(especially considering the total victory of LucasArts design over the Sierra style... has there even been a Sierra type game released recently? As in, this decade?)
if you mean hybrids, then Heroine's Quest, Quest for Infamy, Order of the Thorne
if you mean Gabriel Knightesque games, then Gray Matter and Kathy Rain come to mind
also nu-King's Quest lmao
no one will ever give a fuck to replicate the authentic King's Quest formula because it was always bad
Yeah I forgot about Heroine's Quest, I didn't play it because the sound wouldn't work on my old PC for whatever reason. Nu-KQ is almost certainly a Lucasarts/visual novel hybrid, ie. a Telltale rip-off, although I'll never find out because fuck playing that shit. The others I hadn't heard of, on the basis that I almost never play games made after the year 2000 anymore. How many completely arbitrary deaths are there?
I am always amused that a Sierra vs. Lucasarts "war" still happens, and that many people say Lucasarts won. I will say Lucasarts fans have been more loyal to playing games, while I notice a lot of old Sierra fans play less games now, and just collect boxes of old games they loved. It's a weird phenomenon.
I wonder if it's because one group is being catered to and the other isn't? Nah too simple
Anyway I finished Thimbleweed Park. The ending wasn't as shit as MI2's but it still sucked. I also agree with most of the other criticisms levelled at the game in this very thread, including but not limited to:
Puzzles were a bit too easy in many cases, with a few exceptions. I got stuck a couple times for stupid reasons (eg. the bottle near the start) but most everything else I powered through.
Not as much unique dialogue on whacky interactions as I may have liked.
Dumb progressivism. Ransome is an obvious stand-in for an internet meaniepants, the sort of guy who'd go hard after blue-haired indie devs, but then there's an unlikable character who goes on about 'murder simulators' -- I wonder how Gilbert rationalises the fact he's aligned himself with the new Jack Thompsons [sic] of the world when he obviously dislikes the old models? Fortunately these moments were pretty rare.
Ray/Reyes too similar in dialogue/interactions etc.
Too much Delores. You could play like 75% of the game as her if you wanted, I would have liked a greater focus on the other characters.
Some NPCs just kinda disappeared.
I didn't care about the big heads though.
Other than that it did have that old Lucasarts charm to it, so overall I liked it and am not sorry I paid money to play it. That's as much endorsement as I care to give anything anymore.
(I rate things out of ten because I am speshul)