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KickStarter Thimbleweed Park: A New Ron Gilbert Classic Point & Click Adventure

tuluse

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All those things to look at/interact with in the concept art

:bounce:
 

mindx2

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Wasn't sure if you backed this or not, just wanted to show you this boxed option in case you haven't backed this.
Not sure you noticed but I posted the update and backed this quite early :smug:. I do think this just "feels" better than the whole Schafer KS and I love their attitude and humor so far. I could get burned again but I'm keeping my fingers crossed (figuratively speaking) on this one.
 

mindx2

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Update #13:

#13
Only 48 Hours Left! Or less depending on when you read this!
Posted by Ron Gilbert & Gary Winnick

It’s time for another update and I know you look forward to these as much as I do. On the mornings I’m doing an update, there is a little extra spring in my step, a little extra excitement during my oatmeal, and maybe some more vigorous soaping during my shower.

So, let’s get on with the update!

Gary and I Skype* every morning and we’re constantly talking about how amazing the response to Thimbleweed Park has been. We’re reading everything in the comments and have made several adjustments to the campaign and the game itself based on your feedback.

We're more appreciative than words can express, so we'll just try and make an amazing point & click adventure to show you our gratitude.

We’re looking forward to starting up the thimbleweedpark.com dev blog at the beginning of the year and sharing the development with you over the next 18 months. It’s going to be fun!

1c255d78e72255b0e6cb95911198dcf7_large.jpg

Speaking of Christmas (which I was not just speaking of), several backers have wondered if there is a way to back a second copy for a friend/sibling/spouse/nemesis. Kickstarter doesn’t have a way to back a tier twice, but if you go to our PayPal page, you can back a second time. When the game is released, you will get two codes, one for you and one for your giftie.

If you’re giving the reward as a gift, please download our easy-u-print Thimbleweed Park Holiday Card, print it out, scribble some sappy and/or heartfelt message inside, stuff it in an envelope and you have a ready made gift.

6027b7aefecff0ab839d007c3e3fa8a9_large.png

Give the gift that keeps on giving. Give the gift of Thimbleweed.

Several questions have come up with regard to the phonebook.

The name in the phone can be your own name, or the name or names of family members. We're not going to accept names that look like internet handles since this is a phone book from 1987 and Ma Bell probably wouldn't have allowed monkey_head3x in a phonebook listing. Special characters are fine with some limitations.

When we're ready for the phone book entries, an email will go out to backers with the 'rules' and a place to enter the text and upload the sound file (if you choose).

70a399aea5c1dce4cfc9e64d4d9099dc_large.jpg
 

mindx2

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$626,000 wow, not bad... not bad at all. Now hope they don't mess it up like DF!!

edit: Post KS Update #14:

#14
Funded! W00t!
Posted by Ron Gilbert & Gary Winnick

Wow! (not WoW, which I foolishly started playing again).

The support for Thimbleweed Park has been completely and totally overwhelming. 15,623 backers believed in an old-school-retro-spiritual-successor to a game Gary and I made 25 years ago. Would people want big pixel graphics? Would people want a true classic point & click adventure game? Do people want verbs? Do people want challenging puzzles? Will threatening to microwave a pretend hamster work? We had so many questions, but I think they all got answered.

Thanks to our friends who helped out and gave us advice. Thanks to our loved ones who put up with us during the stress and sleepless nights. Thanks to the people who previewed our kickstarter and said it could be better.

But most of all, thanks to everyone who backed and thanks to everyone who couldn’t back but still supported us.

Starting Jan 2, we’ll have a development blog up at thimbleweedpark.com where we’ll talk about, share and get feedback on the development of the game each week. We’ll go deep into art and puzzles and code. It won’t be for the faint of heart, but that’s the way we roll.

If your name is going in the phone book, it will be several months before we’re ready for your information and voicemail recording. An email will go out with excruciatingly detailed instructions at that time.

Once again, thank you thank you thank you for believing in us. We’re going to make the best damn point & click adventure game possible and we could not have done it without your help.

- Ron and Gary

2ebbfc566e7ccbe7cc282c7132293375_large.gif
 
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MRY

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The graphics have really grown on me. My only quibble is that the comics covers appear to have been shrunken/blurred rather than being built from the ground up. They don't fit with the rest. But man, this could be great. (Although, to be honest, I was never that good at this era of games; Zak McKraken is the only one I ever beat.)
 

Kz3r0

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Some considerations, despite not racking money as Broken Age did this is the second best faring adventure game, not surprising considering the name and the brand involved, a pity wasn't this the first to hit Kickstarter.
On a side note this means that Kickstarter fatigue is still a myth.

Edit:
I must correct myself, I have forgot Homestuck and dreamfall, oh weell.
Obduction also went over a mil.
In the end they got less money than Broken Sword and Leisure Suit Larry too, still not bad.
 

mindx2

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Some considerations, despite not racking money as Broken Age did this is the second best faring adventure game, not surprising considering the name and the brand involved, a pity wasn't this the first to hit Kickstarter.
On a side note this means that Kickstarter fatigue is still a myth.

