Thimbleweed Park Podcast #14

I certainly also think you should keep the big head characters, as in Maniac Mansion. It gives it a certain charm, even without nostalgia making my judgement.

Personally I like that C64 font. But that is only because you mentioned it was C64. Which takes me to the next point: I really hope there will be a reference to C64, like that subtle reference to Beta Max (movietron-beta-rent-2000 in the store).

Project is looking fantastic guys. Thanks for including us backers in this process.

WHERE WAS MARK?!

I hope you keep the C64 font and the bobbleheads!

You answered all concerns from my comment in previous article, thanks. I would also suggest to add additional characters to make the game more funny like: rat, cat, dog, birds etc. randomly behaving in some scenes.
Just question about voice overs...will you have any dialogue document for audition? I would like to participate.

Hi Ron,

What if none of the dialogue conditions [] are true? Will the engine skip all options #1 and show the next line of dialogue on the first position?
What if none of all dialogue lines have a true condition( a corner case and bad dialogue design), but wouldn't that get the player stuck, as there is no line to be clicked on.

Oh and thanks  for your code review on my fountain dialogue!

At first I understood "The Fonz in the verbs." and thought this game starts to get really interesting. But unfortunately it was just my bad english.

I'm all in for consistency. I like the *enhanced* old-school-style mark is delivering. When the shiny new inventory icons arrive, the interface font may seem odd. I trust you in finding a better font.
BUT..
For my brain the c64 font is inseparable connected to the golden age of adventure games. In my (sad puppy)eyes the use of more funky, comical fonts and the abolition of verbs in general accompanied the decline of the genre. I know there is no direct connection.
So i ask you kindly, please, if you happen to find a better font, please make an option to revert the interface to this bulky, meta-pixel-y primordial font. please?!? (wish for both birthday and christmas)

I like the idea of using a different font for the verbs - still pixelated, but something unique to Thimbleweed Park.

It was cool how the LucasArts games all had an overall LucasArts feel in common, BUT at the same time they all had their own individual styles within that too.

There were different verb styles for Monkey Island, Indy, and Day of the Tentacle and it helped give those games their own character.
I also liked how Simon the Sorcerer 1 did that as well, they aped the LucasArts verb system, but had their own font style to it.

Actually, the part about the .yack syntax was interesting... as I'd like to second Matthew's python implementation of a dialog tree parser from a few days ago with yet another parser done in Perl. It even has terminal ANSI colors for speaker coloring, yikes!

https://github.com/isync/twp-dialog-parser

Let me just again add that graphics like these would have been *easily* accomplishable on 1987 consumer hardware.
A well programmed Amiga, or an Amiga with a small accelerator would have been able to pull this off.
The X68000 would have been able to do this with ease.
The a Acorn Archimedes (first ARM CPU) would also have been able to do this.

The only thing that is doubtful would be the soundtrack. That could be done with a CD drive of course.  But none of the computers had a CD drive available at the time. But still theoretically and economically possible.
I'd prefer a chip tune track anyway though, I think.

So no anachronisms here.

Just had a thought. How about if you instead of going click click, clicking click, to walk around, instead enable the player to just hold down the button (or finger on the touchscreen) and move the cursor around the screen, and the character would follow?
It would make make navigation more fluent and less stop and go.

Would you ever consider a mini fundraiser via something like IndieGoGo to bring Tim Schafer on to write dialog puzzles and dialog trees? To raise enough $$ to contract Tim for a month as a writer.

It would be so cool to have a collaboration on something like that, and very fitting given the nostalgic throwback that the game is!!

I would definitely contribute!

How about a modding tool, with which you could alter the dialogue-trees to the game and share the dialogue-packages with other players? I think it would probably create a nice thing for the community and enhance replayability.

Of course it would still only be optional to click and drag. The two aren't mutually exclusive. If for example you are walking through a scrolling room, it makes a lot more sense to just drag the cursor to the right or left and then hold the button down until you have reached your desired spot.

It cracks me up all the people suggesting this, that and everything should be an option.
That is not how you design a great game, a great application or a great interface in general.
The game designer makes those decisions because he alone is the expert, not you.
You should receive a finished, neatly wrapped up product. Not a sandbox filled with toys.

Rather than having a look which emulates a specific time in video game development, for me the retro idea is about setting limits. A limited palette, limited animation phases, limited scrolling, etc. Limits which make the designer think about how to adapt to what it possible.

In that way I like for example the dithered background of the art, which on the one hand deals with the rule dicating a "crude" look, but using those limitations so elegantly that the initial problem or task still gets solved. This is the quality which is immensely important for me, no matter whether the final palette is closer to MM, MI2, I3 or even some fictional game from a parallel time in which graphics progressed in a different order.

Are there already limits like those defined or is it a purely artistic decision from case to case?