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First, note that the article is from 2013, before Thimbleweed Park was conceived. Or maybe he had the seeds, the returned urge to write an adventure game again
by jug 9y ago
First, note that the article is from 2013, before Thimbleweed Park was conceived. Or maybe he had the seeds, the returned urge to write an adventure game again as he wrote this blog, as the Kickstarter was announced in 2014?
> Three - It would be a retro game that harkened back to Monkey Island 1 and 2. I'd do it as "enhanced low-res". Nice crisp retro art, but augmented by the hardware we have today: parallaxing, depth of field, warm glows, etc.
Much of this was Thimbleweed Park's style. It does have both "enhanced low res" pixel art and paralllax too; as part of the very first scenes, no less! I don't think it has DOF effects though, maybe it was deemed they didn't help once he got an actual retro game in front of him?
> Five - I would lose the verbs. I love the verbs, I really do, and they would be hard to lose, but they are cruft.
These were strangely in Thimbleweed Park though, and even from early alpha/beta screenshots. I wonder if they were always there. He must have changed his mind early on. What's weird is that TP doesn't even have the reduced verb set found in later LucasArts games? It's the full, clunky 180 of what he wrote here! I think only three are actually essential: "Act", "Look", "Combine". "Acting" on a door opens/closes it, acting on a light switch turns it on, acting on a person talks to him/her, acting on a book in a bookshelf reads it... Looking is always passive, for descriptions. Combining is to combine items in your inventory to contraptions.
Otherwise he nails a lot of those points in TP. He did rewrite SCUMM, he did introduce humorous conversations, juicy pixelated inventories, use a small team, and even used Monkey Island cameos.
I've had this theory that Thimbleweed Park is secretely played in the Monkey Island universe. I wish that was true, but alas the in my opinion a bit too Gilbertesque ending kinda disqualifies it for that. If it weren't for that, there is a "G <3 E" (Guybrush <3 Elaine) in the elevator, you find a Navigator's Head, etc. It's also been theorized that Thimbleweed Park has an ending originally envisioned for "his" Monkey Island 3 since it would go well along with similar fourth wall breaking in that game, but Gilbert has expicitly said that he wouldn't reuse such an MI3 ending for a different game.
I think TP wasn't really a financial smash hit so I have my doubts we'll ever see MI3 unless Disney on a whim donates him the rights. Maybe then, because Kickstarter funding would obviously be no problem that time? He'd also have his new adventure game engine to build upon. It's a shame Disney is so closed up and uncommunicative like a clam about those rights that has seemingly little relevance to their current works.
- kuschku 9y ago> Combining is to combine items in your inventory to contraptions. Combining is also just acting with you selecting an object first. Daedalic removed the verbs entirely, and made left mouse button act, right button look. To combine, you click on an inventory item, and then on another item or object. To talk, you click on a person. To flip a switch, you click it. To look at stuff, you can always right-click. Daedalic has made many games in the spirit of the old Lucasarts games, and been very successful. And demonstrated you don't need verbs in the game.
- reboog711 9y agoThe bulk of adventure games use the 'single cursor' control scheme these days; Daaedalic is not the first.
- kuschku 9y agoDaedalic actually was the first, they've done it in basically all their games. And they do it very well, which is why I mentioned it.
- reboog711 9y agoAs a company, Daedalic has only been a company for 10 years. Here are some games older than 10 years that use a 'single cursor' interface: King's Quest 7 from 1994 Zork Grand Inquisitor from 1997 The Longest Journey from 1999 Blackwell Legacy from 2006 Pretty much, this has been the standard interface for most P&C games since the mid 90s.
- mmarx 9y ago> I've had this theory that Thimbleweed Park is secretely played in the Monkey Island universe. I wish that was true, but alas the in my opinion a bit too Gilbertesque ending kinda disqualifies it for that. Consider the two brothers from the end of Monkey Island 2. Suppose Chucky grew up to be Uncle Chuck, which would make Franklin the older version of the kid imagining to be Guybrush.