Thimbleweed Park Podcast #67
by Ron Gilbert
Apr 30, 2017
Apr 30, 2017
The very last Thimbleweed Park podcast... can we have a moment of silence.
WARNING: This podcast is filled with spoilers...
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You can also get the podcast directly from iTunes.
- Ron
One room I've searched in the wireframe world and couldn't find was the factory interior which we've seen in an early screenshot (hydraulic lift puzzle, complete with some rodent... :-)
Hopefully, all my questions will be answered. Gotta beat the game 1st before listening, though.
Congratulations on a great game and to all involved!
The End
Regarding a-reno: It was already a thing on this blog post from 2015-06-30:
https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/dialog_puzzles (now I can finally read all this stuff like early dialog without the fear of spoilers!)
Franklin and Chuck's killer
Beta Security Tape
Buried under the X in the forest
Agent Ray's employer
Maybe the baloon animal murder weapon is the key!
Love the game and I will happily fund another kickstarter if you decide to do one!
Thanks to the TWP crew and fans, I really, really hope we get to do this again!
The most important question of all: Will we ever hear missing Podcast #46?
btw, do the collectors edition boxes actually exist? Can't find any youtube videos or images.
I really regret not buying one now...
But did they answer the question about the sales statistics? Are they satisfied with the number of copies shipped?
Regarding judging the game:
I feel like I have to look at the game in two different views: a) Look at it like it objectively is and b) look at it knowing the development history. Judging by a) i think it's a really solid, funny adventure game. Judging by b) it's an increddible accomplishment. I feel like a lot of the smaller things that bug me wouldn't be there had you guys had more resources - but even witht his niggles it holds up really well. But knowing what resources you had it's just fantastic. Thank you guys very much for some wonderful pseudo-co-op gaming evenings my wife and i had :-)
Regarding characters not talking to each other:
This is something that I also noticed a few times. Like: Why would Ransome help them out? One thing that could've really helped would be an introduction dialog between the characters (like when Ray and Reyes decided to keep pushing forward together). But other than that; I didn't mind the typical "What do you think we should do now?"-pseudo-help-dialog. One thing that would've been cool (and can still be implemented, since it can be cut together from what you have): Characters could "greet" each other when passing them. Walk with Ray past Reyes and it would go like "Reyey." and the response would just be "Ray." . But pass another character with Ransome and he would say "Hello again *beep* face" and the answer would depend on the character. This would make them feel much more alive and organic. Now it feels like robots that are on standby when you are not controlling them (also: my interpretation for the blackouts are debugging sessions)
Verbs on/for characters:
I didn't mind this. I think it was actually helpful that the game just didn't give you some sentences so you would know not to explore in that direction. One thing I would've liked is a special quirk for each character. Like Franklin did have his very own set of verbs. Ransome could have an "Insult" verb that you could use on other people to trigger responses. It would have been especially funny to repeatedly insult the Voodoo-Lady and she would threaten you with a different course each time. Ray could have a "Bade" verb to hold the badge in front of everyone and so on.
Regarding broader audience:
Since you already have two game modes and enhanced all backgrounds to full screen for your transparent UI, why not add a "Story mode" that is a lot closer to Tell Tales Stuff and ditches the verb menu for a simple UI? Of course it's also a lot of work - but since you alrady have all the cool fullscreen background art and two game modes in place a simplified half-automatic mode could be feasible if you really want to reach a wider audience. It wouldn't take away from the hard core mode.
To use Rons phrasing: I hope the game has a strong, thick, and very long tail.... :D
Looking forward to the box! Bye!
The easy mode in it is suitable for the first timers, who don't necessarily want to drown in swapping torches all the time or want to solve every obscure puzzle the game has and want to see the story, whereas the hardest mode is suited for those who want a challenge.
Which ironically it gets later in the game as most references are built into the environment, therefore one finds them when exploring it, early in the game, which is also the time when the game has to show the reviewers that it is more than a retro exercise. In that light I am not sure one can blame the journalists for not refusing the easiest narrative and for being more influenced by the talk about the past and the picture of a dusty 5,25" floppy disc on the kickstarter page than anything Ron has said about the game since then.
