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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

#101

Post by lentil_soup »

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…

It's just a lot of work.

You need to build the engine/tech, need to support various platforms including building a rendering pipeline (so Vulkan, DirectX and Metal). You need to support animation (probably just 2D?), audio (including various effects and params), different types of input, a UI system, etc. To author the assets you need editors of some form for building the scenes, for cinematics, for the narrative, for the animations, a lot of these will be custom. Then to get the assets in the game you need a pipeline that coverts everything into platform specific formats. And all of this has to be performant, targeting 60fps ideally and cross platform.

That's just the tech side. Then you need all the other disciplines to be in sync. Can't start on animations until you have characters, can't start on those until you have concepts but can't have those until you have a narrative. And these will go via a lot of iterations as you try things out and figure out what works.

Then there's testing, the possibilities from a user perspective are really broad so the bug surface is massive. For a simple app the user is quite limited so it's simpler to enforce rules and unit tests. With a game a user can do a lot across many platforms and the issues can be on the low level graphics driver or just logic puzzle errors.

Then you have certification, platform holders have a book of tests they do to your game so you don't brick the console. Things like, does you game handle unplugging the console while you're saving to disk?

I can imagine they'll reuse a ton of tech from previous games, but there's always new things you need to do. Two years is actually pretty fast for the industry.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#102

Post by whywhywhywhy »

hnal943 wrote: post #86
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Man if your example of weak video game writing is Monkey Island I think you're going to be disappointed a lot.

Was my favorite game for a long period as a kid and I loved it then, I'm saying if it looked at the same thing today without that nostalgia without what felt magic about it.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#103

Post by tarkin2 »

agos wrote: post #42
tarkin2 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The link given elsewhere here about the multi-layered aspect of the stories from 1, 2 and RMI gives it a bit more depth. Obviously if you take it on the surface level only it's low effort.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#104

Post by arexxbifs »

b473a wrote: post #90
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…

If you like the vibes but not the humor you might like The Dig. It's more serious, and has Orson Scott Card and Stephen Spielberg credited as writers. I last played as a kid it in the 90's, but still I have very vivid memories of it.

It's not that I dislike the humor, I just don't think it's as hilarious as it's often made out to be. Insult sword fighting, for example, is at best a sensible chuckle and gets pretty long in the tooth after the first two attempts or so.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#105

Post by stavros »

jstummbillig wrote: post #28
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…

> Only about 20% of the jokes land for me I found the game so intensely unfunny (and there are few things I am selfishly rooting more for in life than another great point and click adventure)

You should try Drifter, it's much more serious but I enjoyed it greatly.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#107

Post by Folcon »

tarkin2 wrote: post #97
Folcon wrote: post #89

I enjoyed Thimbleweed Park personally, however for all those old Monkey Island fans like myself I'd encourage you to read this[0] analysis of the game series and lore to uncover the secret of Monkey Island by DM81 I found it a really enjoyable read and a plausible take, so I thought it was worth sharing here It's relevant as it's posted in the Thimbleweed Park forums ;) -[0]: https://forums.thimbleweedpark.com/t/retu…

That link was amazing. I felt that Return to Monkey Island was a bit of a cop-out. But the multi-layer, Mulholland Drive-esq, storytelling is a real eye-opener. It appears that his multi-layered storytelling found its way into Thimbleweed Park and surface-level understanding probably won't get you far.

I know right? I felt I had to share it for fellow fans

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#108

Post by Teever »

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.

Nah, the genre died because of the rise of 3D graphics and Microsoft’s push into the console market with Xbox and Halo.

The whole industry changed when the Xbox came to town. Microsoft really fostered that bro gamer culture to sell Xboxes to normies and fast paced violent games took over to the detriment of other genres and styles of play.

I’m really pleased to see a bit of a revival of adventure games because I think that the tablet form factor and UI is absolutely perfect for them.

I’m so happy to hear that there’s going to be a Thimbleweed Park 2.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#109

Post by unixhero »

CalRobert wrote: post #96
RajT88 wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 stat…

Adventure games can have amazing stories - I still think Star Trek: A Final Unity could be a great movie, or novel even.

I have to finish that. Thanks for reminding me.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#110

Post by pezezin »

Teever wrote: post #108
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.

Nah, the genre died because of the rise of 3D graphics and Microsoft’s push into the console market with Xbox and Halo. The whole industry changed when the Xbox came to town. Microsoft really fostered that bro gamer culture to sell Xboxes to normies and fast paced violent games took over to the detriment of other genres and styles of play. I’m really pleased to see a bit of a revival of adventure games because I thin…

Graphical adventure games were already dead before the Xbox even arrived, and besides that the first Xbox was not that popular outside North America so it could not have affected other regions.
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