Meet Delores
by Ron Gilbert
Aug 17, 2016
Aug 17, 2016
It's time for a new action packed Thimbleweed Park trailer to help celebrate that we're at Gamescom and we're going to be showing the game in the Indie MEGABOOTH at PAX West.
It's time to meet everyone's favorite aspiring 80's game designer and heiress to the pillow factory fortune... Delores Edmund.
- Ron
looking awesome!! I can't wait to play it.
I'm still not sure about the bits where the resolution jumps up (hotel exterior, circus audience).. . there's something uncanny about that, and the zooms, with pixel art... but I guess the kids like it. :D
The only thing which got my attention (uncanny-wise) was the pendulum right at the beginning (sprite rotation).
Two tangential questions (that may have been answered on the blog previously, in which case I missed it):
- do you know whether the iOS port will likely come out in the same/similar time frame as the PC/Mac/etc ones, or is it planned for later on?
- relatedly, as a backer, would I be able to opt for the iOS version?
Thanks for making this game (and all its predecessors! :)
The puking scene really stays with me (in a good way).
Just out of curiosity: Is Delores really used like that in the States? It's not the first time I've seen it and it looks really weird to me... the original name in spanish is Dolores.
I think I like her voice.
If I remember correctly, this is Ransome's flashback. And, Delores seems to be a bit smaller/younger. Therefore, the incidents from the flashback happened several years before '87.
By the way, at 01:00 we can see the tree from the "Design Dilemma" blog entry.
Thanks for the video.
I think to remember that it wasn't really clear why/who changed their colour to cyan in the later versions, but if you look at this trailer: they are now greenish!?
Maybe this was the intended colour. Or it's a compromise between pink and cyan. Or their army of lawyers told them the original colours are off-limits.
"We wanted them to be odd and cyan was one of the few colors (C64 [-> EGA] Palette!) that looked OK. They sort of looks dead or creepy.
- Ron"
The C64 had a cyan color, so if they had wanted, they could have used it. Amiga and Atari editions changed that from rosy to cyan – LATER.
I wish we had someone here who could solve this puzzle…
I think this puzzle is already solved, Ron just had C64 <-> EGA mistaken in his post.
(note: on PC the first version was the C64 one, but the later v2/EGA for PC also had cyan Edisons)
They probably couldn't use cyan on C64 because of it's limitations (e.g. in Zak you get the last diving suit with transparent gloves [they couldn't use an additional colour for the hands/gloves] :-).
Regarding C64, I have my doubt about your explanation. They used the rosy color only for the skin – it was also part of the sprite, which had nothing to do with the background. So it should have been easy to just replace it with cyan, from the beginning. (Might be wrong, I am no C64 developer.)
In the end, it doesn’t really matter though. Now that ScummVM supports the C64 version in full, I’m satisfied and will play only this version. With the nicer skin color, in my opinion.
You may be right that there weren't technical limitations, I'm also not a C64 developer.
But they intentionally decided to use another skin colour in the later versions. And the reason it's cyan was because of the EGA colour palette but looking at TWP it wasn't a colour they really wanted.
And since they didn't use pink either you should patch the actor colours in your C64 files to match that green and play the game how it really was supposed to be meant!
Don't fight against it: green is the new pink/cyan!
@Ron: Is every team member somewhere in this picture or elsewhere in the game?
It's pretty much the same, except there's no door between the clock and the staircase.
...or is there? ;)
Anyway, looks amazing. :D
I guess somebody is watching...
Finally the staircase are not "out of order" anymore!
(Think, Phoenix, think... let's see things from another point of view.)
--- SUSPENCE MUSIC ---
(
The game is set in 1987. It's a fact. We already have determined that.
So, how it's possible to see references of characters in the future, like Zak McKracken, Annie Larris and a representative of the future TPC?
That's clearly a contradiction. Unless...
I got it!!!
)
OBJECTION!
--- SBAMM! ---
What you see it's not what it seems.
Those characters does not come from the future!
They are people of the Thimbleweed Town of 1987, dressed in an original way, just to seem cooler than other inhabitants!
It is that other game, set in 1988, that took their characters from this one, set in 1987, because they looked so good!!
