Thimbleweed Park Podcast #39

by Ron Gilbert
Jan 30, 2016

Proof that you don't have to know what your doing to make a game.

You can also subscribe to the Thimbleweed Park Podcast RSS feed if that's 'your thing'.

You can also get the podcast directly from iTunes.

- Ron



Carlo Valenti - Jan 30, 2016 at 16:06
Nice podcast! I will listen to it :)
Thank you!

Carlo Valenti - Jan 30, 2016 at 16:14
Ron, how and when do you build/revise the task schedule? How Often? With the whole team?
What do you mean when at the end of the podcasts you say "I will talk to each one of you later" to your team?

Mikee - Jan 30, 2016 at 17:07
Will there be open auditions for the characters?

Sushi - Jan 30, 2016 at 17:28
Nose glasses? All right!!
Small spoiler, but still: all right!

Zak Phoenix McKracken - Jan 30, 2016 at 17:53
I am now curious to see the Xbox version of the game, with direct movement of the character! I think it will be cool, à la "The Cave".

Big Red Button - Jan 31, 2016 at 09:27
... or á la Tales of Monkey Island. I think it may appear more contemporary than the simple cursor control from the NES ot the C64.

On the one hand direct character movement has some advantages indeed. I remember when I played The Secret of Monkey Island for the first time, it was the first point & click game I ever played, I was a bit surprised in the first instance, because I was used to the direct control from the Sierra games.
Especially children use to like to identify with the character they control. By using the mouse cursor you only give instructions 'to the character', whereas a direct control may help the player to get immersed in the game more quickly.

On the other hand TP is intended to be an homage. So you should carefully measure, whether the game benefits from it in the long term, because once the player has gotten accustomed to the direct control, he may shit on classic point & click, which would be sad, not only for TP but also for the whole point & click genre.

Even though it won't bother me, since I'm going to play it on a PC, I have to note that in my opinion the point & click control probably gets me in a reminiscent mood like nothing else in an adventure game. It's one of the (lots of) reasons why I disliked Monkey Island IV and V.

Big Red Button - Jan 31, 2016 at 10:16
I apologize for having used the "s word". I ought to have changed that sentence.

Derrick Reisdorf - Jan 31, 2016 at 23:48
Sierra?

Sushi - Feb 01, 2016 at 02:28
Obviously!
:D

Andy Hall - Jan 31, 2016 at 17:34
When I was playing MI on Xbox (in classic mode of course) I wondered about making use of the dual stick set-up.  The big issue with using a joystick type device to move a pointer around the screen is that it ends up either being painfully slow, far too twitchy, or (if you have some sort of acceleration) some combination of the two.  This is especially noticeable when having to move between the play area, the verb collection, and the inventory.

My thought was, why not make use of both sticks?  One gives fast sweeping  movements and then the other has slower, more precise movements.  You would be able to quickly move to the general area that you wanted to be in, then target the exact position that you wanted to click.  Perhaps using the shoulder buttons/triggers so you can keep thumbs on the sticks at all times.

Dunno if this would work in practice or not.

Big Red Button - Feb 01, 2016 at 07:29
I like your idea. I think Ron should give it a try.

Steve - Jan 30, 2016 at 17:58
Gary - Please try and stop saying "You Know..." :P

David Fox - Jan 30, 2016 at 18:41
Oh, not fair! I waited until (I thought) I heard Ron press the Stop button on recording... guess he wanted to spoil the presence of nose glasses... :-)

Mattias Cedervall - Jan 30, 2016 at 18:46
It's almost always you spoiling. :P This must be your favorite website: http://www.spoilertv.com/
Thank you for your comment, David! :-)

Ron Gilbert - Jan 30, 2016 at 19:49
I never press the "stop button", you should know that by now. :-)

Sushi - Feb 01, 2016 at 02:36
I bet Ron has one of them big old fake "STOP"-buttons (tm) that produce very life like stop-button sounds, just to entice you into giving away spoilers!

