Friday Questions
by Ron Gilbert
Aug 27, 2015
Aug 27, 2015
In the interest of making the Friday podcast more exciting (for us and for you), we've decide to add a "Friday Questions" section where David, Gary and I answer and chat about your questions. I think it will be more fun to answer them on the podcast, than in the comments because we can talk about the answers and have more fun with it. If there is anything this project needs, it's more fun.
OK, so this is how it works. In the comments, ask us a question and we'll grab 10 or so that are interesting and/or informative and do our best to answer them.
You have until 10 am (PDT) Friday to post your questions and please keep them focused on Thimbleweed Park or the adventure games one of us was involved in.
- Ron
Questions are closed
Are there any adventure games from the past ten or so years that you really like (that aren't your own)?
Will you do a "creator commented" version of the game (that blog is barely satisfying my curiosity)?
Will the game be multi-player? Is there going to be a FPS version of it, with 81 different pick-able characters (sorry 80)?
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Bonus Quetion: What scenario (game world) would you choose for another adventure?
Besides Twin-Peaks, true detective and X-files, what inspirations do you draw on for Thimbleweed park??
And a follow-up question would be if the Navigator-head from Monkey Island also was inspired by the talking severed head of The Re-animator.
But hey, since you (Ron) are obviously managing it very well, this might actually become really interesting to hear about. Even the “other guy” may learn from you – maybe? ;-)
(The advantages of not having a publisher are obvious, but maybe there is also something positive that you didn't expect?)
2. More technical: Have you figured out the interface for touchscreen devices (where you don't have a mouse pointer to hover over objects)? Will the Windows version support touchscreens for users on Windows 8/10, or will there be a separate dedicated Windows 10 version with touchscreen support?
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/07/06/rpg-adventure-kickstarter/
I'd be curious to hear your take. His point seemed to be that adventure games were the AAA blockbuster games of their time, pushing the limits of what was possible, and that today's adventure game revivalism is aping those designs without bringing that spirit of pushing boundaries. The mechanics of those old games—the verbs, the inventory items—were at the time genuinely the best way to draw you into another universe and allow you to interact with it on a deeper level than anything else, but now those mechanics can feel like limitations: why can't I interact with the scenery or NPCs?
Should today's adventure game creators be "recreating *the feel* we had when playing those games rather than specific experiences that don’t hold up"?
I know TWP has all along prided itself on being a nostalgic victory lap, which I think is cool, but I would love to hear your thoughts on the critique overall.
Do you think Thimbleweed Park has an advantage in that you were able to learn from some of the other games' mistakes?
And if you had been the first Kickstarted adventure game, do you think you would have done things differently and been more likely to have succumbed to the same pitfalls that other games have?
Any games you are taking inspiration from for Thimbleweed Park?
Aside from the "verb interface" (if we can call it that), which do you consider a good point-n-click game interface from other games you played?
2) Do you like cats? Cats should be in the game.
3) I read on a magic book that you have the intention to reuse the engine you are making for making a glorious, very awaited sequel, for completing a trilogy of a game. Is that true?
It is a technical question, but seems like it would have a big impact on making pixel art look right/intentional/pretty on different systems.
Seems like a great business model: sell the game before you even start, and make everyone feel part of the process.
Forget Kickstarter.. It could be a subscription model.. I bet we could find 5000 fans of your work to give $10 to $20 each per month for access to fun development blogs and a free adventure game every 18 months.
Will there be reference to previouw Lucas Arts adventures like Zak Mc Cracken, or Maniac Mansion, or Day of the Tentacle in the game TWP ? Like drawings of paintings in a room or something like that to remember about the older adventure games? Also with some funny scentence when you draw the mousepointer over such object.
a) Would you make games for oldschool platforms if the audience was still big enough to carry it (i know, its not, but still)?
d) regarding b), do you think the universe and characters you created for tp will be re-used in any of your follow up games, adventure or not?
g) will TP include telemetry and data collection code?
c) can you point me to a place where I can learn the correct alphabet?
f) what do you think of Evoland 2? =)
Why the Lucas games' boxes had the marble themes?
Check out the comments section of the Facebook post by Mr. Fox on November 19th in the group "we want Zak McKracken and the alien mind benders special edition"; there's already some background on the marble design there.
What do you guys think of ScummVm?
2. The mood of the general design is very „Blue Hour“ like, similar to „Loom“ or „Monkey Island 1“. Do you plan to create a similar look and feel to that game, from the visual Part or was it not a aim?
