Final Development Post
Mar 28, 2017
This won't be the last one, but it's the last "development" blog entry. Any blog post in the future will be post-release blog posts, they won't be about the development process, but more about the care and feeding of a game post-launch. They will also come once every one or two weeks.
Maintaining a blog with multiple updates each week, while you're trying to make a game, is a lot of work. As much as I like writing these and reading everyone's comments, it will be nice to take a break.
And yes, I do read ALL the comments. When a comment is added, I get an email with the text of the comment and a link to take me to the comment. I read them all.
For this last "development" blog entry, I thought I'd talk about what we're doing right now. What does the last few weeks of a project look like?
It's a lot of scrambling around, dealing with marketing, PR, storefronts, launch trailers, and endless little decisions like pricing.
Let's start with pricing
We starting talking seriously about pricing 9 months ago. We had three basic choices: $14.99, $19.99 and $24.99. We really needed consistent pricing across all the stores, and while some allow for finer grained pricing, not all do. This was a common intersection between all the stores.
$14.99 is probably the most common for indie games. This was our first pick and hung on for quite a while. As we got closer to finishing and more and more people played the game, we realized it was a huge and deep game. The two choices now became $19.99 and $24.99. $19.99 won out for a while, then we settled on $24.99. It felt like the game had enough value to warrant the price. It was higher than a lot of indie titles, especially 2D titles, but we felt we could support it.
We lived with $24.99 for a bit, and felt any point-and-click fan would gladly spend the $24.99. As we've talked about on the blog and on the podcast, one of our main goals is to introduce new people to the joy of point-and-click. It started to feel like $24.99 might be a barrier for that group.
Pricing is always hard. None of us are experts at it. We talked to several industry friends and no one was overly excited about $24.99. It seemed too high. Not for the people who bought the game, but for all the people that were on the fence. Pricing at $24.99 might do well with the core, but it wasn't going to attract a new audience. Given that was one of our main goals, we settled at $19.99.
Moving on to storefronts
We have to deal with five storefronts on launch: Steam, GOG, Xbox, Win10 store and the Mac App Store. And every store front has different size images they need. Steam has 5 or 6 images size for the main store, then there are all the Steam Achievement images and Steam Trading cards, badges, etc, etc.
It's a lot of art to produce. Some of it is just resizing images, but you'd be surprised how long it takes. Plus, resizing pixel art is harder than normal art. We can't just drop the size by 5%, otherwise the pixels get all screwed up.
GOG has it's own sizes, and the App Store has it's own sizes, and Xbox and the Win10 store. Everything need it's own art sizes. Jenn spent weeks and weeks getting all the art into the right sizes. If you're releasing a game, don't underestimate this.
Launch trailers
We've done several trailers for the game so far, but for launch we need one trailer that sums it all up. I wrote the Ransome trailer before we went into the studio, but before we even had a rough cut. I didn't think to write a launch trailer in advance, and we didn't have the budget to pull actors back into the studio.
I talked to Derek Lieu about it. He has done all of our trailers so far and he's amazing. We talked about doing a movie style trailer where all the dialog was taken from the game and pieced together to tell the story.
I got Derek the entire script and he poured through it for a week and came up with a first draft. We beat that up and tweaked it, then he did a first cut with black cards where the footage would go.
I then made a cut-list and started capturing footage. All in all, it took me about 3 days to capture and recapture all the footage and Derek a few weeks to put it all together.
Review copies
We send out several hundred review copies to the press. Before we did that, I needed to get Steam working. It only took a few days, and maybe a few more to fully understand it. Once that was in place, we tested the review build (which is, in theory, the final build) for a good week and then sent out the review steam keys.
All-in-all it went well, the reviewers found 3 or 4 bugs that we opted to fix and pushed new builds to Steam. When we got a report of a bug, we'd immediately try and figure out what was happening. Most of the time, it was obvious what the issue was. A few times we had the tester team attack it and find a repro case.
The first bug we got from a reviewer completely stumped me. It made no sense. I poured over the code for a few hours and couldn't see how it would happen. Friends arrived for board game night and I took a break. About an hour into board games, it hit me and I knew what the issue was. Bug solved.
I'm sure post launch will be like this. We'll get bug reports and, evaluate the severity and immediately fix the big ones, and move the others for a future rev.
When you're fixing bugs on a "hot" version, you want to change as little as possible.
PR
Part of send out the review copies was setting up interview and podcasts. Our PR master, Emily, did all the work in setting them up, but me and other teams members had to take time to answer questions and do podcast. Again, don't underestimate the time this takes.
We also sent these ViewTron 3000's to some press and will have them for sale on Fangamer in a few days.
Marketing
In addition to PR, there is also marketing that needs to be done. For small indie titles, this is main social media. So, we spend time on Twitter and Facebook and all the others, posting images and countdowns. More stuff to write and create. Marketing is probably our weak spot right now.
Builds
The Steam builds are locked down and everything is under control. We're a little behind on the GOG builds, but by the time you read this, everything should be fixed. I wasn't planning on doing a Mac App Store build, but I had to do the code signing for other reasons, and once you've done that, you're 90% there, so I decide to put it up.
The Xbox is a whole different story. You have to go though Xbox's cert process and it can take anywhere from a week to a month. It was a huge wild card. We submitted a few around a month ago and it took a couple of weeks to make it though. The issue was, a lot of bugs got fixed while it was sitting in cert. So, last week we made a new build with all the bug fixes and entered cert again. Just yesterday we passed that cert and are ready to go.
