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Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

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Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#41

Post by bhaak »

davidivadavid wrote: post #32
tarkin2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you every played the first two Monkey Island games, and understand the lore behind that, then the ending is pretty good. Thimbleweed park, in many way, was a spiritual successor to Monkey Island 2 that Gilbert couldn't make for IP reasons back in the day. With at in mind, I enjoyed the ending. That said, Monkey Island 2 got a lot of criticism for its ending too...

Oh and if you really love that dumb, sophomoric ending, you can also get Return to Monkey Island, which is yet another game Gilbert ruined with this tired trope. And that's why Curse of Monkey Island is and will always remain the best MI game.

> Oh and if you really love that dumb, sophomoric ending, you can also get Return to Monkey Island, which is yet another game Gilbert ruined with this tired trope.

Isn't it a bit different with Return to Monkey Island? The story is told to kids by Guybrush and Guybrush being an unreliable narrator, it's uncertain how much of the story was real or an imagination by him.

The last scene though shows that something real somewhat similar to what Guybrush told did happen.

Also it completely retcons the ending of Monkey Island 2.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#42

Post by agos »

tarkin2 wrote: post #16
dark-star wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though Monkey Island now has a real (i.e. canonical) ending, it sucks. I prefer the original continuation of MI3 to the 25-years-late official, canonical sequel

I pretty much saw the ending an effort to put the story to end and move on after all the years of speculation.

it's clearly in that direction (and that's fine), but I would debate the "effort" part

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#43

Post by madamelic »

Not enmeshed in game development and have only done it very lightly: what takes a game like this 1.5 - 2 years to finish?

Like at a minimum, it's art, sound, graphics, and programming. If they are re-using assets, that's one of them ~done. So what's taking them 2 years?

My background is in SaaS type stuff and if I went to who hired me and said it would take 2 years to build out a non-cutting edge product I am pretty sure I'd get fired. So can any game devs briefly/not-briefly explain why game dev like this takes so long? I am just curious to understand the dev cycle.

I'd assume that with investment, he'd have at least one person per team so all of these can largely be intertwined with each other but largely running at the same time.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#44

Post by darkwater »

jerf wrote: post #38
arexxbifs wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I played it when it was released and mostly enjoyed it, though I can't remember what difficulty setting I picked. I bought it mostly because I like Mark Ferrari's art, but ended up completing it. Some characters and jokes were intensely annoying, especially Ransome. I did like Delores, though. Afterwards, I revisited some LucasArts games I'd played before (Monkey Island 1 and 2), and tried my hand with some I hadn't…

The Sam and Max episodes were pretty good... partially because the episodic format forced the designers to keep things reeled in. A single 3 hour episode can't get to the point that you have a couple hundred possible solutions to the problem and nothing but brute force to resolve it. This style of game died for a reason. I'm not saying it needs to stay dead, but I do think every entrant to the genre needs to grapple…

This style of game died because the median attention span across the population decreased over the last 2 decades and something. I don't see a problem in getting blocked and try to brute force your way out of it. Games should be fun but this trend to have perfect, non frustrating gameplay 100% of the time is also part of the problem, IMO.

And now, I'll go back yelling at some cloud.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#45

Post by wbl »

esperent wrote: post #3

I've been playing Thimbleweed Park on Android recently. In general I do love point and click puzzle games but my feelings on this one are very mixed. * The writing is hit or miss * The story is just serviceable * Only about 20% of the jokes land for me * The constant 4th wall breaking is just bad And then there's the puzzles. Maybe I made a mistake in selecting hard mode at the start but it's got the worst of the gen…

Worse than the Babel fish dispenser?

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#46

Post by hibikir »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #25
esperent wrote: post #3

I've been playing Thimbleweed Park on Android recently. In general I do love point and click puzzle games but my feelings on this one are very mixed. * The writing is hit or miss * The story is just serviceable * Only about 20% of the jokes land for me * The constant 4th wall breaking is just bad And then there's the puzzles. Maybe I made a mistake in selecting hard mode at the start but it's got the worst of the gen…

> there's no logic to solving them so you'd have to resort to clicking everything and with 5 playable characters Are multiple/simultaneous playable characters a common feature of adventure game design from LucasArts alum? I played Broken Age and thought the idea was novel, but recently played through Day of the Tentacle for the first time and thought the mechanic made things too complicated. So many people say that a…

A strange take, as the Lucasarts multi-character games, like Dott and Maniac Mansion at least try to push you forward and have reasonable hints. KQ6 has fewer nonsensical dead-man-walking situations (you should see how much worse earlier installments were), but it still has them. Oops, the game is unfinishable now, because of an item you don't have, and it's not even hinted that you need, or you could have obtained earlier!

