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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

#61

Post by egypturnash »

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…

It's more Ron Gilbert's thing than anything else.

Manic Mansion, MM2, The Cave, Thimbleweed Park, and now TWP2: Gilbert's. Possibly also some of the many kid's games he did https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Gilbert#Games

Broken Age is the only one of the many, many games Tim Schaefer lead that does it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Schafer#Ludography

I have generally found it to be some tedious bullshit that stretches out the length of the game far, far too much, and I grew up playing a lot of these point and click adventures.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#62

Post by dbalatero »

madamelic wrote: post #43

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…

Don't really have the context, but I'd trust the expert that it will get done on the schedule they want. I'd say people on the outside of things often ask these kinds of questions due to lacking any context on production schedules. See: the last time your PM said "can't we just..."

He's also a small shop and perhaps they intentionally move slower. I suspect he doesn't need to urgently get paid for this.

Story writing is probably non linear in time it takes, and I imagine there's a fair amount of waterfall. E.g you can't schedule voice actors until the story and dialogue is done. Oh wait, the voice actors have other commitments so they'll be by in 3 months. Etc.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#65

Post by whywhywhywhy »

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…

Looking back I do wonder if Monkey Island etc would appeal to me at all fresh, only one I think would still land is maybe Loom but I think the jokes in it would be the worst part.

These games definitely felt magical as a kid but I think the feeling of it being this whole rich interactive little world full of characters carried a lot of weak jokes and writing.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#66

Post by Arainach »

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 disagree. I write and play in long-form puzzle competitions, so for many people I know attention span isn't the issue. What is the issue is that writing fun puzzles is a skill. A totally different skill from designing or implementing video games.

Anyone can design a hard puzzle. Guess the number in my head. Unscramble this 200-character anagram.

The real magic is in the "Aha!" moments where the solver makes a connection and is able to proceed. Great puzzles are supposed to make the player feel like they are smart, not that the author is smart.

Many point and click games fall apart here. Brute force isn't fun. Games where you think you'll need something in the future but the game won't let you take it now just so you'll have to backtrack when the game wants you to do that aren't fun.

A lot of modern point and clicks are by people who don't understand that and think suffering and click mashing are the point. I don't remember much of playing Thimbleweed Park, but VirtuaVerse was very much that.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#67

Post by darkwater »

retsibsi wrote: post #60
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.

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 basica…

I agree but IMO it's better to have a puzzle that's frustrating because, like you say, there is no interesting way to approach it rather than just have easy puzzles.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#68

Post by lkramer »

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…

I agree Thimbleweed Park was a little rough, a bit like Maniac Mansion if you like. What gives me hope is that Monkey Island 5 was really really good, so I feel he's back in his grove.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#69

Post by esperent »

account42 wrote: post #26
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…

It's an point and click adventure made by a renowned point and click designer for point and click adventure enthusiasts. Some moon logic is to be expected - I didn't find it to be particularly bad in this game. I think its OK to have games that are targeted at veterans of a certain genre. The 4th wall breaking was lame though, especially the ending.

Moon logic - I've just got to the end and the solution to the very, very last puzzle to finish the game... is apparently to be found in the kickstarter video from more than fifteen years ago.

You're given a random balloon dog, there's no reason to be given it, there's no in game meaning behind it, and to finish the game you have to use it on a specific thing that you'd never think to try unless you were just trying random stuff.

That's not "moon logic". It's complete bs and a terrible puzzle to end the game on. When people talk about game developers disrespecting players, this is exactly the kind of thing they mean. Expecting the player to have watched their kickstarter video! Seriously...

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#70

Post by wolvoleo »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #65
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…

Looking back I do wonder if Monkey Island etc would appeal to me at all fresh, only one I think would still land is maybe Loom but I think the jokes in it would be the worst part. These games definitely felt magical as a kid but I think the feeling of it being this whole rich interactive little world full of characters carried a lot of weak jokes and writing.

MI1 was nice IMO. Not too hard, the insult game was innovative. It established a lot of characters. MI2 was way way too hard for me. And when I played it first on Amiga a lot of transitions took one minute to load from floppy which made it incredibly tedious. So I never finished that without a walkthrough.
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