 2005. We love it a lot. It’s the story of a gifted young psychic cadet who must delve deep into dangerous minds and put a stop to a sinister conspiracy. And on August 28th, you will be able to download it to your PlayStation 3 as a PlayStation 2 Classic.

If you never played Psychonauts, you’re in for a treat! If you played it before, why not buy it again, just for old time’s sake? Ha ha! Tell a friend or two or a hundred.

“So, what took so long?” you may ask. Well, you’d be in fine company for asking. As internet user @smushums66 requested, “Psychonauts PSN title or PS2 classic PLEASE !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Fellow netizen Lemming inquired only last month, “RELEASE PSYCHONAUTS ON PSN…DO YOU LIKE FREE MONEY???”

These are just a few of the seemingly infinite requests for Psychonauts PS3 we receive on a daily basis. And as it turns out, we do love free money! (Preferably in cash-stuffed envelopes slid under the office door.) But to truly become a PlayStation 2 Classic, we wanted to ensure Psychonauts had all the time it needed to grow into its status as a classic, like a fine artisanal Tuscan cheese. But less smelly.

Now, nearly seven years after its original release, that time has come. In five days, I mean. So get ready. Prepare yourself. Warm up your console. Recharge your controller. Do some thumb exercises (is that a thing??). Fortify your funnybone. Tune up your heartstrings. Clean off your credit card. Brace yourself for Psychonauts.

As we played through the first levels of Stacking, Project Lead Lee Petty delighted in pointing out the tiny diorama-scale props that dot the game’s environments: marbles for lights, cigars for smokestacks, soda caps for stools. That sense of visual detail extends to the characters themselves, which are surprisingly detailed and expressive for being, you know, Russian dolls.

Why dolls? “We tried to condense the adventure game experience,” Petty explained, “so the dolls themselves are the characters, your inventory, and your abilities. You know that any given problem is going to be solved with dolls.” And these dolls just so happen to have powerful problem-solving abilities, whether it’s seducing a guard, plowing through a crowd, throwing a “proper uppercut,” or strategically using a bodily function. You play as Charlie, a tiny but plucky doll on a quest to save his kid brother from forced child labor at the hands of a dastardly industrial baron.

To advance the story, Charlie must “stack” into other dolls to assume their appearance and control of their all-important special ability. Simply walking up to a doll’s exposed backside and pressing a button does the job. From there, problem solving takes over in the form of Challenges, whether it’s using a doll’s skill to empty a room or outrage a safety inspector. If you’d rather not stick to the script, Stacking also features sandbox side quests called “Hijynx” that reward you for wantonly experimenting with the various character abilities. “What we found was that a lot of people enjoy slapping,” Petty said, “so the Hyjinx provide some structure to that.” That means earning rewards for punching, slapping, or emitting foul odors at characters you meet in the game. “Bodily functions are a running gag in this game,” Petty promised. “We have all sorts of them.”

While Challenges serve as the meat and potatoes of the gameplay in Stacking, your overarching goal is to collect complete sets of matching Russian dolls to advance the story and, ultimately, save Charlie’s family from the baron. A prime example comes early in the game at the Royal Train Station, with Charlie reuniting a traveling German family who got lost on their way to the Schnitzel Museum. The Royal Train Station has further significance in that it serves as the central hub for Stacking’s levels, including a “secret hideout” where Charlie stores the more than 100 collectible dolls hidden in the game.

The quirky and charming Stacking hits PSN on February 8th. What do you think of Double Fine’s latest PSN project? Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments.

Tim and Tasha brushed everything off my office desk and sat us down for an in-depth video tour of Costume Quest’s adorable characters, plus a look at the turn-based RPG combat and adventuring.

But wait there’s more. The Double Fine team has passed over their brand-new Costume Quest launch trailer for PlayStation.Blog eyes only. Peep it below!

Costume Quest is Double Fine Production’s first PSN title — let’s make sure we give them a warm welcome tomorrow! If you’re a big on robots, unicorns, Halloween and all things awesome-sauce, I highly recommend you download this candy-treat.

