Full Throttle's Time Period?

[90SK]

So, what is it? The cars suggest the distant future, but does anyone have an idea as to the exact date range?

[Tahnee]

Absolutely no idea. It's never specified (either in the game or in the player's guide, which gives a few more clues about the setting). I've always seen it as being like the setting to Mad Max or Marisol, though...the "five minutes into the future" idea. You know, it has elements from our present, but also has some random futuristic elements (like the hover-cars) thrown in here and there to trip you up.

 

I think you could safely say that it could be in an alternate reality mid-90's (since that's when the game came out)--you know, a reality where they had an apocalyptic war somewhere along the line, and then decided to invent hover-cars.

[90SK]

That sounds about right to me. Kinda one of those Cowboy Bebop Future-is-now settings.

[Tahnee]

Hm. On second glance, the player's guide does give a date range in terms of days/months, but not years: looks like the game took place July 18th through the 20th, if you're taking what the player's guide says as canon (I do, anyway). No years given, though, so the "five minutes into the future" thing still stands.

[Remi]

I think it's supposed to be a post-apocalyptic world. So probably the future, and probably an alternate universe thing.

[Joshi]

I'm gonna go with post apocalyptic, but one way I take it is that, it's the distant future where there are cities and stuff that are totally civilised and futurific, but we don't see them, we see what's on the other side of the tracks which are biker gangs and frontiers of nothingness and lawlessness. It could be incorporated into the post apocalyptic thing as we could say that after some big war, most of our own civilasation was left to the dirt, to be built up again, but cities like London and New York grew up again quickly and so on. There's a whole load of history that one could come up with on the fly, none of what I've said is canon and I don't claim it to be, but it's one way of looking at it if you wanted to look at it in depth.

 

To be perfectly honest though, I'm just happy playing the game, there's a richness to it that doesn't come from the history or the time period, but instead from the characters, which is why it's so great.

[Necroman]

I know when and where it took place... it was... A long, long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...

[itchythesamurai]

I didn't really see it as much of a post-apocalyptic setting as much as the outskirts of American civilization in the future. Sorta like a new wild West or something where things operate a little differently.

[verwulf]

The answer is in the games songs. When you get Moe's welder out of

the trailor, a song is playing on the radio, "Increased Chances," by the

by the band Chitlins Whiskey & Skirt. It also plays on the radio when Ben

is hiding in the engine compartment of the fertilizer truck but only in part,

and played in full again at the end credits, which you ought to watch in

full because of some funny quotes by wanna be biker computer geeks as

well as mechanical bunnies riding in the sunset.

Anyway, the lyrics of the song are

 

"The population is greatly decreased/ so my chances are greatly increased

That I just might find the chance to kiss your lips.

I thank the Lord each day for the apocolypse.

 

Everybody's disfigured or dead/ but sugar I won't let it go to my head

My Mommas face has dripped down into the dirt.

But I'm still chasing, chitlins, whiskey and skirt."

[Loozer]

I think FT didn't intend to create some new fictional universe. What you get of FT is just a decadent and harsh setting/atmosphere, and the opportunity to use some strange vehicles and technologies.

 

Also, the hover vehicles intensify the feeling that bikes now belong to a different world and are 'precious'. The gangs represent not only a lifestyle, but also some kind of ideology.

 

Other than that, there is no 'mythology' needed to create around it. There is no purpose to fix it down to a particular year, or any nuclear wars or politic upheavals that might have taken place and resulted in what you see. There might be even a lunar base in the FT world, but nobody would seem to care about it.

 

I really love maps, timelines, prequels and expanded universes, but sometimes, vagueness can be more immersive

[Alek123]

I agree with you on this one, Loozer. They made it that way that makes you don't care about things like that. You can see this in many movies and games. An example is the recent Surrogates movie , starring Bruce Willis. It makes you don't care about details , like what kind of mobile phones do they use in that time , and stuff.

 

Anyway , Full Throttle is a masterpiece. And i hate how it ended up abandoned by its creators. It doesn't even show up on Lucasarts' website. These guys should be proud of it and let people know about old masterpieces like this. Almost nobody knows about games like Full Throttle and Grim Fandango these days , even if it's quite a difference in popularity. I really wish they bring some life in these games , just like Telltale did with Monkey Island (even though it's nothing compared to the originals)

[MeddlingMonk]

A few days ago, a video was posted to the backers-only section of Double Fine's forums of Tim Schafer playing/talking about Full Throttle. There were a few revelations. One is that Tim really and truly sucks at the bike-combat part of the game. Second, the game world was not intended to be post-apocalyptic. In Tim's view, people have just been seeing too much significance in the Chitlins, Whiskey and Skirt song. Another concerns the burned-out car in the junkyard. It's the car Tim had bought from his father. One day, while the game was in production, the car caught fire when he tried to start it. That happened to be the day when Peter Chan was doing the junkyard background, and thus the fire-damaged wreck of Tim's car was painted into the scene.