3. Why are you taken so much care of create a pendant to the old game, but not to the music (Why are you guys not working again with Michael Land, because he was a important aspect of the look and feel of the old games).
4. Do you plan to add some other „old“ guys from the Lucasfilm Days, like Tim Schafer or Dave Grossmann to the game? (Tim Schafer wrote the great Dialogue with Stan in Monkey 1)
5. If you write the engine for the game by yourself: Can this be the reason for delays in the production ?
6. You work first time with Mark Ferrari since the old Lucasfilm Days: Why is he painting the stars different, like in Monkey Island and Loom? (they look like dots and are not blinking !!!)
7. A Question to David Fox: If you crash the egg in Zak it is not possible to get the oxygen tank in the airplane. Than you have a problem on Mars. What should I do (in Zak McKracken) and: Is it possible that you guys could create a new Zak Mc Kracken Game?
8. What happened to Stan? Will Stan appear in in Thimbleweed Park?
9. Will there be text like „You can turn out you’re computer. Maybe you could go out and play with you’re friends!“ at the end of Thimbleweed Park?
10. Will there be Maps in Thimbleweed like in Monkey1 and: How many different locations are you planning? Just the town in Thimbleweed or some other cities/islands that we can explore?
11. Will it be possible to travel like in Monkey 1 / Fate of Atlantis / Crusade / Zak: Airplanes, Boats, Cars ???
12. Will there be a action sequence ???
13. A question to Gary: Do you design different visual looks for feelings for the characters: fear, happiness, laughing, annoyance ???
14. Do you plan to publish the game also in DVD cases, like Limbo or Broken Age ???
15. What are you guys thinking of Games like „Limbo“ or „Broken Age“ ???
16. What about Noah Fahlstein ??? You need Noah !!! :D
17. Do you have called Steve Purcell for a short meeting ???
18. Do you have some contacts to old Lucas Arts people, what are they thinking about Timbleweed Park ???
19. Could you imagine to introduce you’re game also at different places like Comic Conventions (Comic Con) or do a small Tour and visiting country like Germany (like Don Rosa did) for signing video game packages and answering questions to you’re fans ???
20. Could you imagine to write a book about you’re old games and about the history ???
Oh yeah! Don Rosa visited also our small (200K) town in northern Finland. Line was waaaay too long. Would queue for TP team though.
Re 8 : Stan is canonically trapped in one of his previously owned coffins. A chuck the plant appearance seems more plausible.
Re 7: How do you crash the egg? (use in sink; turn on switch (shredder) ?) Anyway, restarting would be the only solution I know of. Yes, Zak was not perfect.
General remark to Ron, Gary, David & Mark: I see the word "old" was used a LOT in Peter's questions above. I think I can safely speak for all of us that we as fans do not think you guys are *old*. We are equally long-term fans. Middle-aged, perhaps. Nostalgic, probably. Old-school, for sure. In a good way. Please, don't be mad... mind your blood pressure! ;)
How about encryption of savegamedata?
Have Sierra tried to recruit you?
Did you try to hire the composer that composed the great music for the NES version of Maniac Mansion?
Did you like the tv show Twin Peaks? (I do!)
I read somewhere that TWP is partly inspired by Twin Peaks.
Is that true?
Ron:
Since you allowed a question about an older adventure game...
What is the question you've ever wanted to be asked about
your Monkey Island games but no one did so far? And please answer it.
2. Will there be any multi-headed animals?
3. Is there going to be any relation to Twin Peaks?
*Uneducated because I have no direct connection to this project, but wish that I did lol. (Other than posting here)
http://www.conversationstarters.com/generator.php
1. Does the engine support elevated terrain? E.g., it would be nice for the actors to actually climb the curb at the Quickie Pal. Although I'm pretty sure that was hacked together, Monkey Island 2 has this cool effect on the road that leads to the Governor's Mansion, where Guybrush can walk on a hill as well as behind it. I wrote an adventure game engine some years ago and implemented this as part of the walk-box system because of that particular room in MI2.
2. Will any of the rooms be seen from non-typical angles (e.g., seeing a neighbourhood from above or something)? Or is that just too expensive in terms of asset creation?