--- AUDIENCE APPLAUSE ---
Note that this is a flashback so it's actually many years before 1987!
David Fox said Zak plays in 1997 (you know that by heart, right?).
Of course this doesn't mean they couldn't have visited a circus some time in their past (Zak and Annie sitting next to each other is of course coincidence, or fate).
This only means Zak was relatively old in his game (he looks like a grown up in TWP + age of flashback (9..10 years) + 10 years -> this would mean he was ~40 years old in his game).
Works for me.
But Fans are trying to do that. :) You can't even stop that process. Ask some writers. (Terry Pratchet wrote a note/an article(?) about this phenomen.) Fans are trying to "build" the univers around a story/a game/a film. And they hate it, when something in the univers is not logical. :)
Thimbleweed Park is just a convenient way to show where it all began.
And yes, David stole Annie from Zak.
Btw. according to Sandy the circus scene happened in 1977 or 1978. That explains why Ron looks so young in that scene.
I think I spotted collectable specks of dust in several scenes (unless they're coins or something else)
SPOLILIERRERS!! If you don't want to know the locations of the dust, look away now...
00:31 - right side of the screen, on the path by the fence
00:34 - on the ground under the spotlight on the left (not sure if that is one, might just be light shining)
00:38 - on the sidewalk underneath the door with "Keep Out" on it
00:47 - on the floor, in front of the operation table thing, far left of screen (gotta wait for the screen to scroll fully left)
00:50 - on the floor of the elevator, easy to spot
00:54 - on the floor at Thimblecon, left side of the screen, bit below the action figures table
00:57 - right side of the screen, on the grass just below the fence, quite close to the "do not play on or around" sign
00:59 - on the floor in front of the back door
01:00 - on the floor of the morgue place, right bottom corner of screen
But, according to the cleverness of the creators, puzzles involving codes, numbers, drawings are never the same every time the game is restarted.
Even for the specks of dust, their position are random, whitin certain limits.
Here is a code snippet published by The Almighty™ Ron Gilbert on twitter:
https://twitter.com/grumpygamer/status/754376317768900609
All my dust-spotting work for nothing, this is as frustrating as Sierra's "Dust Quest 3"!
I'm thinking of the "lo-res" part of her name, as in Low Resolution where things get very... blocky.
And is there a Dehires as well?
(Just kidding!)
I will bei at Gamescom on Saturday.
Will bei wearing a gamescom t-shirt with "MarkB2000" on the back side.
Will check out XBOX stand first.
Will you go to adventure-treff party on Friday?
I will bei there.
Markus
unfortunately I couldn't be there, no tickets found and it's too late now.
Just wanted to know, who are those lucky human beings! :-)
Glad to read that you are one of them!
Happy playing!
I'm making plans and 5 of the things in it are just to play this game.
Exciting Times!
Milan Games Week 2016 (Milan, Italy)
From 14 to 16 October 2016
It is the largest consumer show dedicated to Italian gaming world, promoted by the Association of the video game category, and organized by Fandango Club. 32,000 sqm of game with national premieres, tournaments, retrogaming, cosplay, indie area and junior area.
A mega store with special offers, super-guests and much more! :-)
Microsoft and XBOX is also present...
... any chance to see Thimbleweed Park demo there?
well done...you've made my day, week, month...can't wait to play it....
Enjoy your time at Gamescon
Thank you for doing this, I can't wait. As many have said, is just like when I was waiting for Monkey Island 2 to come out! :-)
He's a real genious!
Too bad it was in the 18+ section (but you know, fire-puking and stuff :-).
Btw.: Did you ask why? I wonder if it was because of smoking, or just a problem with exhibition space.
I too wouldn't want to really play it until it's done.
I know you've been pouring a lot into this game...and it already looks so incredible...I'm just curious, will you please make another game after this?!!
I look forward to play the game. I will buy it for Linux and or Android.
I really wait for it.
One thing that I already seen in the trailers doesn't like me too much. It's a bit confusing.
Are road signs part of the population?
The shoot to the road sign decrease the population count...
Maybe add another shoot sound (the successful one)?
