Thimbleweed Park

Let's address the elephant in the room : if you enjoyed Maniac Mansion, you should get this game, period. For my part, it took several tries before I got into the game, because of its dated mechanics. But when I finally got into the game, I enjoyed the clever writing, fun characters and overall aesthetics of the game. As far as the puzzles are involved... well, they were classical, somewhat fun although there were two of them that I found unfair (no spoiler) : one involved information that had to be read from an element of the background, however this element was often covered by something and dragging the mouse on it didn't bring any information or interaction. If an information is necessary for a puzzle, you just cannot hide it in the background. The second unfair puzzle involved general trivia -in the real world- : yes you actually have to google trivia, unless you already know the answer. That is not good puzzle design : what's in the game should be enough to solve a puzzle, you should not have to google real information from the real world, especially when the game is explicitly surreal. And that brings me to a final thought, related to the end game (no spoiler) : the ending triggered a lot of reactions from the gaming community and I can understand their grief. However, I was not bothered. The game is very explicit on its surreal nature. Anyone who has completed Day of Tentacle knows that we should not expect anything remotely coherent in these games. If I had to nitpick, I would say that the plot gimmick used for the ending has been used too often in recent gaming history, so it was kind of "meh" to me. Despite everything I've just said, if you have any remote interest in older Point 'n Click games, you should try this one. If you are looking for something original, that's not the game for you. I spent three days with fun characters, okay puzzles and good writing. That's good enough for me.

I enjoyed everything in this game. The story line, the characters, the jokes that geeks understand. I played this game without internet help and _highly_ recommend that you do the same if you want to really get what an adventure game feels like. In short, if you love Monkey Island, and all the classics, and If you want that mixed with some modern touches but with that wonderful tasty classic pixel-based design, then you will not be disappointed. This game is a treasure, the only sad part for me is that it ended.

While I didn't enjoy the plot much, and the ending was rather disappointing for me, AND the character who supposedly is the main character is annoying and unsympathetic, Ransome the Clown and the Pigeon Brothers were so funny that I give the game 4 out of 5. The game is pretty much what you'd expect from a game like this. Lots of jokes (some better than the others), nostalgic graphics and interface, lots of foolishness. Did I mention how I love the Pigeon Brothers?

The title is all you need to know... this game is a masterpiece especially for us folks children of the 80s... so many references I can't even begin to bother listing them all up. Game won me over first time Betamaxes were referenced... who would have thought? Now for some more analytical review: Puzzles: very good - I got stuck a few times but managed to do it sans hints on the hard mode (which should really be called 'normal' mode to be honest). Everything was logical - and anything I got stuck at simply required some 'out of the box' thinking - which gives that much coveted 'aha!' moment. Dialogue: it's Ron Gilbert... do I need to say any more? Music: this one is somewhat lacking, the main theme is quite nice - but otherwise nothing too remarkable, still - everything fit together and it wasn't a distraction so I'm only docking half a point here. Voice: this could have gotten some improvement - many of the characters voices become samey after a while. I was going to dock half a point, but Ransome's voice is so top notch and that brings it back into balance. Overall this is a 9.5/10 for me, and you know a good game it is when I didn't get any sleep and always wanted to see what happens next. I can't wait to see what comes up next from Gilbert's and Co's mind. (perhaps a MI3, one could only hope?!?)

It really does feel like a love letter to old adventure game, but without the moon logic (Further countered by an optional ingame hint system). It'd be perfect if the game had an actual ending, but it doesn't, leaving a sour aftertaste once you finish the game. Without spoilers, the game feels like they ran out of money or ideas at the last stretch and gave up. The final puzzle hint *literally* tells you to go watch their Kickstarter video despite having an ingame hint system in place. Not sure if it really needed 5 separate characters to do everything since they rarely interact with each other but oh well.