Backer keys
Wow, how hard can that be? Well, actually pretty hard. If we had done nothing but Kickstarter, it would be a lot simpler, but since we took pledges from Humble Bundle and then later via PledgeManager (to allow backers to upgrade), it's a been a real challenge to get all the names and backing levels integrated. PledgeManager doesn't have a system for sending email to backers, so Jenn had to set up a separate system.
We also have the issue with the DRM-free keys being done by GOG. We should have set up separate "products" in PledgeManager where you picked Steam or GOG, but we didn't, so we had to set up a separate system to cull that information and make sure everyone gets the right keys.
It's been a learning experience. The whole project has been a wonderful learning experience. Did I say wonderful? I meant terrifying and stressful.
- Ron
Do you think the game is suitable for a young girl 9 years old?
I mean, she will play with me, I'm training her in old school games.
Thanks!
And not backing the game and only buying it later isn't better for a KS backer, since without enough funding the project might have never happened in the first place. Also, anyone who doesn't want to "wait" for the development to be over, shouldn't back. It is known. No one was forced to.
Imagine my life without Monkey Island. There are very few key influences, but one of them has always been that. It's a Back to the Future question of great importance to me. Love and gratitude made me kickstart this. It's nothing less than a binding friendship to someone who has never known me, but whose creative work has always been very dear to me.
Great comment, thanks. Made (at least) my day!
I gladly pledged 150 Dollars and don't care about the retail price one bit.
Did you think Kickstarter was some cheap way of getting more than your money's worth? Usually it's the opposite. If you just wanted a game, you should have waited. If you backed, you should have known what you were doing.
And you're lucky the game costs the same as the basic KS pledge. I wonder what you'd have written if it costed, like, 10 dollars.
Why not just back it at the tier you'd get the game? This is not the place to bitch about a mistake you made & try to make it someone else's problem. Enjoy the game on the 30th! Make sure and buy 10 copies!
Like every comment here, I can't wait to start playing the game.
I also really hope you've all had a good enough experience making this game to hopefully make another in the (near) future! (make MI3)
Looking forward to playing!
And donĀ“t worry about posting anything here. You can be sure that for about a month, all of us will be playing with any other concern than solving the game.
Btw, IĀ“m becoming very good at math with that seckrit question stuff to prove IĀ“m a human. Thanks x 2!
I just want to say you are one of the reasons I'm a game developer, you have made a great job through all these years and I hope you continue making such great games in the future. I'm looking forward to play Thimbleweed Park.
Excellent job with the blog as well, it has been exciting.
Thanks again for Maniac Mansion, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones, Zak McKracken an so on.
Best Regards!
thanks for this blog and all the information, IĀ“m happy to play it on thursday. :)
Cheers
Michael
You did well! You all. Can't wait!!!
Story time:
I cut my teeth on Monkey Island. I can still remember browsing through the local computer store as a young kid and being awestruck by the box art - and subsequently begging and pleading with Dad until he broke down at bought it for me. I loved it. I still love it. My cat's named Guybrush, for chrissakes. So, like many others here, a new game from the same crew is something pretty special for me.
As a result, I've been absolutely insufferable in pushing the game onto anyone who was too polite to tell me to hush up. This extended to my family, and one afternoon I was discussing it with my mother - only in general terms that a new classic-style game was coming up on the horizon that I was excited about.
Out of the blue, my mother, now in her sixties, and who's only ever played a couple of games that I shoved on her - comes up with this gem: "I'd really like to try one of those games again - nothing that requires quick reflexes, you know, but - well, something like that old Monkey game you played as a kid. I really liked that one."
Long story short, I've got a gaming playdate with my Mom on launch day. So, thanks guys. :)
I just stumbled over this project randomly a couple of days ago and had a lot of catching up to do. So good you're at it again! Seems like I just got here right on time for the release! Too bad I missed out on the kickstarter campaign, though. Just wanted to let you and the team know that the trailer and gameplay look very intriguing.
I think if David Lynch and the Coen brothers got together to make a point-and-click game it would look like this :)
This is really exciting!
Cheers,
Kevin
I've been a lurker here, but I have enjoyed this blog immensely and the email reminders were always the highlights of my day. I only stumbled upon this project in about July last year, and I'm very envious of everyone who has been here from the start. I've been trying to find the time to read the blog from the beginning, and I'll see how much I can squash in these last 2 days. Cheers for podcasts, it was super fun putting voices to the names.
I wonder how many South Africans you had playing Monkey Island? My uncle brought it with him from the UK - we had the stiffy disk you plugged into a keyboard which plugged into the TV. I will always remember that opening music with the mountain, and all the unbounded excitement it brought us. I can even remember the smell of that old lounge where we spent so many enthralled hours. Of course, I still have the spinning disk puzzle-key buried in a childhood dresser somewhere.
I am so ready for this - easiest R260 I've spent all year!! (Or more depending on how much my troll of a president stuff up our currency in the next few days...)
Cheers, and howzit from Cape Town!! Lee
Ron and team, thank you for sharing this delightful journey! And thanks for solving many annoyingly hard problems along the way, so that we can now do the same ;)
I can't wait to see the game you worked so hard on. If there's anything I can do to help your team, I would love to get involved if I can.
Good luck with the launch!
Patrick
when I first heard that you were making a game again I was in awe that you were making a game again.
Not so much that I'd get to play another 'of those' games but there mere fact that you (plural) went into this again.
I love that. A lot.
It paralleled (and overtook :) my own game making progress and I enjoyed reading/hearing you facing/solving/making up issues.
(that might came out wrong, I don't enjoy you having issues).
