Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

KickStarter Thimbleweed Park: A New Ron Gilbert Classic Point & Click Adventure

Astral Rag

Arcane
Joined
Feb 1, 2012
Messages
7,771
uiBackingAlpha: 1

B37672E7BDF0AFE278EBFB905E7CC22901E13375


4F7D63B1C63FBA9488E45D2AF386FFAA55173EEE


:happytrollboy:
 
Last edited:

IHaveHugeNick

Arcane
Joined
Apr 5, 2015
Messages
1,870,124
I wish they'd make their tech available for other pixel-art gamemakers, the graphics in this are brilliant, everything is so smooth while maintaining that retro look.
 

Blackthorne

Infamous Quests
Patron
Developer
Joined
Jun 8, 2012
Messages
981
Location
Syracuse NY
Codex 2014 Divinity: Original Sin 2
never played it myself, I assumed if it's done by IQ then it should fit the bill
if it doesn't then I stand corrected

Yeah, Order of the Thorne is a straight adventure game, as opposed to QFI which is an RPG/Adventure Hybrid. No biggie though - we definitely take cues from both Sierra and Lucasarts, as I grew up playing games from both. But I totally STARTED on Sierra games, so they probably color my preferences in many ways. I am always amused that a Sierra vs. Lucasarts "war" still happens, and that many people say Lucasarts won. I will say Lucasarts fans have been more loyal to playing games, while I notice a lot of old Sierra fans play less games now, and just collect boxes of old games they loved. It's a weird phenomenon. In any case, I enjoy making adventure games with elements of both.

Thimbleweed Park is definitely a different beast than anything new developers could make, in terms of "Sierra vs. Lucasarts" because Ron Gilbert himself made it - Ron practically invented the "Lucasarts Style Game" as we all know it, so if he makes a game now, it's probably gonna feel LucasArts-ian! I have yet to see, however, a Sierra Alum game that really feels "Sierra-ish" though, take that as you will.


Bt
 

Alex

Arcane
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,750
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
This is something I noticed in the gameplay and preview videos, that there was a too much 4th wall meta commentary about death, dead-ends, Sierra games, and so on. Ron Gilbert complains about these things in almost all of his interviews as well.

I've played a bit more now and they seem to have confined their thoughts on this matter to the opening scenes, and there hasn't been nearly as much 4th wall stuff since then either. I think they wanted to let players know that they can wander around safely, but were just extremely clumsy about it (especially considering the total victory of LucasArts design over the Sierra style... has there even been a Sierra type game released recently? As in, this decade?).

It actually would have been funny if they'd come down on the pro-Sierra side of the argument.

I mean it...
You've been warned...
It gets a lot worse towards the end. In fact, I think given the premise, it wasn't even breaking the 4th wall. And while this is not awfully bad, it does feel a like too much nave gazing. The game is pretty good otherwise, though.

Edit(8 minutes later):
This end game is really annoying. Why couldn't they be happy with a simple and run of the mill mystery?
 
Last edited:
Joined
Apr 19, 2008
Messages
3,059
Location
Brazil
Divinity: Original Sin
Well, adventure games were my favorite genres back in the 90's, I really hyped every sierra and lucasarts new releases, while trying to get my hands on the old zak mackrakens, space quests, and all other games that weren't released here in brazil, and I had no internet connection, so even pirating these were hard. Eventually i managed to get and play most of them, and actually replay to get to see everything. The thing is... in the past few years, i got a lot of adventure games from GOG and steam, even some praised ones, but I kind of got bored with them. I abandoned playthroughs of syberia, deponia, played only the 1st part of broken age and never bothered with the second. I have a lot of wadget eye's games in my backlog, and I don't feel that urge, or enter the mood to play them.

Now, we get thimbleweed. I can't say if it's nostalgia, or if the game really captured the old style adveture charm, but I'm really enjoying this shit. I can even see it is more simplified, but there's something right in this game.

There's flaws, of course: I kind of hate to have agent rey and reyes actually be the same kind of characters and their interactions with the enviroment and npcs are just the same. And having to control both feels kind of pointless. Also, the game offers a "quest tracker" and every character has a to do list in their inventory. And I'm playing for about 4 hours, and I haven't got stuck so terribly, mostly because there's lot's of places to go and to do that it takes a while for you to reach a "stuck" state. Flashback sections are the points one will mostly get stuck, since they're self contained and you have to solve everything in such sections so you get back to the present.

And the 4th wall thing, I'm in a part of the game where it's actually mostly absent, or not so blatant. And because of this this game is actually very atmospheric, and makes me feel cautious and a little bit in a scare mood, and because of it, I kind of wish Ron Gilbert should keep the humor, but tone down on 4th wall things and embraced this eerie vibe.