If there is an aspect in the game that impairs the narrative, it might be the large number of characters, as I recently mentioned on this blog.
By the way, the number of parallel storylines is also a weak point of the Lord of the Rings movies, in my opinion. When you intend to create a dramatic story, you better focus on extremely few characters. That's why the Star Wars saga has been primarily about the Skywalker family, even though it takes place in an infinite universe.
For instance, when Agent Reyes got stuck in the sewers and I couldn't find a dime, my wife suggested that I use Agent Ray's cell phone. I quickly turned her down saying, "but I can't hand over the cell phone to Agent Rayes... and he's the one who found the emergency phone number..."
In my mind, I quickly ran through various ways I could somehow "convey" the emergency phone number to agent Ray for her to call, and I got slightly stuck there. It didn't occur to me at all that *I* had knowledge of the number and because of that *I* could have Agent Ray dial the number.
It was my wife who gave me that solution, to which I responded with "DOH! Of course!" -- yet felt a bit like cheating since *I* was not "in" the game. It really felt like a work-around to finding the dime, and not natural at all.
I also noticed in the comments that this also happened to others in various other places, like getting the tools from Sexy Rikker. Myself and others seemed to have fallen in the trap of expecting the character who followed Rikker to his room to somehow be the one to enter the room. Then the puzzle becomes a struggle to figure out how to leave the door unlock, how to steal his card-key, how to sneak into the room after him, and any other completely useless action.
In a sense, it's hard to leave the game immersion in order to step out of the in-game logic and apply your personal understanding of the game world with a different character. It feels... unnatural, and somehow incongruent with an adventure game. Like a mixed metaphor.
-dZ.
What would happen if Reyes knew the phone number, and you switched to Ray and tried to dial it? Would she refuse saying she didn't know the number? That's would be odd since you (the player) can just blindly call numbers, why would she refuse to call this one number? Would number just ring and ring and no one answers? That would also be very misleading, and maybe cause players to assume the number was wrong or disconnected. Why would it magically start to work when Reyes dialed it?
Unless the phone number was turned into a physical object that was also used to dial the phone, it would just be frustrating. Of all the play testing we did, this issue with the phone never once came up, so I don't think it's a common issue.
Always error on the side of less frustrating.
You could solve this, if you turn ...
"Unless the phone number was turned into a physical object that was also used to dial the phone, it would just be frustrating."
... the phone number into an object. :) Let Reyes write the number on a piece of paper.
"That's would be odd since you (the player) can just blindly call numbers, why would she refuse to call this one number?"
Don't refuse it. Let her call the phone number. She could say: "That was luck." (or something more funny ;))
The "problem" with the phone numbers in TWP is, that the system behind it is complex. The player can call any time any number. This causes serverl problems.
I agree that blocking a character from performing an action that the player knows about but the character does not would lead to a lot of frustration. I am not saying I have an answer for it, but perhaps there's a better way? It seems to me that it reduces the efficacy (or the need to have) multiple playable characters.
Don't get me wrong, I like the multiple personalities of the characters, but their collaboration (such as it was) didn't feel so much as integral to the story or puzzles, but more like fully interchangeable "costumes." Most of the time, I would pick one character to perform a solution because I already had him there, or because I got used to using that character.
Anyway, as always, I appreciate your responses. :)
-dZ.
And you are absolutely right when you say: "In a sense, it's hard to leave the game immersion in order to step out of the in-game logic and apply your personal understanding of the game world with a different character."
In the podcast and earlier blog posts there is/was a comparison with Maniac Mansion: In that adventure all kids have the same goal, they are friends - and most people I know/knew played the whole game with only one kid. Only if you have to use the special abilities we switched to another kid(*). In TWP you have to switch between the characters several times, each of them has his/her own story and they are not closely relatetd to each other. That all together makes it more complicated for the player.