Anyhow, I loved your inputs in grumpygamer.com or pagetable.com or wherever but written thoughts on an ongoing project was a super-inspiring read.
I will miss this blog. A lot.
Cheers with beers, and Love from Germany!
B) Out of interest, as GOG is DRM free anyway, you're clearly not overly worried about the potential for backers redistributing the game - so why not sidestep the Steam/GOG option issue and just issue all the backers one of each? Wouldn't it make the distribution all a heck of a lot simpler?
20 bucks! I nailed the price! looks like I have a bet to collect with some friends (beer bets).
I finished the game four days ago with the review copy and no bugs nor issues on my 30ish hours of my first play. Rock solid for me and I'm very very thorough with my adventure games. Good job guys, solid testing and polishing.
I did test the game on a variety of my Macs, from several old-and-recent MacBook Pros to various Mac minis and a high-end Mac Pro rigged to the teeth. Except for a first generation Intel Mac mini Core Duo (mi sister's) the game ran perfectly indistinguishable on every machine I tried, each one above min-spec-requirements.
The funny story is, I've been trying to get my sister to upgrade and replace her agonizingly old and slow Core Duo Mac mini to no avail, she always tells me that it's not necessary as long as it works and fills her modest needs (the same with her first generation iPad). But since she's also a die-hard Gilbert/Schafer LucasArts fan, she panicked once she saw her trusty mini could not run the game properly (slow to a crawl thanks to the Intel GMA950 integrated GPU). Her reaction? She ran, I'm not kidding, she ran to buy a new mini, the cheapest available, but enough for the game to run well. Nothing I tried in years could make her replace her old Mac, but this did it. An anecdote I'll share for years.
Ron, it's the ViewTron 3000(tee-em).
Thank you guys and wishing the best of success for Thursday. The game is beyond awesome.
<blub>
Sushi
Very well said Matt, my feelings exactly!
I was in my early twenties when MI was published, which made me frantic waiting for MI2. Now I'm much older and feeling as excited waiting for a 'new' MI2 again :)
On the other hand I entirely subscribe to that wise old saying "you don't really quit playing games because you grow old... you grow old because you quit playing games", meaning I'm NOT much older than I was when MI2 came out... I am still in my early twenties because I haven't quit playing games :D
Knowing that seasoned giants like you guys still feel that way makes me somehow feel better when thinking about my own professional challenge.
Anxiously waiting for post-tomorrow as I haven't been since I had 8 y/o, weeee!!
I just received an e-mail from Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick. ""Awesome Supporter, your Thimbleweed Park pledgemanager is waiting!""
Just a reminder, it looks like you haven't completed your order for the Thimbleweed Park project yet. Completing your reward details helps us ensure you get your reward in a timely manner"""
Is it not a little bit to late if i pay now ? (collector edition)
Thanks.
As someone who's been growing up on Maniac Mansion, Zak and Monkey Island titles I'm super excited about this.
I'm one of the backers and have been following and 'living' the entire dev process with you thanks to your blogs and twitter for the good past two years and I'm absolutely stoked to play it. I can't believe that in less than 2 days I'll be able to dive in and play a proper point-and-click from the very MASTERS themselves.
I really want to say kudos to Ron and Gary, David, Octavi, Mark, Jenn, Steve and the whole team. I'm sorry if I forgot someone... obviously I don't know all the names from your team ;-)
Good luck with the launch on Thursday and keep up the amazing work for the future.
Warmest regards from Switzerland.
Ivo
I rarely post but I read all your stuff.
On the eve of the launch of this little miracle I just want to say thank you and thank everyone else on the team.
You stay awesome,
Louis
Congrats !
At least in my case, it would be totally okay, if my GOG key was slightly delayed. I wouldn't be angry at all, seeing how complicated this is.
After these long decades i really hope you can make a fortune with TWP and upcoming projects. I can imagine how you all have felt thru the years, making these famous games, becoming pioneers for this genre and earned only a little related to the hype of your fame. Fame can not buy meal and pay the rent.
I wish you all Ron, Gary, David, Mark the money you basicly deserved. A life without turning every dime as it should be for pioneers. And this comes from the bottom of my heart. You are not only designing games but also create feelings. These feelings have a tremendous value to us all, otherwise we wouldnt have backed so much. They are saved forever inside us. Ready to be resurrected.
For TerribleToyBox the only way is up..
Thank you all for doing this Service to us. (Also big thx to Jenn,Rob, Octavi, etc. )
In fact, the music and software industry changed because of the piracy and, product of that, services as Netflix, Spotify and Adobe have emerged.
Most of the time the barrier between buying a legal copy of anything or pirating it is / was the **HUGE**price (sometimes a fair price, and most of the times, donĀ“t). Just imagine buying as much dvds as movies /series you watch in a month, or the overall money value of your spotify playlist. When you do those numbers, you understand the success of Netflix and Spotify.
So, why pirating a 20 bucks game today?
- Cheapstakes
- Anarchists
- Curious
Considering that the curious dudes will love the game and buy a legal copy (if they are not anarchists or cheapstakes too), you have a huge sales success in your hands which piracy will done a very little harm.
Hip hip hurra for the TWP team!!
- not wanting to buy a broken game when there is a much better version available, for free
Normally if there is no DRM-free version of a game available I just don't care. There are enough other good games out there I can play.
In the last couple of years (10?) I remember pirating a recent game only once.
Good luck for your employement.