Edit:
I must correct myself, I have forgot Homestuck and dreamfall, oh weell.
Obduction also went over a mil.
In the end they got less money than Broken Sword and Leisure Suit Larry too, still not bad.

This seems to be on a much smaller scale so I would think that $600,000 will go a longgggggg way.
 

mindx2

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This seems to be on a much smaller scale so I would think that $600,000 will go a longgggggg way.
depends on whom they hire for the voice acting.

If they're smart... quality no-name actors. This whole KS just felt like the Anti-Broken Age campaign so going all "Oh, look how hip we are... we got Jack Black and Frodo!!!!" doesn't seem to be part of this. Who knows, they certainly have conducted themselves better as far as vision and scope (visuals and gameplay) much more clearly than Shafer ever did.
 

SuicideBunny

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if they're smart, they'll do it themselves and get their friends and families to join in as well, not giving anyone a single buck, and pushing them to the limit towards never before seen excellence, while also allowing backers to give them even more money in order to voice some minor throwaway background characters or noises.
:rpgcodex:
 

Skunkpew

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Jack Black nearly ruined the amazing Rush documentary Beyond the Lighted Stage, and he was only in it for about 20 seconds. In Broken Age of course he just adds to the general atmosphere of disappointment and broken promises. Hell, they should've just called the game Broken Promise and bask in the glorious butthurt.
 

Crooked Bee

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Basically the only concern I have is that voice acting doesn't hurt the scope.

Other than that, I'm loving how this looks and sounds. So, fingers crossed.
 

taxalot

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Besides the voice acting, I'm already disappointing at the "high quality" music that they have promised. Redbook audio/MP3 goes against the feel of the game that screams chiptune/MIDI/SID.
 

Infinitron

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A bit late, but I thought I'd take a look at the Double Fine forums and see how the locals reacted to this Kickstarter.

http://www.doublefine.com/forums/viewthread/15759/#366527

I…

don’t actually think I’ll back this.

Which makes me sad. It seems like I’d be the target audience for this sort of thing, but I don’t know how to feel about it. A mixture of emotions, I suppose.

1) It’s cool that Ron Gilbert is making an adventure game again. It’s obvious he’s wanted to for some time.

2) I really don’t like the nostalgia-grabbing style. I’ve no problem with pixel art - I use it myself and it’s a fun limitation to work within, but nothing about the look of the game appeals to me. I always remember when a new LucasArts game was revealed the new art style was one of the most exciting things about it, the idea of walking around in this new, beautiful world. Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and so on - all pixellated but they don’t look dated. This is brand new and it already looks dated. Not just graphics, but that big ol’ verb thing taking up the bottom of the screen. Now, I’ve nothing against the verbs (although I tend to agree with Ron Gilbert himself when he says that they’re not as important as they seem) and if throwback is what they’re going for, fine. But I like to think that user interfaces have at least somewhat progressed in the last 25 years, so it just seems like a really self-conscious nostalgia-grab in this case. Not a deal breaker, but maybe not the game I’m looking for.

Or, in short: I don’t think I want to play a game that’s like ‘discovering a long lost LucasArts adventure in a dusty old desk draw’ or however they put it. I want to play the game they’d make right now. I’m nostalgic about those games because of how fresh and different they felt when I first played them.

3) I became incredibly annoyed by this passage in the pitch, which it’s very difficult to read as anything other than a passive-aggressive jab at modern adventure games.

Why do we want to make Thimbleweed Park? Because we miss classic adventures and all their innocence and charm.

They were fun and would put a smile on your face. We want to make one of those again and we want to do it right. We don’t want to make a game “inspired by,” or “paying homage to” classic point & click adventures, we want to make a real classic point & click adventure.

Thimbleweed Park is a game for true lovers of adventure games. This is a Kickstarter for fans who loved Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, and everything else that made that era great. It strips away all the cruft built up over the years and is distilled down to what we loved about the genre.​

Huhm. So much for us ‘fake’ lovers of adventure games that like the new stuff, too, eh? Also it’s interesting that they’d use the word ‘cruft’ to describe things that modern adventure games have done, when that’s the same word that Ron Gilbert in a not-so-old blog post used to describe verbs when he was talking about how he’d approach Monkey Island 3. It feels a bit cynical, a bit dishonest.

—-

And it’s not like I say this stuff blithely. It genuinely pains me not to be backing a project like this. I love adventure games, and Ron Gilbert was primarily responsible for the games that got me into the genre. I expect I’ll buy it and play it when it’s out. I hope that I’ll even enjoy it.

But I just can’t support this approach, this approach which seems wilfully unambitious in a way that those old games never were.

:/

:kfc: (most were supportive though of course)
 
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LESS T_T

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Ron and Gary are regularly updating dev blog: http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/

Maniac Mansion, The Cave and Thimbleweed Park
Jan 08, 2015 by Ron Gilbert

The main criticism I heard about The Cave was the repetition of playing multiple times to get all the endings. Each character had their own story and to see all 7 stories, you needed to play the game 3 times. Each character had their own section of The Cave, so there was new stuff, but there were also 5 sections that had to be repeated.

