Costume Quest is the first of four games coming from Tim Schafer's Double Fine Productions within the next year. For a studio that has released two titles in 10 years, this is a minor revolution. It's part of Schafer's new philosophy, which you could call "anti-Bleszinskian": Instead of ramping up after last year's Brutal Legend to create something "bigger, better, and more badass," Schafer broke his studio up into four small teams, appointed some trusted colleagues to lead them, and asked them each to create a downloadable game. The end result is hopefully smaller, quicker, and more focused.

How does this apply to the THQ-published Costume Quest? Let's find out:

Smaller

Small describes Costume Quest in all kinds of ways. It's a smaller, downloadable game from a small team of 15 core staff members, with Senior Animator Tasha Harris at the helm. It stars two small siblings, Reynold and his sister Wren, out for a night of trick-or-treating on Halloween. Wren (or Reynold, if you choose to play as Wren) gets kidnapped by a candy-loving monster, and it's up to Reynold, gravely concerned about getting grounded, to save her. Harris came up with the basic plot when she was -- you guessed it -- a small child.

Having a smaller team makes for a more personalized experience. For example, Harris told us during our demo that just one artist did all of the materials. She sees the art in Costume Quest as "like a painting of his."

Quicker

Consider this: Double Fine announced Brutal Legend in October 2007 -- and it was in development for years before that. It didn't come out for another two years. Costume Quest, on the other hand, was announced earlier this month, and the game is due out this fall.

Quicker also applies to the sense of progression in the game. Schafer and Harris weren't ready to divulge exactly how the leveling system works in Costume Quest, but when I brought up how I enjoyed the streamlined leveling in the recent downloadable RPG Deathspank, Schafer agreed. "I'm not into those Western RPGs where you're like, 'I played it for awhile, then I got really bored,'" he said. "And people say, 'No, you've got to play it for 15 hours, and then it really starts to pick up.' Can you imagine saying that about a movie? I can never wait that long for a game to pick up."

More Focused

According to Schafer, being small means being focused. "Any game that's $30 million, they just get so huge and they have so many features in them," he told us. The reduced size and budget of a downloadable game forced them to cut anything that deviated from the story they wanted to tell. Everything in Costume Quest speaks to the core pillars of the game, Schafer said: "Halloween and what we loved about it as kids, and what we love about old RPG games."

So does smaller, quicker, and more focused lead to a better game? At least you won't have to wait long to find out.