But as a game dev myself, I had to start using Steam at work at some point, as did all of my colleagues. And then I became used to chatting via it with them, and eventually got myself the Orange box, just so I could play Portal, which I was interested since the first day I heard about it. And then, some time later, I bought the Indie Bundle with Braid and some other cool games. And then Left For Dead. And tons of games since then, so many that I am unable to play them them all as I have so little spare time. But I like the fact that I can support the developers of the games I like, at the price points that I like. I am also happy that the Steam takes care of all the updates for me, and that I can chat with my all my gaming friends, see what they are playing, what they are buying, what they are wishing for. Originally I was worried that I don't own the physical copies of it all, but these days I see it as a plus. I would have not have enough space to keep physical copies of all those games I have in my library now. I am also grateful for the Steam as it helped the Indie scene to flourish. When it started, more than 90% of game sales were from retail. Today it is the opposite, more than 90% of sales are digital. Getting rid of retail channels and being able to survive on digital sales alone is what helped many Indie developers to create their games in the first place.
So, IMO, people who still use the no-DRM mantra as an excuse are all nothing but missing out. I can understand them, but they are not helping anything at all. Just my 2p.
Steam may be very convenient. But their shop doesn't even show what level of DRM a game has -> no thanks (btw. the Steam shop doesn't even allow browsing using HTTPS, what the heck?).
With GOG Galaxy there is/will be most of nice Steam features on GOG too. But when I buy a game on GOG I always know it's DRM-free without the need of extensive research.
Of course sometimes I make exceptions when I really want that game and I know there won't be a better release for the time being.
One example being The Cave, another one being Costume Quest 2 (both with publishers where it was and is unlikely to get a release somewhere else soon).
Actually I have hundreds of games already at GOG and dozens more on CD/DVD. So I always have enough choice for some game playing. I really have no need to buy at Steam. If there is a game only available at Steam I just don't buy!
By the way: GOG has all the great adventures from Lucas Arts and Sierra already in its catalogue! :-)
Unfortunately The Cave is still missing - but I am hopeful to have it there some day too. And seeing the actual release processes it's just a question of time when more games will become available at GOG as well.
Publisher of The Cave is SEGA which makes it IMHO quite unlikely to see it on GOG soon :-(
What would be other noticeable differences between the Steam and GOG version (except for DRM and cloud saves)?
I don't usually care about Steam achievements, although I am curious to see, knowing now how much time Jenn spent on resizing the images; AFAIK, there is no achievement system in GOG: But does that mean that there is no use in collecting specks of dust if I buy the GOG version? Or are there no specs of dust in the GOG version?
If so, I would be seriously doubting to buy the Steam version instead:
With only 19 hours left, please help me decide!
Note that the Steam version may not even include DRM (Steamworks), it may run without Steam but you never know until you try a game without offline-mode and with Internet disabled...
You still need the Steam service to download, install and update the game though.
GOG has an (optional!) client similar to Steam called GOG Galaxy. It supports achievements (but TWP won't support it on launch). I think it will be likely that GOG Galaxy support will be added later (shouldn't be a lot of work, well, except resizing achievements I suppose).
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thimbleweedpark/thimbleweed-park-a-new-classic-point-and-click-adv/comments?cursor=16304279#comment-16304278
The next version of GOG Galaxy (1.2) (which is AFAIK soon to be released) will support cloud saves and additional features similar to Steam (like in-game overlays, screenshot functionality etc.).
The current version of GOG Galaxy already allows keeping you games up-to-date automatically.
At GOG you also have all the great classics esp. adventures (name GOG comes from Good Old Games originally) and there is not much difference between service!
Anyway. Most important: get it soon to have fun soon! :-)
p.s. @Nor Treblig: I am curious about the v1.2 of GOG Galaxy too!
:-)
Computer says no: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/galaxy/release_the_gog_galaxy_client_for_linux
Okay, thanks. But, I'm sure that they will release a Linux version as well, once the Windows build is done. This would be the next logical step.
I think that part of the worldwide success of Lucas adventure games started with the possibility, for kids, to play many games for a few bucks.
Nowadays things are changed, there is more control over a downloaded copy. OK, you can crack the DRM, the protection, but sincerely... if in the 80's there were 7 people out of 10 who were able to crack a software, now I estimate 0.5 out of ten. Yes, one ear, one eye, one arm and one leg of a single individual...
In conclusion, piracy will not give Ron some dollars, but it helps spreading the game to other people, who potentially could buy the game even after they completed it.
Personal confession: I had Zak McKracken game pirated, the first time I've played it. Just because it was really common to exchage games among friends. But after I had finished, I thought: "WOW. The authors worked hard to bring Zak McKracken to life! I have to buy a copy! I have to!".
No, I didn't go to the jail in Katmandu when I tought that. Not yet. Becuase the game was cracked, you could fly everywere by putting any VISA code.
Well, let's don't mention EMI, which I also bought immediately. :-D
Anyway, every kid in the '90s had pirated games... at least in my circle. Those who didn't were seen as rich kids who could afford to spend money to buy the games (and were submerge with requests to lend those games). The main problem was, in my opinion, that videogames were seen as an entertainment medium for kids, and kids don't have money, and parents usually didn't like to spend their money on that stuff. You know, that "Italia 1" mentality of "cartoons are for kids, let's air The Simpsons after lunch"? I think we had it also for videogames.
Now times have changed... and those kids are now adults with jobs and money they can spend for their desires. The first time I actually bought a game with my money was after I received a university tax refund, it felt great.
I think piracy will be an issue only for those kids who are interested in the game but have parents who aren't. But I suppose that most of the kids interested in TWP are because one of their parents is an adventure gamer in the first place.
Nowadays, kids pray on their knees to their parents asking to buy a game, and parents often answer: "Yes my dear, just stop crying!!"
