Thimbleweed Park

Great game. Great, great game. If you are an adventure game fan, buy it now. Now. Go on, buy it. If at any time while playing you feel that you are stuck and maybe there is a bug - THERE IS NO BUG. Keep playing. do not use a walkthrough - they are really not needed. Graphics are... pixellated - but I love dat. Sound and music are wonderfully crafted. The plot is superb - although I think there may be a few tiny inconsistencies. The puzzles are nice and challenging on hard but not impossible. Chars are nicely developed You can really sense the love that went into making this. Well worth all of the cash in your pocket. Love this game - would buy again. Fingers crossed for a sequel.

As can be guessed by the beautiful pixel art and wonderful atmosphere, Thimbleweed Park is an attempt to recapture the great "feel" that the classic Lucas P&C's had. Having now played it, in some ways it comes close, and in others it exceeds what the classics did. I've been playing P&C games for 30 years and I think Thimbleweed Park has by far the best & logical puzzles of any P&C I've ever played. When I solve one that was difficult and took me a while, it always makes sense - there's never the feeling of "How was I supposed to get THAT?" that you often get in P&C puzzles. And yet even though all the puzzles are very logical, quite a few of them are still *very* difficult, and that's an incredible testament to the skill of Ron and his team, because I don't think it's ever been pulled off to this level of success in a P&C game before - generally the more logical you make a puzzle, the easier it becomes. Also welcome are the changes to the classic SCUMM interface - the parser moves from above the verbs to on top of the cursor, and you are now able to see under the verbs and inventory - although this is non-selectable space, it makes the game feel less claustrophobic - the scumm gui taking up so much of the screen was often a big complaint, and this change helps draw you into the world. This is not a perfect game however - there are a few downsides. The 1st would be verb usage - for example, you can't "look" at people and push/pull are never utilised that well. The 2nd would be a lack of dialogue between the five characters (excluding the agents). We never really have a good scene where they get together and have an excuse for trading items and helping each other. Finally there are a couple of story threads that don't seem to go anywhere, and I'm not entirely sold on the ending (however in general the story is great). While not "perfect", it is an absolutely fantastic game, and really nails the feel of the lucasfilm classics like no game has in over 20 years.

Ron Gilbert is the quintessential example of a good adventure game designer. He laid out the rules for adventure game design, and this game is generally a good example of making use of those rules to avoid Sierra Adventure Syndrome. Unfortunately, Gilbert doesn't know how to write a good plot. Monkey Island was great, but it was more-or-less just a string of gags. This game demands a lot more from the author -- it's more realistic, and the in-jokes fall flat most of the time. It's a serious game that occasionally makes you chuckle. There are some great innovations in narrative here. But then, the plot falls apart. Gilbert doesn't have the chops to keep up the quality of the initial atmosphere and characters, and it's a real shame. You'll find some really great puzzles here, and maybe you'll appreciate the direction the plot takes, but I sure didn't. If you can appreciate the puzzles while lowering your expectations of the plot, I think this game can be enjoyed. But this isn't the second coming of adventure games, fanboys be damned.

This is a great great; it takes the things I used to love from old games (the humour, story etc) and adds some really nice features that brings it up to date. I found the puzzles challenging but not to the old Maniac Mansion / Zak McCracklin level. I was originally worried about the use & switching between multiple characters but it's done well - I had two favourites who I liked to play with more becaues I felt they were the 'main' characters but the whole cast is really well done. Looking forward to see what comes next!

Good puzzles and a lot of humor and jokes about the 80's and games from the 80's. Worth the money. I think I seen Guybrush in the white pages.