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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

#81

Hmm I don't remember completing the first and other than finding the phone amusing I don't remember much else about it. Will await reviews once done but if anyone hasn't played The drifter yet that is worth checking out

The Drifter is a great example of a slightly more modernized take on the classic adventure genre. Had a slow start and some grating voice acting, but gosh it ended up being a great experience.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#82
post #40
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…

What these games need is a good old-fashioned Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill. (Though I guess in the context of these games, that would be considered new-fangled.)

> What these games need is a good old-fashioned Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grill.

For those who are out of the loop:

> https://half-life.fandom.com/wiki/Aperture_Science_Material_...

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#83
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…

They need an editor who will go through and identify the puzzles that must be solved through brute force, and require alteration.

> They need an editor who will go through and identify the puzzles that must be solved through brute force

Barely any adventure game has a puzzle that requires brute-forcing. The problem is rather that sometimes players don't have the same kind of thinking as the developers.

This issue can be aggravated if the player comes from a different culture or is playing a translated version of the game; for a famous example: the "monkey wrench" puzzle only works if the player is used the the US-American English name of the respective tool.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#84
post #38

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…

Interestingly, with AI/LLMs now the large combinatorial state space problem could be somewhat fixed (alongside having much richer dialogue trees).

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#85
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…

Broken sword is definitely a different style of game. I stopped playing broken sword when I had to solve a 15 puzzle to enter a sewer.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#86
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.

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

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#87
post #57
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."

Of course so does Twin Peaks, and there's clearly a Twin Peaks/X Files vibe to this game.

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#88

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…

The best answer to that question is the development blog they made for the first game: https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/archives.html At a quick glance: four months for the engine (which they wrote from scratch [1]) and, based on the budget [2], roughly nine months for crowdsourcing and pre-production (setting the overall story and puzzles, deciding on the look of the game, building small proofs-of-concept), seven mo…

I'll add that, unlike what your parent wrote, asset reuse will be minimal, in adventure games, one of the reward for solving puzzles is unlocking access to new locations and thus new art.

In this case, they may reuse some of the sprites for the main characters (default animations). Most of the animations are custom and can't be reused.

Likewise for the voice acting (I'd expect them to start from scratch here, the mood of the games may be a bit different).

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#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/return-to-monkey-island...

Re: Ron Gilbert started production on Thimbleweed Park 2

#90
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 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.
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