Thimbleweed Park

Similarly to early graphic adventure games, the game features a verb list. The player characters are controlled by building sentences by clicking on verbs, characters and objects.

Thimbleweed Park operates on the same principles of early graphic adventures games, in that players navigate various scenes from a third person perspective, using various "verb commands" to perform actions, such as "use", "pick up", and "talk to". Verb commands can be used to perform actions such as allowing a character to pick up an object into their inventory, to converse with another character, or to use an object on another item. The game's story is played out across a series of chapters, in which players must complete a specific set of goals to advance to the next chapter, solving a series of puzzles, some of which require the use of more than one character. The game features around five different player characters, with the ability to switch between them in the middle of gameplay, similarly to Maniac Mansion.[4]

Following the funeral of Chuck Edmond, owner of the PillowTronics robotics company, a German businessman arrives in the town of Thimbleweed Park for a meeting, only to be murdered. A few hours later, FBI agents Ray and Reyes arrive to investigate the murder, despite both not expecting the other to be involved and seeming to conceal a hidden agenda for their involvement. During their investigation, the pair learn of three persons of interest: Ransome the Clown, a former celebrity cursed to wear his makeup forever for going too far with his insulting performances; Franklin Edmund, Chuck's brother, who sought to remake the PillowTronics factory to make toys, until he disappeared after checking into a local hotel; and Delores Edmund, Chuck's niece and Franklin's daughter, who sought to become a game designer, much to her uncle's chagrin.

Ray and Reyes gather enough evidence to charge a local vagrant for the murder, and leave town with the investigation over. However, both return incognito to pursue a personal agenda of their own: Reyes seeks to discover evidence that can exonerate his father for being involved in the fire that burned down the PillowTronics factory; while Ray seeks to steal computer secrets from the factory for her employer. Both find themselves working alongside Ransome, who seeks to regain his glory after his toy deal with Franklin fell apart, and Delores, who seeks to uncover what happened to her uncle in his final days after discovering his will left virtually nothing to her family. At the same time, Delores' father Franklin finds himself as a ghost in the hotel, recalling that he was murdered before his meeting with investors, and subtlely helps the others with their problems.

Ray, Reyes, Delores and Ransome soon manage to infiltrate the factory, and discover it to be giant server farm, housing Chuck's personality. Overcoming several security measures and traps, the group discover from Chuck that everything, including themselves and the people, are all part of a video game that keeps repeating on itself. Chuck reveals the only way to free themselves from it is to delete the game within its prototype version. Before this can be done, Ray, Reyes and Ransome are given items to help them resolve their problems before the game is deleted. Ransome uses his to return to the flashback of his last performance, and mends his ways in order to clear his reputation. Ray uses her item to steal a game design document from a game designer, before her employers transfer her out. Reyes uses his to create a news story that clears his father of blame for the factory fire.

Before entering the prototype, Delores visits the hotel, and meets with Franklin, after he finally manages to stand up for himself against another ghost. The pair speak for the final time, before Franklin says goodbye to his daughter and disappears to the afterlife. Delores then uses an item she received from Chuck to enter the game's prototype, a "wireframe world" with simplistic graphics, and locates the system that maintains the game, shutting it down. The game ends on the credits, which slowly break down into error messages, moments before a programmer restores the game with a back-up disk, implying that it was rebooted, despite Delores' efforts.

On November 18, 2014, Gilbert posted an update to his blog, in which he revealed that talks about the game had begun "several months ago" while he and Winnick had been discussing how fun their time developing Maniac Mansion at LucasArts (Lucasfilm Games at the time) had been, and how they liked the "charm, simplicity and innocence" of the adventure games of that era. Winnick proposed that they should make a new game in the style of their old ones; as such, it is designed as if it had been made in 1987 and as if it were "an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you've never played before". Gilbert agreed, and suggested that they should crowdfund it on Kickstarter.[5]

Development started with Gilbert and Winnick building the game's world and story, designing puzzles using puzzle dependency charts, and creating characters around the puzzles. From the start, Gilbert says, they wanted to parody the TV shows Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and True Detective.[5] The game's production was planned to last for 18 months, with Gilbert programming, Winnick producing art, and both writing and designing. Six months into development, an additional artist and programmer was hired along with a part-time musician. Development began on January 2, 2015.[6]

Reception
Aggregate score Aggregator Score Metacritic PC: 84/100[12] XONE: 84/100[13] PS4: 86/100[14] iOS: 83/100[15] NS: 82/100[16] Review scores Publication Score Destructoid 9/10[17] Eurogamer (Recommended)[18] IGN 8.5/10[19] Polygon 8/10[20] TouchArcade iOS: [21]

Thimbleweed Park was released to positive reviews from critics, the PC version garnering a rating of 84 out of a possible 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 59 critics.[12]

• Official website
• Thimbleweed Park at Kickstarter