Cazzeris
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That Maniac Mansion's hamster...
Ah, the Power of J_C! Now I can pledge for the game, I'm sure they will reach that stretch goal.Well, they listened to J_C's feedback and switched the IOS/Android and Voice acting stretch goals.
#10
DATELINE - Update Town
Posted by Ron Gilbert & Gary Winnick
Big retro news today. First off the presses is that Ken Macklin, who did the cover art for Maniac Mansion, has agreed to do the cover art for Thimbleweed Park. So, if you’re getting the box or poster, it will feature glorious Ken Kacklin art. We’re excited to be working with him again.
The second whammy for the day is that David Fox is going to be coming on to help with Thimbleweed Park scripting/programming and rodent-related gags. David Fox was the one who decided putting a hamster in a microwave would be a good idea in Maniac Mansion. Gary and I were aghast at the idea, but David insisted it was “comedy gold”. David did most of the SCUMM scripting in Maniac Mansion and would go on to create and design Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, the second Lucasfilm SCUMM game.
In unrelated retro news, it is now official that Thimbleweed Park will be available on Steam. Other online stores will probably be added later and a DRM free version will be available via Humble Bundle. If you download the DRM free version, you need to pinky-swear you won’t upload it to pirate sites. That’s all we ask.
Also a quick reminder that getting your name in the Thimbleweed Park phone book, and (optional) custom recorded voicemail message when the number is called, is a Kickstarter exclusive. Once the Kickstarter ends, this will not be offered again. Also, if you want a name of a family member to appear instead of yours, that’s a-ok with us.
And… other Kickstarters....
Congratulations to That Dragon Cancer for funding!
Please check out Rocket Ranger Reloaded - 1989 Golden Joystick Award-winning hero Rocket Ranger returns in a completely fresh new take on the classic action-adventure videogame!
Now… on to the Thimbleweed Park Talkie stretch goals...
Final Week!
Final week of the Thimbleweed Park Kickstarter! It's been a wild ride and thanks so so much to all our backers and supporters!
Last chance to get your name in the Thimbleweed Park phone book and (if you want) record a custom voice mail message. Players far far into the future, playing Thimbleweed Park on emulators running on computers we can't even imagine yet, will read your name and hear your voice. That's a legacy that should cost way more than $50, but it doesn't!
And we're announcing that all the boxes will be signed by Gary and I.
As an added bonus... test your knowledge on five new upstanding members of the Thimbleweed Park community...
Maybe. I actually think there is a different, worse, problem, which is that it has a tendency to lock the text in place too early in the development process. Because recording, processing, cutting, implementing VO takes time, at some point you need to (mostly) freeze the text. A line here or there can be re-recorded, but you can't really do any significant late-development shifting the same way you can if there's no VO. In some games, that's not so much of a problem -- for example, there's little reason to change the VO in, say, Star Craft campaigns. But in adventure games, the tweaking often entails reworking puzzles, even adding or removing areas, and locked in VO makes that difficult. We had some problems along those lines with Primordia, though we recorded the VO late and there ultimately wasn't so much of it.That's hardly the issue. The point is that it kills the scope of the game, as oasis said.
Maybe. I actually think there is a different, worse, problem, which is that it has a tendency to lock the text in place too early in the development process. Because recording, processing, cutting, implementing VO takes time, at some point you need to (mostly) freeze the text. A line here or there can be re-recorded, but you can't really do any significant late-development shifting the same way you can if there's no VO. In some games, that's not so much of a problem -- for example, there's little reason to change the VO in, say, Star Craft campaigns. But in adventure games, the tweaking often entails reworking puzzles, even adding or removing areas, and locked in VO makes that difficult. We had some problems along those lines with Primordia, though we recorded the VO late and there ultimately wasn't so much of it.That's hardly the issue. The point is that it kills the scope of the game, as oasis said.
One of Bioware's inspired moves with KOTOR (which they've used in later games too) was to have gibberish-speaking aliens who could always be used to add in dialogue late in the development cycle. But there's no real way to do that in a game like this.
#12
Talkies™ Unlocked and Box Contents
Posted by Ron Gilbert & Gary Winnick
The Talkies™ stretch goal was unlocked yesterday, but I was out running errands at IKEA so I didn't get to update immediately after. There was an incident where one line formed for two checkout registers, then someone said, “Hey, I’m going to start a second line” and then people in the long double line started to get upset, and I thought a fight was going to break out. Happy Holidays and Peace on Earth.
What does this have to do with Thimbleweed Park or Talkies™? Absolutely nothing, so let’s get on with the update!
Thimbleweed Park will now feature full voice! Best! Backers! Ever!
To answer a couple of questions that have come up: Yes, you will be able to turn the talkies off and just read the text. Yes, you will be able to display the text on screen while listening to the talkies. Yes, you can hide the text and just listen to the talkies. And, yes, you will be able to skip each line if you like hearing the voice, but read really fast. Back in the SCUMM days, the '.' key would end the current line and I plan on implementing that in Thimbleweed Park. It will cut off the audio, but that's OK because you’re in control.
Enjoy some concept art as a brief intermission in this update…
We also want to clarify some issues with the boxed version of the game. Sorry it’s taken a while to answer these questions, but Gary spent some time pricing things out so we knew what we're getting into.
▶︎ The box will be a full size old-school game box, not one of the small boxes that started coming out in the mid-90s. Those aren’t real boxes!
▶︎ The manual will be much like the one that shipped with the original Maniac Mansion.
▶︎ The game that comes on the CD will be DRM free. I don’t know all the details yet. I’ll need to spend some time down the road figuring it all out.
▶︎ There will be some fun “feelie” in the box. We don’t know what that is yet. We often didn’t know what those were until the end of the project.
Only hours left to get guilt absolution, secure you're name and voice in Thimbleweed Phone Book history, or get a lavishly signed collectors edition box.
Hours!