And another remark on marketing: In my perception TWP was marketed as an old-school adventure with retro stile. A lot of reviews emphasized that and implied that the game is primarily for old adventure fans. I think this prevents a lot of "new players" from buying TWP. And I don't think the easy mode was/is that important: The story catches the player very early. And with that you "force" the player to keep playing. :)
btw. Thanks for the podcasts! I will miss them! (And how do I now find out how the weather is ...? )
(*) All my friends played with Bernard ;). A typical session was: Let Dave open the door, walk with him into the kitchen so Enda was gone and Dave could open the door in the prison if needed. Place the second kid downstairs so you can open the door to the basement if needed. Switch to Bernard and solve the rest of the game. If you are fast enough Bernard can even feed the green tentacle. :)
That is not true at all. We never ever marketed the game that way, that was the press. They could not stop calling it a "throw back game". Even when they understood, they begin each article with how retro it was. It was amazingly frustrating for us. We never once (since the Kickstarter) called it a retro game. Looks at the website. It doesn't talk about that at all, it's all about the story. It's other people that can't get over that.All of our PR and trailers and social media was about the game, it was never about retro.
Yes. But the result is the current situation. I don't know what you could have done to prevent that - I'm no marketing expert. :)
"We never once (since the Kickstarter) called it a retro game."
But you wrote it in the Kickstarter text. In addition with the graphics most backer/people/press thought of it as an old school adventure. And that was kept in their heads. Many press guys even used the old Kickstarter art ...
"They could not stop calling it a "throw back game". Even when they understood, they begin each article with how retro it was."
What if they are right? ;-)
- The game with his big pixels looks like an old Monkey Island. Modern games have hand drawn 2D art or using 3D characters.
- The game references the old games. You only get *all* jokes if you played MM, Zak and MI.
- The old verb interface is back. Most modern adventure games uses a one-click interface and they displays all hot spots.
- You have to solve puzzles! That's a shock to most new players.
- Most backers are old(er) adventure fans.
- Playing TWP feels like playing Maniac Mansion and/or Monkey Island.
If you take a step back, the game looks like an old school adventure, behaves like an old adventure game, so maybe it is actualy one? I know, you don't want to hear that. :-)
Anyway. I don't think, that this is a bad thing: With this "old school adventure" you got more attention. Even a german radio station mentioned TWP. If you want to attract new gamers, why not with this claim: "If you want know what your parents played - try our game". (Have I said that I'm not a marketing expert? ;-))
But I think you can't make a game that satisfies all people: If you make a game for new players (like "Silence" or the Telltale games), the old players won't like it and vice versa. It would be really hard work to satisfy both groups. (But you did that partially with the Humongous Games: Children and adults liked them.)
Except for the whole "it's like finding an old LucasFilms game that you've never played in a dusty old drawer" bit. That was the primary motivator of the Kickstarter and, for better or worse, the game is still linked to that as its genesis. Many reviewers start their reviews pointing this out.
I know you guys tried really hard to point out that it's a modern take on the "Point-And-Click" adventure, but the pixelated graphics and the old-school verb interface reinforce to many the image of a "retro game."
I wouldn't blame the press on their own; the game can also be seen as a wonderfully heartfelt love-letter to old-school adventure games. And I mean that in the most sincere and positive way imaginable. :)
I personally think the game has very wide appeal. The rapid-fire in-jokes for fans of the genre may distract some (especially because there are sooooo many at the beginning that any non-adventure gamer who doesn't get them would still notice their copious abundance), but overall, I can imagine my nephews and nieces playing the game.
-dZ.
In the end what you did is modern retro., hence it goes in the slot of "throwback" wanted you it or not.
Thank you again, TWP Team!
This has been a fantastic ride! :)
I wanted to finish this game without external help but failed.
It started off very good but with the radioactive waste I was lost.
I'm sure I could have strayed TWP for months without using it on the puddle.
And indeed, first time I got into the forest, I immediately knew
I should give it a try with the navigator head. :D
Not sure, though, if this actually prevented the puddle thing, since it's not
really an obvious thing to *me*.
Since I can't remember that forest entrance, when I first reached it:
Do we get to see water foot steps that fade when someone walks through the puddle?