In any case, I'm hooked by this game anyway... and this game brought back in me the mood to play adventure games. I just hope the next one I play don't kill it again.
 

Alex

Arcane
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,750
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
(...snip)
There's flaws, of course: I kind of hate to have agent rey and reyes actually be the same kind of characters and their interactions with the enviroment and npcs are just the same.

It gets better later on.

And having to control both feels kind of pointless. Also, the game offers a "quest tracker" and every character has a to do list in their inventory. (snip...)
Later on, some puzzles actually need you to use different characters for different things, so that gets better as well.
 

Gepeu

Savant
Patron
Joined
Oct 16, 2016
Messages
986
Characters are really off putting to me. It's like devs are trying to hard. One could argue they're aping Maniac Mansion, but they end up disturbingly in an uncanny valley for me. I will probably get it on -90%.
 
Last edited:

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
I've not played very far yet, maybe 2 hours, just "met" Delores and finished the flasback with her.
There certainly are a lot of references to old Lucasarts games (the interconnecting, labyrinthine doors in the mansion, which is itself a reference to maniac mansion, the names, etc.).
Sometimes I'm a bit torn between liking this stuff for the sake of nostalgia and thinking that they are laying it on just a little bit too thick there.
Thinking about it, they might as well have gone the whole way and included a dial-a-tube-driven-robot-thing copy protection or something.

Overall, I'm enjoying it a lot, however.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
same. i just got to that part too. although the puzzles seems to be very light so far, i am enjoying it immensely. the nostalgia, while nice is a bit overplayed and it just become tiring eventually, so is the bombardment of references and cultural references.
 

Bumvelcrow

Somewhat interesting
Patron
Dumbfuck
Joined
Nov 17, 2012
Messages
1,867,060
Location
Over the hills and far away
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Strap Yourselves In
the puzzles seems to be very light so far

I'm making hard work for myself because I keep expecting the puzzles to be harder than they actually are. For example, in Franklin's flashback:

I felt sure that the elevator sequence was a puzzle that led to the penthouse. I even went outside and kept looking up at the hotel, marking the sequence of lights in the windows and trying to tie them into how the elevator moved when you pressed a button. I was so certain that it was something to do to the sequence of button presses on a particular floor I even converted the window lights to binary to see if there was a pattern.

It turned out:

You just have to give a stupid fucking pillowbear to that stupid fucking kid with the annoying boombox.

:argh: I spent hours trying to work that out. I suppose I was expecting truly old school, where playing an adventure was a masochistic experience. It's still fun, though.

Edit: Gnarly.
 

Alex

Arcane
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,750
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
the puzzles seems to be very light so far

I'm making hard work for myself because I keep expecting the puzzles to be harder than they actually are. For example, in Franklin's flashback:

I felt sure that the elevator sequence was a puzzle that led to the penthouse. I even went outside and kept looking up at the hotel, marking the sequence of lights in the windows and trying to tie them into how the elevator moved when you pressed a button. I was so certain that it was something to do to the sequence of button presses on a particular floor I even converted the window lights to binary to see if there was a pattern.

It turned out:

You just have to give a stupid fucking pillowbear to that stupid fucking kid with the annoying boombox.

:argh: I spent hours trying to work that out. I suppose I was expecting truly old school, where playing an adventure was a masochistic experience. It's still fun, though.

Edit: Gnarly.

Well, to be fair, I think that would be a little too much for a Lucas Arts game. The game gets harder later on, though.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
I'm enjoying the game, it is a polished adventure game so far, it feels and plays like a Lucas Arts adventure game, and that was the point. However, I'm on part Three and I didn't see creative puzzles so far like the insult dueling of Monkey Island or the flag puzzle on the Day of the Tentacle. Not that the puzzles are bad, no, they are better done than the average "But muh storyfag experience, bro!" that pass for puzzles these days, there is no handholding with the Ui and the characters telling you what the solution of the puzzles are, you need to pay attention, this isn't an game to play with your brain halfway shut down and just press the buttons on the screen sometimes, the shit that pass for adventure games these days.

The game is incline, there were moments I got stuck for sometime and there are some clever but very logical solutions for a few puzzles, there weren't any Monkey Island 2 monkey wrench puzzle here. You will need to pay attention and remember the details of the places you are visiting to solve some puzzles, what is a huge incline from the "Dude, the game will solve the puzzles for you, don't worry, we won't wake you up from your coma." kinda of shit that passes for puzzles these days.

I still missing a puzzle that makes me go "Whoa, this was for sure a creative puzzle to solve, I feel proud of myself." like the puzzles I mentioned. However, there is still alot of game to go, so maybe there are more challenging puzzles later on.