3. If you continue to make adventure games after Thimbleweed Park is released, how do you expect to fund them? Ideally, the sales from Thimbleweed Park would cover the next project but I don't think that's realistic due to the small market, as excited as I am about the game personally. Do you think a company can successfully crowdfund more than one project without folks raising eyebrows? On the bright side, you can reuse the engine so that will save you something.
4. Should you continue to make adventure games, do you expect you might stray away from low-resolution pixel art? I'm curious whether your ideal vision for the company is to create games like those from the Lucasfilm Games era, whether you hope to treat every game on a case-by-case basis, or whether Thimbleweed Park has low-resolution art simply due to limited financial resources?
Cheers.
And here are some of the details of the same question:
What do you think about the UI in general in adventure games? Do you think the one that you are using is the best? Why?
You are using in the Thimbleweed Park, do you ever think is worth tweaking it to be a better user experience other than using the classic ones that you have designed back then?
At least do you ever consider to have an alternative to the current classic version? Like what you have achieved such in The Cave?
Maybe it is not worth to change it all since it is the classical adventure game you have been building and this is that nostalgia, but do you consider making some interactive jokes in game related to the UI alternatives in other adventure games?
Thanks and looking forward to the Podcast :)
How exactly will the phonebook be used in the game?
When should we expect to submit our answering machine messages?
How do you intend to deal with reviewing all of the submitted messages?
Please Don't Hurt My Feelies
Have you given any consideration to what kind of feelie you intend to include with the boxed copy?
Or, will it have to be a surprise?
The Lesser of Two Evils
Which do you least like when playing or designing a classic adventure game: mazes, or pixel hunting?
Which scenario do you think is most (or least) enjoyable for a game-adventurer:
You find yourself in a dark room and need to "feel" your way around the room with the mouse cursor;
or, you are stuck in a maze, of sorts, and you need to solve a puzzle to navigate your way to its end.
Since both of these puzzle mechanisms have been done before, would you ever retread them, perhaps if you added a new "twist"?
Get Figgy With It
What are your thoughts on Fig (a new crowd-funding platform)? Pros? Cons? Would you consider doing a crowd-funded game again, and if so which would you do?
Back In My Day
Is the game still set in 1987 (or, thereabouts)? If so, are you making sure to squeeze loads of late-80s and early-90s references to pop culture and technology of the time?
Lastly.
Ron, do you know that you're my hero?
I meant to ask which crowd-funding method would you consider.
(No, this is not a question which should be addressed during the podcast.)
Guys, please follow Natalija’s example and check whether your questions are relevant to others and “worthier” than the ones already raised. Ron has better things to do than read through dozens of pages just to find 10 good questions.
Nothing personal, just think about it.
2. In the comments to the blog post "Cutting" several users (including myself ;-) ) pointed out they would like to see the bank vault kept in the game. Did you reconsider your decision to cut this room?
- being fed up with the concept
- simply because it wouldn't be possible to finish because of a limited budget or lack of resources
- because the concept turned out to be way to ambitious?
Working on an adventure game myself now and in a stage where any of the above could happen.
Ron, in retrospect, is there anything you would have done differently about Monkey Island? Some features that you would have cut or things that you would have liked to include?
Is there some feature in Thimbleweed Park is totally new to adventure games? Something no one else tried before?
Is Thimbleweed Park art? After seeing Mark Ferrari's amazing backgrounds, I'm pretty sure it, at least, includes some fantastic art! But is the game art? Why? Are all games art?
How have things you've seen in recent years influenced your work? There have been so many amazing TV series like Breaking Bad, The Walking Dead and cool movies like Ex Machina, which makes me sure your perception of entertainment must be different nowadays than in the Lucasarts days.
What's your opinion about indie games. In some ways I think how you worked in Lucasarts days is similar to indie production, but at the same time it had a lot of AAA production.
What are your favourite games nowadays? Are you excited about any of this year big games like MGS V, Fallout 4 and The Witcher 3? I'm pretty sure that Thimbleweed Park will be one my GOTY in 2016!
Finally, will we get to know The Secret of Thimbleweed Park?
Might sound mundane, but it tells you a lot about a person and even more when someone reacts to the answer.
How come Michael Land, Clint Bajakian and Peter McConnell aren't involved in Thimbleweed Park?
Also, what made you decide to go with an Action RPG, instaid of Point and Click Adventure for your next title? Do you think your game engine will perform well with the 5 player co-op mentioned as a stretch goal in kickstarter last week?