Even if a game costs 59 euros.
Usually I am told that story from my acquaintances once a month...
When I was a kid, once a month my father used to buy a bunch of games on floppies, and I used to copy them to my friends, and to play together. Not different from a market exchange, with games that were worthing more than others, sometimes we exchanged them in "auction mode"... wonderful times!
Thanks for all the hard work since Maniac Mansion :-) I'm starting to let my 3 year old play the Humongous adventures now.
The only problem is, Spy Fox is only in English, and we are Italian :(
Instead, she actually loves to replay the first game once in a while...
They learn as quickly as Stan's arm movement!
Go play Spy Fox in English with your daughter, she will learn immediately!
For me, as an adult fan of adventure games it's interesting to see what design decisions from the more "adult" games were included in these games and which ones were changed. In terms of puzzles, gameplay, clues, ...
Parent of the Year
Anyway, congratulations on getting the game wrapped, I'm doing my best grass roots effort on social media to promote the game -- but that's because I love the adventure game, and I hope to see another couple from you before my days are done. :)
Respect from Finland
Just wondering if you thought of including a sick certificate for next Friday with the release.
I feel like December 23. Thank you for this. And for the game. And for the blog. And the patience. And the perseverance. And the music. (Cue ABBA). And the silliness. Especially the silliness.
Cheers from Cologne
What was that astonishing bug? :-D
It was a pleasure to make this happen and even a bigger pleasure to feel like beeing part of this project. Not at least because of this geĀ“reat Dev Blog.
It was great to get such an awesome insight into making not just a game, but one of the most remarkable kind I can rember.
As already said, your games ment a lot to me and formed a big part of my charakter and humor. I still have all of them all times in ScummVM over all possible systems around me. And a play every now and then one of them, just to get into a little of this loved mood.
It means a lot to to me to open that old Desk to find one that was ever forgotten there.
I tryied the whole time to just look into the trailers, but never completed one, just to rush over pictures, trying not to examine them to much.
I want the whole "new" feeling while plaing the real game.
But I have one concern, too:
I was never into achievment and stuff and I dislike I need to have Steam runniing wihle playing Games. So I decided to choose the GOG Version.
Now IĀ“ve read about patches and badges and achievments and thatĀ“s all about steam.
But now IĀ“m so excited I want it all. I want to squeeze every possible thing out of this game and see everything you all did for it. Every achievment art or whatever is possible.
Will there be Achievments on the GOG Version too? Will the patches come to Steam and GOG at the same time?
Do I have to set something aside going with the GOG Version?
Still, IĀ“m going to get another copies I can guarantee. At least the Boxed Version (Come on, my name and Voice is IN THAT GAME, thatĀ“s a must) and the Android Version (waiting for another Kickstarter Reward, the Superbook - both together will be great).
Not at least to get the, bit to support you. And some Merch too of course (especially Cards! But the ViewTron3000 looks fantastic too) .
But IĀ“m wondering if in case I want to see everything possible related directly to the Game itself makes it necessary/reasonable/adviseable to buy the Steam Version too, right from start.
And to play this one instead of the choosen GOG Version..
At least:
Thanks a lot for this new and for all the old games and times you brought to me.
Thanks to the whole team.
To all "old" and to the "new" members.
To Ron, Gary, David, Mark and all others that are and were involved at that time like today.
To Jenn, Octavi, Robert and of course all others, too.
Seems to know all of you a little bit now.
I will miss that.
ItĀ“s late over here :)
Regarding patches: Typically they are always released on Steam first because the developers can do it themselves. On platforms like GOG or Humble the releases are curated by the distribution platform owners (i.e. you can't just deploy a fix in the middle of the night during the weekend and expect it to be up at once). This sometimes lead to developers releasing updates not right away but after they are sure it's a stable version.
Just followed my feeling about Steam, did not think about that, damn.
Where can I redeem?
Fxxk
This has been a fantastic kickstarter to support and follow and I'm anticipating a really wonderful game - unlike a few other kickstarter projects, I have a feeling my expectations will be exceeded here.
With so much learnings here, in terms of the tech and processes to do a modern day P&C game as well as how to fund, promote, and sell something of this scale, it would be a shame if you didn't apply these going forward. Pretty please, with sugar on top (and a cherry!) say that you will follow up with something big in the near future. It doesn't have to be the next immediate project, but think of all the savings of reusing some of the stuff that you folks baked over the past couple of years, as well as doing things better in some areas given what you've learned through hard labor...
Thanks to you, Gary and David for Thimbleweed, can't wait to play it!
On a serious note, is there anyway to pass on the guilt absolution I purchased? Or is it automatically used as soon as you press pay. Because it was my dad whom pirated Monkey 2, not me I was only 4 when he brought home a pirated copy!
Also to make you feel old, I was born the year Monkey 2 came out!
Cheers for the good times
Jack
*grab my cane and slowly go to feed the doves
I thanked to the development team, designers, illustrators because of the great job they did, but I forgot to thank to all the backers.
I knew about TWP just by change because a friend of mine made a retweet of some early documentation of Maniac Mansion and I googled Ron to know what has heĀ“s been up to. Unfortunately the backing was closed.
But yes THANKS a lot to all of you who roll the dice and put your chips to this wonderful project. Without you TWP would be still in Ron and GaryĀ“s mind until they could find the way to make it and with the risk of never being able to do so.
Really thank you very much.
