Game review: Thimbleweed Park (Nintendo Switch)

Point-and-click adventure games were a staple of PC gaming in the late 80’s and early 90’s, with classics like Maniac Mansion and Secret of Monkey Island becoming the standards other games in the genre strived to live up to. However as technology advanced and gamers’ tastes evolved, we saw the genre slide into obscurity by the late 90’s. The underperforming, yet critically acclaimed Grim Fandango signaled the end of the point-and-click era. While other games did find their way to market over the next 20 years, the genre was a shadow of its once proud and dominant self.

Fast-forward to 2014, where a project appeared on Kickstarter for a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion. Not only is this game spearheaded by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, two of the creators of many Lucasarts adventure game classics, but it retains the visual style and interface that made those games famous.

The Kickstarter was a success, with backing from over 15,000 fans and easily surpassing the stretch goal of $375,000. The game went into development and was eventually released in mid-2017 on many platforms, including Windows, Mac, Linux, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch, iOS and Android.

I was unaware this game even existed, until it became one of the first Nintendo Switch eShop games published on a cartridge by the physical media saviors at Limited Run Games. I happily put in my order and it arrived about a month ago. We finally completed the game last night, so I’m finally able to give my thoughts on this resurrection of the point-and-click genre.

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Thimbleweed Park is best described as a self-aware parody of adventure games wrapped in a theme that lifts heavily from Twin Peaks and The X-Files. The game begins in 1987 as you take control of FBI agents Ray and Reyes investigating a murder in the tiny town of Thimbleweed Park. As you explore, you’ll open up new areas of the town, new characters to interact with and a ton of items to add to your inventory.

While you begin the game in control of stuffy agent Reyes and no-nonsense agent Ray, you’ll eventually add other characters to your party. Traditional point-and-click adventures would put you in control of a single character through the adventure, but in Thimbleweed Park you can have up to 5 characters that you can switch between on the fly. Each character has their own inventory, can interact with your other characters and pass them items. Some of them are required to solve certain puzzles.

The first character you’ll add is aspiring game designer Delores Edmund. You’ll later add Ransome, the profanity-spewing (bleeped) insult clown and Delores’ deceased father Franklin (in ghost form) to your party. Each character has a vibrant personality and is fully voice acted with spoken dialog for nearly every situation.

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The story is bonkers, as would be expected. Thimbleweed Park is a town anchored by a company named Pillowtronics, which is a pillow factory on its surface but features some advanced robotics and AI running the factory. A fire eventually breaks out, burning the factory the ground and turning Thimbleweed Park into a shell of its former self. Agents Ray and Rayes arrive in town shortly after Pillowtronics CEO (Franklin’s brother and Delores’ uncle) Chuck Edmund passes away, and the mystery begins.

Playing the game should be instantly familiar to any fans of the point-and-click adventure game genre. Most of the screen is devoted to showing the current scene and you control a pointer that lets your character interact with items, talk to characters and move around the screen. In the bottom left, you’re given nine verbs that allow you to carry out these interactions. These actions are directly pulled from classic Lucasarts adventure games, which includes open, close, look at, use, push, pull, talk to, give and pick up. You’ll primarily need ‘talk to’ and ‘use’ in this adventure.

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In the lower right is your inventory, which is a collection of all the items you’ve collected around town. You’ll need to pick up everything you can since the most benign item can be the key to solving a head-scratching puzzle elsewhere in town.

On the Switch, the game can be played either on your TV using the controllers to manipulate the cursor (with many key bindings for common actions) or you can play in handheld mode and use touch controls to interact with the game. A very nice touch.

The gameplay is classic Lucasarts magic, seeming like a lost game from the 90’s that finally found its way into the public. The characters, locations, humor and puzzles will feel like a nice warm blanket to fans of classic point-and-click adventure games.

Being set in 1987, the game allows itself a ton of self-referential humor. Delores gushes about how powerful her Commodore 64 is, the town has store named ‘Laserdisc Chalet’ and adventure game tropes saturate the experience. Its loaded with fun details around every nook and cranny and worth exploring for anyone who loves the classic games that defined the genre.

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Thimbleweed Park isn’t without its faults, however. With so many characters at your disposal, the game can easily become overwhelming. Most of the puzzles make sense once you know the solution, but you’re robbed of that ‘aha’ moment when you have to cheat to find out what you’ve been overlooking.

Thankfully, the game cleverly integrated a hint system right into the game. Dial ‘HINT’ on any phone within the game and you’ll be directed to the Thimbleweed Park hint line, which will drop a series of hints to you about your next objective. They start out as vague hints and get more obvious the more you push, until the game basically tells you exactly what to do next. Though even with this hint system, we still found ourselves looking for online walkthroughs a few times when we were truly stuck.

It took me and my wife (we played together) about 15 hours to reach the end of the game and we were split on the ending. My wife felt unsatisfied by the conclusion, while I thought it was clever and fitting with the themes of the game.

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While I wouldn’t call Thimbleweed Park a pretty game, it looks the way its supposed to. The character designs and visuals directly mimic the games that Thimbleweed Park is emulating. The graphics are intentionally pixelated and blocky, but that’s part of the charm and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

The graphics are primarily dark, with blacks, grays, greens, and blues dominating many areas of the game, which fits the X-Files meets Twin Peaks vibe the game has going for it. Characters are animated appropriately, keeping in line with the theme.

The game’s music is also done well, with dark and mysterious themes on the streets of town, peppy pop music inside the town’s radio station, twisted carnival music in Ransome’s abandoned circus and musak inside the town’s convenience store.

Voice acting is spot on as well, from the profane, yet censored Ransome to the meek Franklin Edmund. The town’s other inhabitants are also brimming with personality, especially the mysterious town coroner, cop and hotel manager who all seem to be the same person wearing different outfits.

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While not perfect, Thimbleweed Park is a gift to fans of classic point-and-click adventure games of the 90’s. The direction of genre veterans Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick is spot on, creating a modern interpretation of a genre far beyond its heyday. Its both retro and modern, creating a must-play game for fans of games like Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island.

Sadly, it seems that the game did not sell well enough to encourage Gilbert and Winnick to create a sequel or followup adventure game, so this might be the last time you’ll see something like this emerge. If you’re a fan, I highly recommend you seek it out and give it a try. With it being available on every modern platform, there’s little excuse for genre fans to pass it up.

Thanks for reading. As always, upvotes, resteems and comments are appreciated!

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