While designing the game, I didn't think twice about this for two reasons:

1) That's the way Maniac Mansion worked and I was trying lift the spirit of that game. Despite what conspiracy theorists will say, the reason there are 7 characters in The Cave is that Maniac Mansion had 7 characters. It wasn't to make people play an entire extra playthrough to see everything. Occam's Razor and all that.

2) I really didn't expect players to finish The Cave and then immediately start it up again and do another playthrough. I figured people would take a break. Enjoy the story and the deep meaning behind it all, examine themselves and their own desires, then maybe a week or two later, they would play it again. It's why the repetition wasn't a huge concern for me.

2a) The Goldmine level was just poorly laid out. I will 100% cop to that, and I think that one level contributes a lot to the feeling of monotony on subsequent playthroughs.

Now, this post isn't some cathartic postmortem on the design of The Cave, so let's get on to Thimbleweed Park, which is what you (quite literally) paid your money to see.

Thimbleweed Park has 5 playable characters: Detective A, Detective B, Ransome, Delores, and Franklin. Each of those characters has their own story and ending. The design decision Gary and I face is how to avoid the repetition of having to play the entire game multiple times to see all the endings.

One option is you get all five endings in one playthrough, but that would mean the endings couldn't be mutually exclusive and they can't really change the outcome of the story. As storytellers, we want the endings to have meaning and finality.

We could do some artsy-fartsy flashback storytelling where the different endings are just possibilities, kind of like how it worked in Monkey Island 2 with Guybrush dying in the acid pit. Artsy!

We could just let players skip through sections they have already played, but this feels lame, kind of like fast forwarding your VCR to get to the good parts (this is 1987, VCRs were all the rage). It's too meta for me and feels like you're not really playing the game, you're just outside the game.

One of our biggest jobs over the next few weeks is to figure out how to do this and not force players to replay sections of the game just to see a different ending.

Although... you had to do that in Maniac Mansion. You had to reply a lot of the game just to see Wendy's ending over Bernard's ending. I don't remember a single person complaining about that, yet, players complained non-stop about (what I perceived as) the same thing in The Cave.

How were they different? Or are they not, and it's the players that are different? What does it mean for Thimbleweed Park? Will our heroes escape? Tune in next week! Same adventure time, same adventure blog.

- Ron

132 comments | Add Comments

Story Layout
Jan 12, 2015 by Ron Gilbert

Thanks for all the feedback in the last post about replayability. Bucking the trend of Internet comments, it was all very interesting and insightful.

A couple of people mentioned the dead-ends in Maniac Mansion, and I want to reiterate what Gary and I said in several interviews: There will be no dead-ends. The design of Thimbleweed Park will follow my rules of adventure game design, formulated after Maniac Mansion and before Monkey Island. Dead-ends in adventure games are the product of bad game design, nothing more. IMHO.

So, our goal is to have different endings, but not require players to replay the game (or play meta-games with save games) to see them. I agree with some of the commenters that people don't have the time or patience these days to replay a game to get different endings. The Stanley Parable took a very novel approach to this, but that whole game was very meta, so it worked in a way that won't for Thimbleweed Park.

One difference between Thimbleweed Park and Maniac Mansion (and The Cave), was that in Maniac Mansion (or The Cave), you picked the characters you wanted to play with before the game started. In Thimbleweed Park, you are always playing with 5 characters. You don't get to choose to be Ransome the Clown. You do get to choose how much you play with him and how much of his story you explore, but he and the other characters are not optional.

Please keep in mind that this is just what we're currently exploring. It might change as we flesh things out over the next few months.

When the game starts, you will be able to switch between the two detectives, but you won't know about Ransome, Delores or Franklin yet. There will be a small 3 or 4 room intro that sets up the story and allows players to get used to and explore the interface (there will be no tutorial, but more on that in another post, so hold your rage/support).

On to the good bits...

Once you get into the town and start investigating the dead body, you will meet characters who will tell you about Ransome, Delores and Franklin, and when they do, you will play a short flashback that sets up their stories. When each flashback is complete, you can switch to them at will.

The main story is broken up into 3 acts, with the final act triggering the ending of the main story. Putting it in globally understood Star Wars terms: blowing up the Death Star was act 3, the medal ceremony was the ending.

Each of the 5 characters have their own sub-stories consisting of 3 acts. Character first acts are told through the flashback, the character's second act is required as the puzzles are intertwined with the main story's second act, but the character's 3rd act is optional. You can choose to play them or not.

Also, the acts are not linear, you will have to switch to other characters to complete puzzles, so it's not like players will be able to play all of Delores, then switch to Franklin and play all of his story. Like any good adventure game or story, it's all intertwined, related and connected.

When the main story ends, there will be a satisfying ending, discovery of the killer, justice, closure and all that, but you can keep playing. If you haven't completed all the character stories, you can go back and do those. Once they are all done, you will move into a small playable epilogue that ties everything together.



story_layout1.png



I know it seem complex, but once you're in and playing, it should feel fairly natural.

Please keep in mind that we're still brainstorming and exploring ideas. This is part of the messy screwed up process that is game design and making stuff. Sometimes things work, sometimes they don't and you change them and pretend like it never happened.

- Ron

78 comments | Add Comments
 

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