Another criticism is that the humor is kinda tame too, while there are alot of stuff that are silly and kinda funny on the ole Lucas Arts ways, I'm yet to find an laugh out loud moment like Guybrush dressed like a woman on Monkey Island 2, the first meeting with Elaine on Monkey Island 1 and other moments like that. The game has the usual crazy and quirky Lucas Arts characters and they are an enjoyable bunch to interact with but the humor does alot of cultural referencing, Fourth wall breaking jokes and... sigh... subtle references to politics and gratuitous jabs at Sierra for some weird reason. We will see, the game just finished introducing all the characters, we will see if some ridiculously funny thing happens on the future.

I like the way the story is progressing, it is the typical "Some dude died and mysterious things are happening on this small town and somehow the town past has something to do with this murder.", the game introduces all characters properly, everyone has a motivation, everyone has a personality and an agenda, everyone has a background. The city itself of Thimbleweed park is introduced on Part II and it feels like a properly done small town murder mystery but with the silly Lucas Arts style all over it.

I miss however is more creepyness and some more creepy mysterious suspicious characters to keep you paranoid and threatened, there is a certain moment that happens on Thimbleweed city on Part II, that I won't spoil, that I thought the story would be going on a more interesting turn but it soon came back to the routine of solving inventory puzzles and talking with the silly characters. Maybe I'm impatient, we will see if things will start moving on Part III.

The only thing I say that I'm genuinely annoyed by are the cheap jabs at Sierra and certain comments from characters. Sierra made some really good games, many of which I will say are more creative and better adventure games than Thimbleweed park is so far, they don't exist anymore to defend themselves too, so please stop Ron, this doesn't make you look good, stop with this BS. One thing is to disagree in terms on game design ideas, other is to attack people that won't defend themselves on your game as if their games weren't good.

Another thing, there is a character that is a geeky girl that wanna be a game developer, I like her, she is kinda goofy and well meaning but the developer doesn't lose the opportunity to make characters saying retard things like:
Male detective: "We need to investigate this girl, she is suspicious."
Female detective on cynical snark: "Obvious, a woman with a brain, this must be something truly suspicious."

There were plenty of reasons to find the geeky girl suspicious especially when a relative badmouths her and the detective had no way knowing her at that point but nope, it was because she was a smart woman... I rolled my eyes and facepalmed hard. These days, isn't enough a woman be just a smart person, you need to act as if this was anything special, she needs to have a whole host of tards saying how special she is for just being a fucking geeky girl programmer.

Just think a little libtards, do you know why people are amazed when monkeys do smart things? Because the average monkeys are fucking retards with less intelligence than a four yeards old, that is why that is so amazing. How about you start treating women like normal people, you are the real sexists here.

Thankfully, those clumsy political charged comments are rare occasions.

If it keeps this way to the end, it will be a solid and enjoyable Lucas Arts adventure game but even if a bit too conservative, if they keep this way, while an enjoyable game it won't reach the levels of creativity of a Day of the tentacle or Monkey Island 1 and 2 but still incline in comparison with alot of modern adventure games but we will see... I don't regret my purchase so far.
 

HoboForEternity

sunset tequila
Patron
Joined
Mar 27, 2016
Messages
9,175
Location
Disco Elysium
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
About the creepy parts i like it too. There are some really haunting atmosphere and seriousness at the same time along with the wacky humorous thing, and they both actually compliment each other.

Those pigeons sisters legit creep me out lol
 
Self-Ejected

Repulsive

Self-Ejected
Patron
Joined
Aug 14, 2016
Messages
1,864,770
Location
Wasteland
yesssss. can't. wait. for. credit. card. statement.
Do you want it for GOG or Steam? Your despair has moved my bitter heart to pity.
Steam please
I'm not running an alms house here. Maybe when it goes on sale I'll pick up some copies but I've exhausted my game budget charity.
Hahahaha was kidding man, I'm too busy to play games currently :( Game does look really good though.
 

Bumvelcrow

Somewhat interesting
Patron
Dumbfuck
Joined
Nov 17, 2012
Messages
1,867,060
Location
Over the hills and far away
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 Make the Codex Great Again! Strap Yourselves In
There were plenty of reasons to find the geeky girl suspicious especially when a relative badmouths her and the detective had no way knowing her at that point but nope, it was because she was a smart woman...

I also grimaced at this point, as it was so blatant (and also because I'd just finished playing her flashback with all her kewl equipment, and there was no reason to make excuses for her), but otherwise it's been fine.
 

Gord

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2011
Messages
7,049
Stupid question...

Anyone knows how to skip lines? Neither Esc, Space, Mouse, Backspace or Enter seem to work for me.
 

Tramboi

Prophet
Patron
Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
1,226
Location
Paris by night
Stupid question...

Anyone knows how to skip lines? Neither Esc, Space, Mouse, Backspace or Enter seem to work for me.
Period :)
(I didn't play it yet, but I have a hunch)
Edited because I'm lame in my english punctuation knowledge
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom