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

Zarniwoop

TESTOSTERONIC As Fuck™
Patron
Joined
Nov 29, 2010
Messages
18,651
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
It's had an Android version for ages, that's what I played.
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
Oct 5, 2012
Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
It's a video for its Google Play page. Looking at Google cache, previously he used a version only with logos of PC platforms and Xbox there, huh.
 

Ivan

Arcane
Joined
Jun 22, 2013
Messages
7,474
Location
California
tldr played it, enjoyed it quite a lot! Check it out! Do we know if Ron has any plans to make another point and click?

Thimbleweed Park: a gorgeous throwback point-and-click adventure. it definitely felt like playing another Monkey Island, what with exploring a pretty large space, meeting funny characters whose stories and character facilitate the puzzles. And like with those games, I did hit my fair share of walls. I'm still not a fan of being able to acquire "unnecessary" items that just bloat your pockets. Also, I liked the idea of having 5 playable characters and having each have unique backgrounds so it made sense to tackle certain obstacles with character X than with character Y. The hint system was also nicely done, basically feeding you 4 soft clues before revealing the answer. I felt the budget restraints with the recycled responses from the NPCs (might have been short on time to write unique replies). I enjoyed the story for what it was. It leaves many questions unanswered and that didn't really bother me too much. I quite liked how meta the game turned toward the end, given Ron's long absence from making a proper adventure game like this.
 

Maxie

Guest
tldr played it, enjoyed it quite a lot! Check it out! Do we know if Ron has any plans to make another point and click?

Thimbleweed Park: a gorgeous throwback point-and-click adventure. it definitely felt like playing another Monkey Island, what with exploring a pretty large space, meeting funny characters whose stories and character facilitate the puzzles. And like with those games, I did hit my fair share of walls. I'm still not a fan of being able to acquire "unnecessary" items that just bloat your pockets. Also, I liked the idea of having 5 playable characters and having each have unique backgrounds so it made sense to tackle certain obstacles with character X than with character Y. The hint system was also nicely done, basically feeding you 4 soft clues before revealing the answer. I felt the budget restraints with the recycled responses from the NPCs (might have been short on time to write unique replies). I enjoyed the story for what it was. It leaves many questions unanswered and that didn't really bother me too much. I quite liked how meta the game turned toward the end, given Ron's long absence from making a proper adventure game like this.
You're the only person to like the finale
 

HeatEXTEND

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Feb 12, 2017
Messages
3,928
Location
Nedderlent
it ain't no Maniac Mansion or DoTT for that matter. Woulda been cool if they'd expanded on the MM gameplay (team/solution builds) or the goddamn DoTT gameplay (timetravel/parallel worlds gameplay). Instead they did neither half-assing the entire thing.
:killit:
 

BlackGoat

Arbiter
Joined
Sep 15, 2014
Messages
505
https://grumpygamer.com/verbs_verbs_verbs

Verbs and Adventure Games
I was chatting with a friend the other day and the conversation turned to modern point-and-click adventure games and there was much lamenting on how the UI (the way you interact with the game) hasn't changed that much.

I'll be the first to admit I don't play a lot of adventure games these days. It's an occupational hazard. I usually rage quit or eye-roll quit within 20 minutes. I spend too much time analyzing puzzle structure.

While I love making adventure games, I love playing RPGs (I use this term loosely). If I have free time I'll go slaughter enemies in some dungeon or log onto Wow Classic and... go slaughter enemies in some dungeon.

I do quickly look at new adventure games but as soon as I realize they aren't doing anything new or interesting I'll bounce off. Occupational hazard.

Thimbleweed Park used the maniac mansion/monkey island style verb interface mostly because of nostalgia reasons (see Kickstarter), but I'd never use that for a new game. It's a very functional interface and there is a lot I like about it, but it looks old and dated and a simple screenshot can turn off a lot of people. It's a problem we had with Thimbleweed Park. I don't regret using it, it was there for a purpose and it served that purpose brilliantly.

It seems like most new point-and-click games op for the "use verb" interface. Maybe you have "Look" and "Pick-up", but after that everything can be done with just a "Use" verb. "Push?" "Pull?" just use "Use". It's probably better called the "Poke" verb. Just poke at everything and see what it does.

Much of the puzzle solving then falls to what is in your inventory. How do I "use" this thing I'm carrying with something in the world? Now the game becomes an exercise in dragging everything in your inventory to everything on a screen to see if it does anything. The only friction is how tedious that is. The "verbs" interface didn't make this any better, so I'm not trying to defend it with regard to using everything with everything in desperate frustration.

So I turn to my esteemed readers and ask the following:

Name a point-and-click adventure game that has come out in the last few years and had a novel and interesting way to interact with the world, your inventory and solve puzzles. Something that really felt new and fresh. Something that made you say "Yeah, that's the way I wish all adventure games worked."

I have a small list of my own, but I'm curious what you've found.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
I don’t believe it contains a single meaningful mechanical innovation. Just some quality of life interface things
 

LESS T_T

Arcane
Joined
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Messages
13,582
Codex 2014
:necro:

To deal with the anxiety about the pandemic, Ron and some of the team made a little prototype with the TP engine, using existing assets.





The year is 1988. Adventure game developer Delores Edmund, on hiatus from her job at MMucusFlem Games, has returned to Thimbleweed Park for a quick vacation. While she’s home, she’s making some extra money as a photographer for the Thimbleweed Nickel News. Hey, game developers need to eat, too!

Thimbleweed Park hasn’t changed at all in the year since Delores has been away… or has it?

…Since when is the S&D Diner a five-star establishment?
…When did the PillowBear™ become all the rage?
…Why is Ransome the Clown suddenly winning humanitarian awards?
…How come no one seems to remember that dead body that turned up under the bridge a year ago?
…Can Thimbleweed Park get any stranger?!.

In a town like Thimbleweed Park, a side career in photojournalism is the least of your problems...

Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure started out as a prototype for Ron Gilbert’s new point-and-click adventure game engine and grew into a fun little game. It is not a sequel to Thimbleweed Park and is probably missing all of the small bells and whistles that would make it a commercially viable game.

This was a challenging game to make because we had to use almost exclusively “found art” from Thimbleweed Park to create all new puzzles. Also because we couldn’t go outside IRL.

As a thank you to our fans, we are releasing it for free as something you can have fun with in these odd times. You don’t have to have played Thimbleweed Park to enjoy this mini-adventure. (But if you do enjoy it, why not check out Thimbleweed Park, hmm?)

Key Features:
  • Non-stop point-and-click fun!
  • Return to Thimbleweed Park, the setting of the Best Adventure of 2017 award from Adventure Gamers and the Thank You for Not Still Living at Home award from Ron Gilbert’s mom. (Or, visit Thimbleweed Park for the first time! No prior knowledge required to play!)
  • Explore Main Street and solve puzzles to take pictures for Thimbleweed Park’s hard-hitting newspaper. One of these days Natalie will get that Pulitzer, and it will be thanks to your help!
  • Tackle increasingly difficult assignments as you get closer to figuring out what the heck is going on in Thimbleweed Park this time.
  • Sample a new adventure game engine by Ron Gilbert, who created Lucasfilm’s SCUMM engine and classic games Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island back in the day.

https://grumpygamer.com/what_i_did_during_the_pandemic

What I did during the Pandemic
By Ron Gilbert

As I write this on the 9th day of May in the year of 2020 the Pandemic is far from over. Different people deal with isolation, fear, social distancing and hoarding toilet paper differently. I built a game. It helped keep me sane.

As I mentioned back in March, I began rewriting the Thimbleweed Park engine with no real goal in mind, it just seemed like something to do and I had a few ideas about UI I wanted to explore.

What began as a way to waste time, turned into a fun little game prototype. A little over a month ago David Fox came on, then Robert, Katerina, and Octavi jumped on to help. The game was built almost entirely from existing art, sounds and music from Thimbleweed Park, more of a remixing into a new game that can be seen as an addendum to Thimbleweed Park. It is not a sequel.

We hope you enjoy it, it's complete FREE on Steam and the Epic Store. A strange little game for the strange times we find ourselves in.

Did I mention it's FREE.

Say safe and I hope this little game helps, even a little.
 

Hellion

Arcane
Joined
Feb 5, 2013
Messages
1,582
It's more or less a scavenger hunt in the world of Thimbleweed Park. You have to photograph 5 items or people around some of the town's locations (some of these items require a bit of, for the most part logical, puzzle solving in order to be properly photographed), and you must finish the game 5 times (so that's 25 different photos in total) before you get the final ending and the credits (in which Ron Gilbert calls Donald Trump an idiot). I got stuck while trying to locate 2-3 items so it took me a couple of hours to finish.
 

Jugashvili

管官的官
Patron
Joined
Aug 20, 2013
Messages
2,608
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Georgia, Asia
Codex 2013
It's more or less a scavenger hunt in the world of Thimbleweed Park. You have to photograph 5 items or people around some of the town's locations (some of these items require a bit of, for the most part logical, puzzle solving in order to be properly photographed), and you must finish the game 5 times (so that's 25 different photos in total) before you get the final ending and the credits (in which Ron Gilbert calls Donald Trump an idiot). I got stuck while trying to locate 2-3 items so it took me a couple of hours to finish.
Making an expansion to a faux-vintage point&click nostalgia fodder game just to be able to say orange man bad is one of the most Reddit things I've ever seen.
 

jfrisby

Cipher
Patron
Joined
Mar 21, 2013
Messages
491
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong
He was going on on his blog about having some epiphany about an innovative new UI, and rebuilding the engine for it... but it's just the weird right-click verb menu list from Innocent Until Caught or Universe or LSL7 (I can't remember).
 

Tramboi

Prophet
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Joined
May 4, 2009
Messages
1,226
Location
Paris by night
He was going on on his blog about having some epiphany about an innovative new UI, and rebuilding the engine for it... but it's just the weird right-click verb menu list from Innocent Until Caught or Universe or LSL7 (I can't remember).
Yep and it's bad.
 

lightbane

Arcane
Joined
Dec 27, 2008
Messages
10,158
It's more or less a scavenger hunt in the world of Thimbleweed Park. You have to photograph 5 items or people around some of the town's locations (some of these items require a bit of, for the most part logical, puzzle solving in order to be properly photographed), and you must finish the game 5 times (so that's 25 different photos in total) before you get the final ending and the credits (in which Ron Gilbert calls Donald Trump an idiot). I got stuck while trying to locate 2-3 items so it took me a couple of hours to finish.
Making an expansion to a faux-vintage point&click nostalgia fodder game just to be able to say orange man bad is one of the most Reddit things I've ever seen.

Looks like liberalism is literally contagious. Also, way to piss off the owners of the original game (and anyone else with at least 2 braincells) with such an inane action.
 

RuySan

Augur
Joined
Jul 11, 2005
Messages
777
Location
Portugal
Looks like liberalism is literally contagious. Also, way to piss off the owners of the original game (and anyone else with at least 2 braincells) with such an inane action.
I don't think you know what liberalism means. That's what American politics do to your brain.
 

mindx2

Codex Roaming East Coast Reporter
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Joined
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4,389
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Perusing his PC Museum shelves.
Codex 2012 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire RPG Wokedex Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Looks like liberalism is literally contagious. Also, way to piss off the owners of the original game (and anyone else with at least 2 braincells) with such an inane action.
I don't think you know what liberalism means. That's what American politics Democrat run public schools do to your brain.

Fixed that for you... ;)
 

RuySan

Augur
Joined
Jul 11, 2005
Messages
777
Location
Portugal
Hope they don't teach bullshit like evolution theory or general relativity too !
What the world needs is more Godly American Science.
In my country there's a right wing political party called "liberal initiative". That would get dumb Americans very confused.
 

V_K

Arcane
Joined
Nov 3, 2013
Messages
7,714
Location
at a Nowhere near you
In my country there's a right wing political party called "liberal initiative". That would get dumb Americans very confused.
In Denmark the center-right conservative party is called "The Left". They are in coalition with "Liberal Alliance", which is even more conservative and right (basically, the rich people's party).
Then there's the party called "The Radical Left". They're centrists.
 

RuySan

Augur
Joined
Jul 11, 2005
Messages
777
Location
Portugal
In Denmark the center-right conservative party is called "The Left". They are in coalition with "Liberal Alliance", which is even more conservative and right (basically, the rich people's party).
Then there's the party called "The Radical Left". They're centrists.
We have a right wing conservative party in Portugal also called "centrists" but this is because at the time of the founding (1974) of the party, we got rid of 50 years of fascism, so anything borderline right wing was offensive.

Don't know the sort of Denmark to know why the reason for that nomenclature
 

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