Let me know, that thing really disturb me :-P
What else can i say? I am a backer as the most of us here and i still can wait until it's release.
We have to wait 4-5 months from now, you just had the opportunity to taste the game, and reading your post it feels... yummy! :-)
(Although I am still convinced that the original look from the Kickstarter would have been the better choice for a “1987” game, where the current look would be perfect for its “1992” successor. But of course, this is personal taste only. It just feels like having lost something by the replacement, which is a true pity – I liked the original style very much.)
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EEFsN_dRN-c/UEGM-Mq3bLI/AAAAAAAAC6Q/NDxRQ3jrA90/s400/202+In+Right+Eye.jpg
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bNpTHYSuOjQ/UEk7hcJejlI/AAAAAAAADBk/3vA5ZIyjkBA/s1600/47+Cave.JPG
No need to be offended.
In principle, I would have liked the style from the Kickstarter page, too, and I think that it would have demonstrated wonderfully that the story, the characters and the puzzles are what characterizes a good adventure game most, rather than the graphics. Though, I think that Mark Ferrari's more sophisticated art style makes the game more epic and immersive. Maybe I also like it because I began to play adventure games not until the 90s, when Zak and MM were already a bit outmoded. In my opinion, the early 90s have been the May of this genre.
Well, seeing that Ron prefers smooth scaling, he could actually experiment with smoother pixel-true low-res character scaling via anti-aliasing, which wasn't available back then. As an option, of course.
The thing is: the artists hate it, they always have. Although I would have slightly preferred the original vision, the current style (looking more like the VGA versions of such games) is also great.
It's also more suitable for a larger audience which is good thing if it means more adventure games from Terrible Toybox will be created!
It will probably take about a week trying out all the game options and control options.
The original controls of Maniac Mansion were horrible :-)
I played the EGA version on PC back then. With Numpad you could snap the cursor near the four corners of the screen. I couldn't imagine playing it with a joystick, e.g. running from Edna&Co would be so much harder...
Satisfaction!!!
I remember using the Numpad in Indy3 to scan through all the books, on every shelf, in every section...
This was slightly easier than using the mouse.
But I don't blame it: it was part of the way to solve such a game back then. No walkthoughs available on the internet, no pics posted by someon with the indication: "click here".
Just word of mouth: "you know, in the whole library just 3 books can be picked up"....
And you start pixel hunting with faith, hoping that was not simply a legend.
Because legends arose on these games.... I spent months on the edge of the cliff of the third trial in Indy3. Everybody between my friends was sure it was a matter of pixel hunting. To pass, you have to click on a precise spot.
God knows if I have tried every single pixel.
Then somebody suggested me the supposed "right spot".
I went in the room, clicked there, and ta-da! It worked.
Only many years after, reading a walkthrough on the net, I realized that the spot where you clicked didn't count at all, but all you had to do was to click immediately as entering the room...
There were a lot of rumors about those game back then, e.g. kids imagined stories about areas in games behind closed doors which you actually cannot go through etc. (for instance the stairs in Maniac Mansion).
Another rumor was you could feed the meteor to the plant. I was never able to do that, but apparently this one was a true one! (well, it was NES only)
First of all, the booth itself was in the last corner of the hall; inside was only one single console built up. When we entered, all other consoles were in use, just not Thimbleweed Park. (Our luck!) Still, these surroundings were bad advertisement for this game.
We didn’t see Robert (Friday, about 3pm). So no items for us. The visit as such was a bit disappointing, to be honest.
But the game looks very good so far. The few minutes of gameplay were obviously not enough! :-P
Why I write this as a reply to you? Because of your question about the Polaroid film. My friend had the same issue. When he handed the controller over to me, I could do it instantly. The reaseon was that he, being a PC player, didn’t know that A is the normal “click” button. He used “X” for that, which takes the “favorite” action. This worked very well for most of the time – except for the Polaroid film, where “look at” was chosen when used with X. Maybe this is also the reason why it didn’t work for you…?
About waiting and crying children: To put Thimbleweed Park in an “18 above” booth is… well, see paragraph 1.
You are on a very good way regarding the game. The presentation was not so lucky.
but maybe they put it in there, to limit the viewers with only 1 TP xbox console.
