Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2 • Hacker News Board

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#51

Post by amon_spek » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 2:30 PM UTC

hibikir wrote: post #46

theandrewbailey wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 e…

I heard Charles Cecil make the same comment about "monkey wrench" in a recent podcast interview, and I must say it was not my experience at all. In my world (45+ years in Western Europe), monkey wrench and pipe wrench have always been synonymous. An adjustable spanner is another tool entirely.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#52

Post by b3lvedere » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 2:32 PM UTC

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.

Can't say i disliked Return to Monkey Island much. I liked the art style and the characters. The story wasn't amazing.

MI1 will always be the top for me i guess, but i still remember almost every scene after all these years, so it's not really fun to play again and again. You can play it on almost anything by now [1]

[1]: https://www.scummvm.org/downloads/

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#53

Post by m00dy » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 2:33 PM UTC

What takes it so long to release this kind of game early 2028 ?

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#54

Post by jerf » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 2:38 PM UTC

alberto-m wrote: post #49

darkwater wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Very much agree.

I'd also observe that "brute force" here is an O(source * target) problem, where a source/target pair is some expressible command. e.g., you can't usually combine two locations on the screen, but you can try to combine any item with any screen location, and in some games, any item with any item. Some games add a term for "verb" to that as well, though most games nowadays wisely realize that's not really helpful.

You can see the core reason why people complain about "moon logic" isn't really that the logic is weird. I don't think that specifically bothers too many people. Often it's part of the fun in a way. The problem with "moon logic" is that it means I can't cut down on that search space with common sense or clever-but-grounded logic. In reality rubbing my cat with a piece of tape to pull some hair off of it so that I can wear that tape as a fake mustache is not a sensible option to consider, which is a real part of a real puzzle [1], not just something I made up. A game that consider that a solution to a problem is a game I have to rub everything on everything and it is not just "gamers being lazy" that they don't want to perform hundreds or thousands of possible actions, where all but one of them will result in failure, and depending on the game, some of them may even result in "game over". That's terrible design and that's not the player's fault.

[1]: The classic Old Man Murray article, for today's 10,000: https://www.oldmanmurray.com/features/78.html The rest of the puzzle isn't exactly a tour de force of logic either.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#55

Post by RajT88 » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 2:45 PM UTC

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…

> Fate of Atlantis was the best

A better Indy movie than the last 2, IMO. I go back and replay it every so often.

> The Sam and Max episodes were pretty good

Some of them were funnier than others. It helps if you were attached to the characters having read the comics or watched the show. (The comics had the most concentrated humor - see: the comic about Dracula)

I recall the episode featuring the Abraham Lincoln statue running amok was very funny.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#56

Post by probably_wrong » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 2:47 PM UTC

dandersch wrote: post #7

I would have preferred the same team working on a new IP. Thimbleweed Park 1 has possibly the worst ending of a game, ever. Just an endless series of being told that I am a big dummy for having suspended my disbelief. I see no way of believably returning to that world without the retcon of a lifetime.

If you feel like trying a hail Mary to perhaps improve the ending I have two theories that I couldn't muster enough strength to check. Also, spoilers from here on.

First, there's a fridge that you can't open close to the ending of the game and that I understand as containing the body of the ghost character. I imagine there must be a way to open it, if only to give him closure.

Second, and related: given that the ending shows you a Basic prompt I imagine there has to be a way to use it for something other than restarting the game. I believe there was (for instance) a part of the game about getting a videotape but, once you had the right equipment, was no longer available to get. Perhaps those parts of the game can be unlocked if you know how to use the console to set the proper variables.

I've long hoped that we've all been getting the bad ending while there's a second one hidden somewhere (which has been hinted at [1]), but since I was fairly down after the ending I got I couldn't muster the energy to replay it all again.

> Thimbleweed Park 1 has possibly the worst ending of a game, ever.

I see that someone hasn't played the latest Monkey Island.

[1] https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/maniac_the_cave_thimbleweed...

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#57

Post by BeetleB » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 2:55 PM UTC

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…

Difficulty is on par with 90's adventure games (and actually easier than Sierra games).

Story: Without any spoilers, I'll just say the ending isn't satisfying in the least. He does the equivalent of "I woke up and it was all a dream."

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#58

Post by vunderba » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 2:59 PM UTC

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…

Agreed. I don’t mind having to use a hint book or look things up on GameFAQs, but if, even after that, the solution to a puzzle still makes me go, “How the hell would I ever have figured that out?”, then that’s profoundly unsatisfying for me.

This is my biggest problem with adventure games in general, and I'm a huge King's Quest fan, but sometimes the number of cryptic "What you didn't realize you needed to kneel in front of a cliff with a red crystal to summon the tornado Uber? so obvious" stuff definitely can put off newcomers from the genre.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#59

Post by vunderba » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 3:02 PM UTC

manbash wrote: post #29

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

> We'll surely avoid scurvy if we all eat an orange.

Ughh... door hinge? Guess the song's over.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#60

Post by retsibsi » Thu, Jul 30, 2026, 3:03 PM UTC

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.

I reckon there's an important difference between a challenge being frustrating because it's hard, and a challenge being frustrating because there's no interesting way to approach it. Hard puzzles can be fun and satisfying to solve (albeit frustrating at some points along the way) when the process of solving them involves doing something clever or creative. But when the difficulty arises because the solution is basically arbitrary, and so I just have to do a brute force search, that's a tedious waste of time.

The boundaries can be blurry, and a puzzle can wrongly seem to fall into the tedious category because I'm missing something. But, in my opinion, classic adventure game puzzles too often really are arbitrary and boring.