If you’ve seen any of the latest online previews in the past few days and, you probably already have a basic idea about Costume Quest’s gameplay. Today I’m going to tell you a little more about some of the inspirations behind the game.

Homemade costumes

One of the main influences of Costume Quest was my own love for Halloween growing up, and the fantastic costumes that my mom would make for my younger sister and I – magicians and devils for me, princesses and brides for my sister. A couple of the real-life costumes that ended up making it into the final game were the Unicorn and Space Warrior.

Labyrinth

This 1986 film starring David Bowie’s crotch was one of my favorites as a kid. The Goblins (designed by Brian Froud) were a great reference for the enemy designs in Costume Quest, and the goblin city in the film provided inspiration for the monsters’ home world of Repugia.

The films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli

Ever since seeing “My Neighbor Totoro” while studying animation in college, I have been a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki’s films. His studio’s animation has a lot of beauty and subtlety to it – kids behave like real kids, rather than a caricature of children. When developing the look of Costume Quest, with its painterly backgrounds and cel-shaded characters, we often used Studio Ghibli’s films as reference.

The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker

I hate to admit that I’ve never completely finished Wind Waker – hey, blame the long sailing sections – but this is one of the coolest looking games I’ve ever seen. Its cartoony style has helped it hold up very well despite being made over 7 years ago. Even with their simple designs and lack of voice-over, the game’s characters are remarkably appealing and expressive.

EarthBound

Throughout the years there have been a few select games that keep me going back for replays. EarthBound, a Japanese developed, turn-based RPG released for the SNES in 1995, is one of those games. When planning Costume Quest’s neighborhood layouts, we studied maps of Onett (EarthBound’s opening village) and how they positioned their buildings and roadways for the locked isometric camera angle.

The unique, modern settings and quirky humor are what set EarthBound apart from other RPGs (enemies you face in the game are “Ramblin’ Evil Mushroom” and “Extra Cranky Lady”). Whenever I go back and replay EarthBound, I get a warm, nostalgic feeling, and I hope gamers will end up feeling the same way about Costume Quest.

Well, thanks for reading! Tim and I visited the PlayStation HQ recently to demo the game and that video should be going live on the PlayStation.Blog soon. Also, I’ll be sticking around after this post to answer any questions you have about the game.

Costume Quest will be available on PlayStation Network on October 19th for $15.

Now that Rocktober of the year of our metal Lords 2009 is coming to a close, we at Double Fine Productions and Electronic Arts are taking the time to reflect back upon a pretty eventful year. Here are just a select few of the very many Brütal Legend highlights that have lodged into my memory banks:

1. Jack Black, Tim Schafer, and Rob Halford unveiling Brütal’s gameplay for the first time to the coalition of the willing PS3 gamers at the Spike VGAs.

2. E3 – staying up until 9am the day of the show loading builds (I may have never recovered from this all year), live Twitter chats, a banner 1/3 the size of a football field, debuting our talent trailer, the coalition of the unwilling finds its leader. Pandemonium!

3. Comic-con – the infamous Brütal Legend concert featuring 3 Inches of Blood and GWAR. Picture is pretty much self-explanatory.

4. Wherein Tim Schafer tries to solve a Rubik’s Cube in the time that it takes Emily Ridgway, Double Fine’s audio director, to recite the bands and titles of the 108 songs off of the (I would say EPIC) Brütal soundtrack.

5. Launch! Marketing and PR! Dancing monkeys! Jack Black makes the ultimate sacrifice to promote the game.

Skipping forward to the future, since I know fond memory #6 will be one of my highlights of the Brütal campaign:

6. Free DLC on PSN! The Tears of the Hextadon downloadable content pack launches on November 5 for the PS3…and did I mention it is FREE for two weeks exclusively on PSN?!

We love the PS3 and we’re excited that connected PS3 gamers across the world will able to enjoy 2 multiplayer maps, The Circle of Tears and Death’s Fjord, as well as the Blade of Ormagöden axe, courtesy of the fine folks at Double Fine, Sony, and EA.

We hope to see you online for a skirmish or two or three.