Enough complaining. At least we had the chance to see it live and in color. ;-)
What say.. TP is AWESOME!!
I player all the demo until the end.. lot of cue but inside noone play or knows TP :(
I run on the monitor with TP but Robert wasn't there. Another guy show me the game and give me A LOT of merch.
Play with controller is good. Very easy and fast. I didn't believe in pad for an adventure game but it works. Btw i'll play with mouse and keyboard :D.
The thing more impressive for me was the 16/9 graphics for an adventure.. i play from 1990 (my first game was monkey island that i still play like other adventures). It's a very strange sensation to see what you always saw in 320x200 or 640x480 in the glory of 1920x1080. I can't explain but i really liked it!!
i appreciated lot of new things (vs. monkey island) in the game..
I can't say nothing more.. just it's hard to wait now!!
Thx to all TP for existing!!!
A few months to wait...
*booohoooohoooo!* Nobody gave me anything there! *sniff*
And you were allowed to stay unless somebody else would have wanted to play themselves? Really? We had to leave with all the others.
A.We.S.O.M.E.
I was yesterday at Gamescom and had only a few minutes to play too. But unfortunately not the whole Demo
Just a few minutes but what I saw was just awsome. I can´t wait for it. So much detail and hidden fun and references to other games.
The audience at the circus - just great.
Walking back an forward in the circus trailer- it leans a bit! Fantastic work and ideas.
Text ist fading in and out. Really smoth animations at all. All this new stuff but I was instantly thrown back to my Childhood and had a constant grin in my face. :)
Its much more than expected.
It looks fantastic on a big screen und playing with a pad works too. But I will of course play with a mouse. Now I´m much more excited.
Did I say I CAN´T WAIT FOR IT???
@ Ron & Gary and all other involved
I Love you! Really! That´s weird, but I have to say it.
When did you say starts the Kickstarter Campaign for Thimbleweed Park 2 ? :D
Can´t wait for the realase, damn
Best wishes
Tim
A.W.E.S.O.M.E.
awesome*
Damn
Btw no one disturb me while i finish the demo.. i think approximately 15 minutes or less.
When i finish that the guy give me merch and noone from microsoft tell me to leave..
I stop at MONSTER BOY monitor but was occupied so i leave by myself.
indeed the room was very hidden.. i had to spoke with microsoft ppl to ask where was!
Probabily the best game in the Convention!! :))))))))
There where several games shown together and a bunch of peaople could get in every time the opened the "Door".
I had to wait until the door opened again but they stopped me and two guys in front of my and closed the door again.
grrrr, ok again wait until the next group can get in... wait... wait... wait...
When the door opened again, there where still some people from the last group inside and three of them where still standing at the Thimbleweed station an talked to the Guy who presented the game while playing it. (I´m really sorry I did not recognize his Name I was immediately looking at the game )
It was really fun seeing it and I was just looking at the game and could barely hear what he was talking about. But I think he was really into the details too, but his audience was more like "whoa look at this and this, isn´t it funny" but did not see the real funny and hidden stuff. He was talking about some blinking lights and details about them, but nobody of them was listening or understanding his effort really I think.
Long story short, when they finally finished, and the three peoble where gone, the presenter layed down the XBox Pad, welcomed me and walked away for a break i think. I just grabbed the pad and startet the Demo from the beginning, when shortly after that some XBOX/Microsoft Staff member came to tell me the next group is comming and I should go... :(
I grabbed a Thimbelweed Button (Ok, three) and went out crying. Ok, without crying but I was really sad I could not play more by myself.
I shot a few fotos with my cellphone (including the presenter) but I don´t know if it´s ok to show them.
Regards Tim
Since it was a public demo, I think there is no problem in showing your photos.
If you please, I'm curious :-)
Thank you
Unfortunatelly I could not talk to him an just saw his tweet asking for last beer and a location for it in cologne after the Show... to late :(
I think I should look more often in twitter :)
https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0BysO7KsUgaE_T0s3cmN6MXIyQ2s&usp=sharing
Hope this will start a new series...
P.S.: We should all get access to the bugtracker :-)