Thimbleweed park is, if anything, on the easy side of the genre. Not quite as easy as Loom, but it's still on the easy side, and with a built in hint system. Day of the Tentacle's main problem is dependence of US culture. Just like the old "monkey wrench" thing in Monkey Island 2, using an actual monkey as a wrench. Still, in DoTT, you get in-game dialogue that will basically teach you some of it, although it doesn't work quite as well.

The complaint would make more sense if it was limited to Zak McCraken, as that one really s quite tough and random.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#48

Post by ahefner »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #25
esperent wrote: post #3

I've been playing Thimbleweed Park on Android recently. In general I do love point and click puzzle games but my feelings on this one are very mixed. * The writing is hit or miss * The story is just serviceable * Only about 20% of the jokes land for me * The constant 4th wall breaking is just bad And then there's the puzzles. Maybe I made a mistake in selecting hard mode at the start but it's got the worst of the gen…

> there's no logic to solving them so you'd have to resort to clicking everything and with 5 playable characters Are multiple/simultaneous playable characters a common feature of adventure game design from LucasArts alum? I played Broken Age and thought the idea was novel, but recently played through Day of the Tentacle for the first time and thought the mechanic made things too complicated. So many people say that a…

Seems to be a tradition rooted in the original Maniac Mansion. In Thimbleweed Park the multiple characters became tedious due to having to walk multiple people all over and pass items between them, though I enjoyed being able to see the world through the different lenses of how Ray and Reyes vs. Ransome vs. Delores react to things.

Day of the Tentacle (which coincidentally I've replayed in the past week) executed the multiple characters mechanic the best I've seen, since each character was confined to their own area (past/present/future) and you could instantly pass items between them.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#49

Post by alberto-m »

darkwater wrote: post #44
jerf wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Sam and Max episodes were pretty good... partially because the episodic format forced the designers to keep things reeled in. A single 3 hour episode can't get to the point that you have a couple hundred possible solutions to the problem and nothing but brute force to resolve it. This style of game died for a reason. I'm not saying it needs to stay dead, but I do think every entrant to the genre needs to grapple…

This style of game died because the median attention span across the population decreased over the last 2 decades and something. I don't see a problem in getting blocked and try to brute force your way out of it. Games should be fun but this trend to have perfect, non frustrating gameplay 100% of the time is also part of the problem, IMO. And now, I'll go back yelling at some cloud.

Graphic adventures ceased to be popular before YouTube and smartphones started to damage the average capability to focus. The famous post https://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/77.html illustrates how the genre became too contrived and self-referential (even poking fun at those who blame “television-atrophied attention spans”).

But the rest of your point stands. I keep reading young gamers complaining about adventures and role-playing games being “too difficult” whenever they don't put big flashing arrows on the next character or place to interact with. I cannot understand that: if one can solve a puzzle without grit, what pleasure does that bring? It's the same as watching TV.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#50

Post by dspillett »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #25
esperent wrote: post #3

I've been playing Thimbleweed Park on Android recently. In general I do love point and click puzzle games but my feelings on this one are very mixed. * The writing is hit or miss * The story is just serviceable * Only about 20% of the jokes land for me * The constant 4th wall breaking is just bad And then there's the puzzles. Maybe I made a mistake in selecting hard mode at the start but it's got the worst of the gen…

> there's no logic to solving them so you'd have to resort to clicking everything and with 5 playable characters Are multiple/simultaneous playable characters a common feature of adventure game design from LucasArts alum? I played Broken Age and thought the idea was novel, but recently played through Day of the Tentacle for the first time and thought the mechanic made things too complicated. So many people say that a…

> Day of the Tentacle for the first time and thought the mechanic made things too complicated.

I've not played that in decades, but I remember liking the mechanic. For the most part it wasn't much different from one character with more freedom to move between areas (timezones in that case), but the need to pass objects through time added some variety and humour (send hamster via freezer, but then how do you warm it up again?).

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