Lastly, there has been rumors that your next title will also be an Oculus Rift exclusive and John Carmack will personally be assisting in the development and optimization of the new engine, can you confirm?
°Ransom the clown, executive press for the Thimbleweed Times
I don't particularly care about the label, because I'm old and hate everyone original hips, but I'm just curious about your take on it. Thanks, guys!
Also: Don't you think that doing a kickstarter to get the rights to license Monkey Island and create a new version'3' would be a great idea after completing Timbleweek Park? (You know you'd be funded within a day or 2 right?)
I wonder, if we dangled a big enough carrot in front of them...?
...or, I suppose, a big enough piece of cheese?
in all honesty I've come to associate the two together now =)
Like the Wild Maniac Monkey Mindbenders Bunch.
So why not making your own adventure game design company/label?
Someday maybe get the rights for the old lucas projects back.
There should be backers out there who would back the money for you to buy the rights for your stuff.
And in this case a good bait could be the making of MI3.
What you think?
verb
give or apportion (something) to someone as a share or task.
Here's my question: Can you give a bit of detail on the technology available in the early 1980s to design and create video games, from your personal experience? For instance, was it all C=64s and people punching in Assembly Language opcodes, or were there VAX or PDPs with cross-compilers and emulators?
And for bonus points, how were the sound effects designed back then? Was it someone playing with knobs, sliders, and patch cables on a synth console until something sounded right? Was it someone analysing natural sounds spectrally using an Oscilloscope and other machines? Or was it just some dude PEEK-n-POKEing the SID randomly until it sounded interesting?
Inquiring minds want to know! :)
-dZ.
Gary:: Were you ever tempted to try and use old-school tools like DPaint under emulation for that extra bit of authenticity and are there any drawbacks to using modern tools to recreate the look?
Everyone: It's only 6 months in, but if you were to do this again, what is the biggest thing would you do differently if anything?
I started with game development (Im software engineer but just this year I start with game development) and I wan to know if you have pieces of code (free ,open source,etc..) or recommended lecture to start learning.. I read this blog (I love it ) and other ones , but I feel that there is a gap between a novice game developer like me and the this that you are showing.
Thanks
Is that something you are required to register but didn't bother to do so?
Maybe you can do 10 this week, Answer 10 the next. And, 10 the next.
Pick 10 questions on Thimbleweed game-related questions this week.
Pick 10 techy programmy things for the following week.
Answer 10 questions about Monkey Island (and other past projects) the week after.
At what point do you think derivation becomes imitation? Paying "homage" to something is often looked at in a positive manner. How does that differ than plagiarism, other than that of acknowledging the original artist?
Can you describe how the ideas of Thimbleweed came about? The story, its characters?
Also, when I played through The Cave (which I really liked), it did remind me of an old C64 game I liked by Datasoft, The Goonies. It was an action platformer that relied heavily on puzzle-solving (but you could not carry items). It was a bit different than other games at the time due to the puzzle-solving element. Did you ever play that game?
As far as I understood your answer ( http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/doing_better/550322d08195c313789bbdf3 ) you were considering it.
Any news? :-)
(BTW: I don't know why those two links has the wrong date and time. http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/doing_better has the correct timestamps.)
Long time fan of your games. It's crazy that I'm 45 and was playing your games in my 20's and still look forward to every release. I can remember living in Virginia Beach surfing all day waiting tables by night, but after work some cold beers a pizza and Monkey Island adventures were a perfect way to end the day. It was a great time for games because you had set the bar for a new gaming platform/engine very high and everyone else had to conform to the new standard. I started my gaming in the late 70's with Zork and working my way up....seeing monkey island at that time was like going from tube TV to 4k....it was like wow....right. Now my kids 9(boy) and 13(girl) and replaying your games with me having a great time. It's funny but I look back at the puzzle solving aspect and how the worlds were developed. You made the player think outside the box, use multiple tools or what you needed may have been right in front of you. I think in some ways this type of thinking strategy has helped me in life to not limit my thinking and to look for what might not reveal itself in the typical form. This is hard for some people and easier for others. I enjoy seeing my kids look for these solutions. I'm working for a Financial Firm helping people retire and save money and solving each persons unique financial puzzle based on their willingness to take risk. My Question: The money that you receive from your initial fundraising along with sales and royalties from past and future games are you guys allocating a certain percentage of the sales towards future games and hopefully part towards retirement. Thanks Hope you guys have a great weekend. Rob