Thank you so much for this wonderful ride. Zak and MM were my first-ever games back in the late '80s when I was a wee lad. But given that the Internet wasn't in full form then (Compuserve, anyone? Always had to get my dad to log on), and game delays were common, I remember calling and visiting the local Software Etc., Softwarehouse (CompUSA back in the day) and Babbage's to find out if my reserved game arrived yet. Did this every day. Sure that I annoyed the hell out of employees.
But this was so cool. This constant transparency not only left me not wondering if the game I love and support is still coming along well, but it also brought me along for the ride and feel like I was bonding with the team, in some respects. I understand this might not be done on future games, especially if Disney sells the rights to Monkey Island 3 (and I know Ron said that would be more secretive development process), but it certainly was nice to follow in this case.
Side note I've wanted to tell you guys for quite awhile: When I was a kid, I always dreamed of helping Ron create a brand new game. While I'm no programmer or artist, pitching in for a boxed copy kind of made my childhood dream come true.
What's more, I've been wishingfor a new Ron Gilbert game since MI2 -- what, 25 years ago? This Friday, I took off work to play that fulfillment of a 25-year-old wish. It'll let me enjoy a part of my childhood no one could help me unlock but Ron & Co.! Three cheers to you guys -- looking forward to us all enjoying this experience together, as a community.
Randy
I was wondering at some point after the release we could see those inital puzzle dependency charts with the spoilers unblurred. Learning about the making of those charts was really interesting!
Anyway, was necessary draw a weed in this game? Pheraps the weed are in fashion?
Btw. you cannot see it in this picture, but they even have even drawn door knobs in this game :O
Outrageous!
For this masterpiece pricing is absolute applicable.
You did a great job and tomorrow we all can see and feel what is all about an old fashion adventure.
Thank you Ron and thanks to the development team.
I have two questions.
1) You said you had a board game night... what's your favorite board game these days?
2) Will we be able to buy those amazing trading cards?
Thanks Ron, and thanks to the whole team for making this game.
thanks a ton for making Thimbleweed Park! I was never so excited about a game release like back in the days when I played Monkey Island, Indy, Day of the Tentacle etc. ;)
May I ask if the Xbox and Win10 store versions are Microsoft Play Anywhere versions which means I buy the game only once and can play it on Win10 and Xbox One?
Thank you in advance and kind regards,
Sascha
https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/faq2
IĀ“ve received my Certificate of Guilt Absolution for Pirating Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island !!!
Now IĀ“m feel so relieved... :D
I sometimes feel like the development process was so rewarding to watch and comment - and then to shake Ron's hand in Berlin and get Jenn's cards and all of it - the game comes like a blooming flower on a plant whose growth I had been watching every day.
I will keep following you and buy another copy of the game as soon as it can be preordered on GOG... After all, I have three kids who will want to play the game, too!
I wish you all the best and a huge success with TWP!
I know that feeling... :D I spent hours on a bug, couldn't solve it. Gone home, felt asleep. Woke up at 2AM - HEUREKA! Bug solved.
Do you plan in the future to add TWP to GOG Connect?
https://greasyfork.org/it/scripts/17661-thimbleweed-park-blog-fixes
It's not too late, since this blog will not die on The International TWP Release Day!
We should make a request to make this an international legal holiday :)
Know I know why it isnĀ“t working at my work *cough* anymore.
Just feels a bit less value. My wife thinks I'm a geek.
Wow... the end of an era. I missed the Kickstarter campaign, but joined the effort just right when it completed, as soon as I learned about it. I made my pledge via PledgeManager and have been following this blog and the podcasts from the very first day. It has been quite a ride.
I saw the game evolve its scope, its technical core, and even its fonts and graphics style. I saw the entire thing taking shape from merely a neat concept to a final product ready to ship. Impressive.
I've never been part of anything like this, and it was truly an great experience. I sincerely wish great success for you and hope that this is but the first of a series of successful new fun games from the people who gave us such fantastically happy memories of wacky and fun games in the 1980s.
Thanks for doing this, thanks for keeping the process open, and thanks for letting us ride along with you throughout it all. :)
Best regards,
-dZ.
Every few years, I look up childhood games that touched my heart; Maniac Mansion is one of those games. I was around nine years old, when my bestfriend showed me Maniac Mansion on the Commodore 64. In the game, he rang the doorbell and ran away. The cutscene showed Ed answer the door but nobody was there. We laughed. So we kept doing it and Ed got mad. He caught us and sent our character to jail. And that was our gaming session! It was a blast. We played a few other times; one was just running around trying to not get caught by the Mansion owners; another was the enjoyment of exploring. And being around nine years old, my bestfriend and I made a game called "Maniac Mansion;" when his parents weren't home, we had his older brother hide their house key outside. Our goal was to find that key, unlock the front door and then sneak around his house. We never found that damn key! lol. But we sneaked inside through the garage door. Once inside, we sneaked around and if his older brother found us, he would chase us. That was one of my childhood games (Maniac Mansion)!
I love point-n-click adventure games, but they were so hard. The puzzles were too difficult. As an adult, I look up walkthroughs of those old games and find the solutions to those puzzles to be bizarre!
I love pixel art too. Thimbleweed Park looks like the modern version of pixel art! It is breathtaking. I want to buy or create a poster and hang it up.
Thanks for creating Thimbleweed Park!
I hope there's much more to come in the future!
You're the heros of my childhood. Thanks in advance for Thimbleweed Park!
And now I'm just waiting with anticipation.
I can tell you'll have done a great job, because it's obvious how much you care from these posts. š
Great, and tell your friends about this new *SCUMM* adventure game, the fun never ends!
I know you would do things different now, and hire a producer earlier and this and that.