Mario F. - Jan 31, 2016 at 07:30
@ALL: Remember, you are all working for the "BEST ADVENTURE GAME IN 2016 AWARD".
And somehow i believe you guys are goin to win that.

Joey - Jan 31, 2016 at 18:32
Will there be an PS4 version?

Also, about the controller...

The igipad could be used for the verbs only. Just an idea.

Joey - Jan 31, 2016 at 18:33
Digipad*

Raphael - Jan 31, 2016 at 20:30
Ron,

You should add Jimmy the antichrist child to the game. He is controlling the boy scout cookies business whilst plotting to rule the world.

http://s9.postimg.org/n43b0dvfz/vomit_reyes.png

Pumbaa - Feb 01, 2016 at 08:12
Please dont just make Podcasts. I dont like Podcasts. And i feel that i fall behind. :(

Ron Gilbert - Feb 01, 2016 at 10:15
This has been a weird last few weeks and all the podcasts got pushed together and I didn't have time to write a proper dev entry, this should return to normal this week.

Steffen - Feb 01, 2016 at 15:07
I agree. I just like reading here much more. It's fun to read all the comments soon after the article. And (cuz i am german at least for me) reading is much easier then listening...

Big Red Button - Feb 01, 2016 at 16:39
I think that the game development process itself is much more important than the up-to-dateness of this blog, albeit I always enjoy reading a new blog post here.

Arto - Feb 01, 2016 at 16:50
If we combine these, we would have a real-time feed of code development, with lot of spoilers. It would be funny and tragic at the same time. Maybe even educational, but I doubt that. At least not for me, as I would not understand any of the code.

Zak Phoenix McKracken - Feb 02, 2016 at 09:34
Take it as an english listening exercise.
I am not used to listen to spoken english, too, because I'm italian, but I can understand what they say (Ron Gilbert is the one who speaks clearer than the others), even if sometimes I have to re-listen to the podcast, to fully understand everything.
Once I had difficulties to fully understand what David Fox said via skype: I asked for help here on the blog, and someone kindly answered me, writing what he said.
Anyway, it's our problem, not their.

Pottsy - Feb 01, 2016 at 09:05
Every week when I hear Gary speak,   I think about how he sounds exactly like NIkki Sixx,    seriously ,  can someone verify this for me? jump on youtube and listen to Nikki Sixx,   they have the exact same voice.  Yeah?

FloWo1974 - Feb 01, 2016 at 10:40
Sorr,y, not at all!

Zombocast - Feb 01, 2016 at 19:29
Thank you Ron for all the quality content you provide.

PS. You scared the shit out of me when you said "lets just start over"

Sorta like when your boss says "You're Fired" and you cant tell if hes joking

urielz - Feb 02, 2016 at 01:12
Ron are you editing the podcasts to remove spoilers? Cause honestly I wouldn't mind, actually I would like, to hear the full uncut version...

Andreas - Feb 02, 2016 at 10:55
I bet uncut version has 45 minutes of Ron reading commit messages out loud :)

Bernard B. - Feb 02, 2016 at 01:59
As Ron never presses the stop button...
He needs 1.5 hour to just find back those 15 minutes of chatter.
;)

P.S. "Seckrit question was wrong" again!! But my answer wasn't!
:D

tomimt - Feb 02, 2016 at 04:57
Nose glasses? The best disguise in the world.

r. - Feb 03, 2016 at 11:17
what about  Phonebook? january is gone, perhaps have I lost some mail about that? thanks

Ron Gilbert - Feb 03, 2016 at 11:18
It's coming. I've been s f'ing busy and I need to carve out a whole day when I launch it. 3000+ people trying to add their names is going to be a big support issue. Soon!

r. - Feb 03, 2016 at 15:07
ok, take all the time you need. i only asked because I was afraid of losing some update. thanks