But my question is... would you do it again? (Kickstart a project, then run a blog and podcast as you develop the game)
I am pretty sure the team will not get this far reading because of really good reasons such as releasing a game in less than 30 hours, but if I were one of them I would cherish as a huge treasure all this wonderful comments in this page. There are beautiful stories here, most of them I feel completely in tune with. There was also a * guy who said some pretty * things, but there always has to be aa annoying LeChuck somewhere to fight against.
Thank you all, including these great people who opened their hearts here showing how important there games have been for who we are today. I am proud of being one of you.
And pretty soon, my 9-year-old girl and I will play TWP together, hopefully passing on some of these great experiences you get playing clever fun games (such as hipnotizing monkeys with metronomes and bananas).
It's really nice that you will play Thimbleweed Park with your daughter.
I will do my best to introduce a bunch of tweens to Thimbleweed Park (one of them already likes Ransome's swearing)
I didn't even know "tween" existed and I guess he mixed those two words up too :-)
Less then 23 hours to go!!11
I wanted to thank you dearly for having set up this blog over the past 2 years. I will be looking to buy the game tomorrow and, later, to treat myself to a boxed copy.
I am not a coder, not a programmer, barely a "gamer" and can't even claim to be a geek. However, yes I do live with some degree of nostalgia, for the 80s where I was born, for the 90s where I discovered your games. Over the past 2 years, believe it or not, your blog has been to me a haven of calm, a place online where I could read things away from online hysteria and a haven from the stress of real life.. In these two years, I have bought an apartment, become the father of a child born prematurely - boy these weeks were so stressful - and my wife is now pregnant with number 2. So, really, your blog has been a haven for me for these past two years, and I do hope to read more of you guys. Hopefully the game is not too stressful (seems to be a bit scary, isnt'it ?) and the game itself can now become this safe space where pressure from grown-up life is set aside.
Thanks for all that you've done, sorry I woke up too late to fund the game initially, and hope you have a lot of success so we get to have more games and blogs from you.
Speak soon
Many thanks to Ron, Garry, the rest of the team and (of course) the many backers who made this project possible. I regret missing out on the backing phase, but will definitely be buying a copy on launch day.
It was and still is refreshing to read such honest words in a development blog.
I really appreciate that since I know how hard it is to say "It was an inspiring and wonderful Time." when you still feel terrified ;)
Tomorrow is the day! So congratulations! Looking foreward for all the projects and blogs to come!
Great idea!
I wish all the best with this new game and would like to know if you can tell me when it will possible to grab one one this ViewTron 3000's ?
I m already fan and wont like to miss the opportunitie to grab on ;) you still have my email in case :)))
Cheers from brussels
Philippe
Also the card set should become available there!
Hm, it actually sucks that I will have to stop playing TWP every 5 minutes to refresh the page so I won't miss it... (just kidding, I have a multi-monitor setup and can let refresh the page automatically, SCIENCE!)
Ron Gilbert(ā) himself posted more than 1000 comments on this site, David Fox(ā) hundreds of comments (1.5 hundred :-).
Do you know, by any chance, how many comments we have written? :-D
Yes, you will find yourself there :-)
I will update it at end of this month.
Well, well, well. I had posted 799 comments until the end of February. That's a lot! Looks like I'm No. 5 overall. :-D
Thanks Nor for the lists, they're great!
@Ron: maybe you can do a tiny (more or less) blog post with statistics of your dev point of view?
- Build numbers exceeded 666 last year: https://twitter.com/grumpygamer/status/811750713210437632
- There are more than 6666 bugs in the database: https://twitter.com/grumpygamer/status/839225700884217856
Heck, he probably finished Thimbleweed Park a couple of days after the campaign ended, then spent all the time laughing at those stupid things for which he has not time, because he's lazy (and he loves the money).
It's just what he does.
P.S. Who's ASWER, by the way?
P.P.S. I LOVE THE MONEY.
https://beam.pro/expertzone_XboxUK
It look sooo great!! I can't wait to play the game :-D I am happy I backed it and I reserved a nice spot for the backer box of course :-)
I started watching it (I loved how RansomeĀ“s trailer tilts to one side to another when he walks, beautiful detail) but a couple of minutes later I closed the tab.. I want to surprise myself while I play.
IĀ“m pretty *beep* anxious. Damn!
I will never be thankful enough and I feel sorry for having cracked most of Lucasarts adventure games back in the 90s, back when I was part of the pc scene (Razor 1911 etc). They were pretty hard to crack, but it was deffo fun. I backed the project since day 1 and I am glad you were able to make this became true. Thanks again, to you and to Gary.
Ps: I hoped there was going to be some kind of old code wheel copy protection but I can live without it heheeh.
I cannot wait to play the game, but this development blog alone, learning how a game like this is made, was worth far more than my backing sum. It was very interesting and very much fun.and one of the three webpages that I had on my daily routine (just to check if there were any news).
DOTT does not count!
He needs to update them to Ultimate Editions at least :-)
http://www.gratissaugen.de/ultimatetalkies/
But, Monkey Island 1 & 2 still would have been two highly recommendable additions, if you don't own them yet.
By the way, if I remember correctly, you also can run MM separately via ScummVM, even if it's the version from DOTT.
https://quickandeasysoftware.net/software/doublefine-explorer
You can just copy all the MM files in an extra folder and import this folder in ScummVM as full functional MM.
The remastered version only has one large file containing all the data. The file is called tenta.cle :-)
I said DOTT doesn't count!
But this should work as absolution http://www.ebay.com/itm/MANIAC-MANSION-Lucasfilm-IBM-PC-1989-Big-Box-Computer-Game-w-HINT-BOOK-/152465573969?hash=item237fa80851:g:ldIAAOSwfVpYwMie :D
Thanks for the data Nor, but considering the price, I think that I will rot in hell being whipped by Ron, Gary and all the dev team.
I've already told you you won't get absolution, so stop dreaming :p
Now I can go to sleep! :-)
ThereĀ“s no place to buy it.
AIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Cheers from Spain
But tell us: What media could have worked to reach you?
Of 30th of March 2017.
I have entered the International Thimbleweed Release Day!!!
@Ron: If you want to delay the game by several hours... I'm fine with it!
Look behind you! A three headed Caponian!
Whoops.... poor Nor Treblig....
I thought we were backing a choose your own adventure Card Game!
PS: Im going to build my deck around the Ransome the clown card, hes got the. Best stats!
https://storage.googleapis.com/images.thimbleweedpark.com/paxaus3.jpg
I look forward to following
I hope so.
I want to float.
PS: @Big Red Button and @Nor Treblig I donĀ“t know why, but I canĀ“t reply to your comments.
IĀ“m doomed.
In a desperate movement, and being myself a graphic designer, I was going to pirate the certificate... until IĀ“ve read RonĀ“s tweet about it.
I like how it provided a great insight into game development, from small technical details to big business decisions. Also the sometimes quite controversial discussions added a lot. (And not only options to the game) Together with the podcasts (which were exactly "my thing"), friday questions, library books, fan events, etc. this was so much more one could ever have hoped for.
Although it undoubtedly was a lot of work, it was (and still is) very much appreciated. So let me, once again, say thanks for letting us take the journey with you.
The Hype burns us precious.
(At least, for European)
The mood is right, I woke up with Michael Jackson's Thriller.
10 hours left....
Great Idea with the Guild Certification.
I hope to see more Games from you since they where back in the Days great and still will be.
As we have seen, putting a game together goes into the same direction - there is the idea, for sure, but then there are so many little things that have to taken care off that it really is amazing that it arraives at a stage where it all is finished and can be released. So thank you Ron, Gary and David and all the others that were involved in this huge work that you have done. As many others here, I was socialised with Zak, Monkey Island & Co. Back then it was just fun to play these games. It is now that I can appreciate what amount of thinking and work went into all this and how well it was designed. But above the designs and work there is one thing that unites this all: Good storytelling.You guys really have a knack on great storytelling. And as we all know, the story is above it all, the story is what really drives people into these kind of games. And how to find good stories? Well, just put the right people at the right time together and enable them to go bananas creative wise.
I do hope Thimbleweed Park will be a huge success and will prove that the craving of humanity for good storys will never stop. And for all of you I wish that you find even more great storys to tell in the future. And now I shut up and give you all my money :)
I'm already wearing my TWP-Shirt (actually the whole week...It already starts smelling).
Thank's a lot! 25 years after I played MI 2 the first time, I'm f*beep*ing excited!! I loved to read the blog and I won't see the sunlight for a few weeks, like in the olden days.
Best regards from Germany!
It was an honor to be a backer of your game! Hopefully another opportunity will come again to support a future project! However reading your posts, you guys first need a well deserved holiday to recharge :)
Cheers to you All!
And he translated lame town/city to "lahme Stadt"... The term "ƶde Stadt" would have been much better. but hey, he did it for free, so maybe he hadn't to much interest in fullfilling it perfectly. I am sure he is a nice person but I never liked his translations. Many terms were just translated 1:1, and that basicly killed the meanings.
Also, Boris wrote in a comment that there are certain reasons why some of the verbs are slightly different from the verbs in the SCUMM games.
The second time maybe in Boris language, with or without voices.
;-)
The Press Kit page on the website should perhaps be updated, now that there's a release date and a price. And soon also the game itself.
What an amazing day for the fans, new and old :)
I feel that there are lots of people fawning this game and "the team" and... maybe is not "the big deal".
Imaging $20 bucks for each game.... multiplied by 1.000.000 or... 10.000.000 ... the game is done... the money is starting to rain in hours and surelly it has bugs not fixed yet.
Now please, let this NOT be Indiana Jones 4 all over again :D j/k it's gonna be f'ing AWESOME!!!
https://w2.countingdownto.com/1759791\
Sooo, the game was released then, I guess? Time for me to get home and start playing!
Still 42 minutes to go!
Thank you Ron!
But the GOG version runs. So it seems to be a problem with Steam stuff. Would make sense. In good old days the copy protection was the main source of problems too.
But TWP might have linked the Steam stuff differently. No time to investigate today. I have an exam tomorrow
Bought the GOG variant which seems to start.
Planned to claim GOG through pledge and buy Steam later. But did get steam key instead and buyed GOG now.
Might be the DRM crap or what are the differences between GOG and Steam
Which board games?
I'm intrigued
But I was wondering. GOG is known for often including bonus materials to their games and with a game fĆ¼r 20 Euros I was expecting to get at least SOME material. Now I've heard that there even is a soundtrack for the game - which sadly is not included as bonus on GOG. In fact NOTHING is included as bonus. That really is a bit sad. Other than that I am still glad I bought the game.
this really takes me back 20+ years playing monkey island. RANSOME i'm old! ^^
my english has gotten a bit better though. i actually started learning english with MI since my uhm you know ah... the version i got a hold of just was english. i am so happy i backed this. already printed my absolution. ;)
thank you so much for this, ron & gary i couldn't be a happier person right know thanks to you. get into this virtual hug, if you like, or step aside awkwardly. ;)
I hope you are joking