This might have helped ... or, if so, I simply didn't take enough care. ;)
Then, Xavier's crystal gave me lots of headaches as it seemed to *me* that
there must be an solution when I actually had no chance to get it at that time.
Once the time has come, you get the crystal actually for free.
So there is one more option in the dialogue without a reason why this has actually
changed.
Since I was stuck with the puddle thing, the crystal was one of two
unsolved puzzle (other was the battery) so I invested quite a lot of time in this.
Obviously, the battery puzzle wasn't also solvable without the puddle. :D
Long story short, I tried hard (almost 30 hours) but failed to finish TWP without
two hints. *damn*
** SPOILERS **
When Ron says something about making direct sense of some scenes, and that sometimes
there isn't something like that; instead one should take it as a metaphor this strongly reminded
me of David Lynch answering questions targeting "Lost Highway" and "Mulholland Drive". :D
(I love these movies)
But it's frustrating and disappointing for the most players. It's like the filmmaker said: "And I never will tell you what I meant with that, you *beeping* losers!" or "I didn't know how the story should end. So go ahead and make your own ending."
But the players don't know that when they buy/bought the game. If you write: "A game like Mulholland Drive" all would be fine. :)
Said the game designer who wishes for wider appeal of his game in order to design more.
I'm sorry, as much as I respect you, Mr. Gilbert, such comments come across as extremely arrogant and condescending. If a share of people have a problem with a particular aspect of your story, it must be us who are too dense to get it or too lazy to want to "think" about it.
I enjoyed the game but at the end of the day, it's just a video game, not high art.
-dZ.
My goal is not to make watered down entertainment for the masses. That is not interesting to me. I like entertainment where I have to think about and ponder it. I don't like books or movies where everything is wrapped up in a neat little package at the end. All I'm saying is I understand some people like that, and that's fine.
It comes down to trust and curiosity. Are you curious enough to find out something you don't understand on a first view and is it worth the effort because you can trust a creator. A painter like Klee can talk to you via your subconsciousness, even when you aren't trained, but if you're interested in why a painting has an effect on you, digging into the theory/history can result into a very satisfying experience.
On the other hand there exists a lot of 'art' where further thoughts and research are a waste of time because the work is simply flat and dull (you would end up over-interpreting the work). In my opinion a dev, if his game or vita isn't enough, takes a huge responsibility here. Video games isn't an art form best known for its maturity, depth and responsibility, the exception proves the rule.
Overall I very much enjoyed TWP and I'm so happy that someone finally made such an adventure again, but it's not perfect and there are a number of issues, people complain about for a reason. I wouldn't want to tell those people they're stupid, because they are not. They're adults, have decades of (adventure) experience, partly are devs on their own ...
Would you still work on adventures if you couldn't afford buying a coffee?
Isn't that a little bit too harsh? The story in TWP is working and good, the end satisfying. There are only some small story parts that aren't "told to the end" or "left open".
I was just wondering about this whilst thinking of artists who dedicated their life for their work vs. 'artist' you can run into on certain conferences.
please man, stop digging your own grave. Ron Gilbert is already becoming green and muscular.
Of course a movie is a movie, its whole purpose is to be shown. A game isn't just the story, it is also the riddles. And the other stories. The sideplots. The easter eggs. Reducing it to the simply question whether one can put two stray cut scenes into a wider context does not really do justice to the final result (even if it is done by Ron Gilbert himself).
So indeed, it is a bit different from Lost Highway.
Still, I don't think he would've directly revealed lots of the open questions.
I'm absolutely fine with all this.
And do you remember that abc had to *force* Lynch to reveal the murderer of Laura Palmer? :D
Which raises the question: was anything lost by ABC forcing him to pull the answer out of his own *beep*hole, when apparently that is his usual strategy anyway?
(Okay, now it sound like I dislike Lynch in general... which is not true, The Straight Story is one of my favourite movies. I just think with Lost Highway he has perfectioned his style and everything weird past that movie is pure self-reference and looks like someone trying to be as Lynch as possible and to take over as little responsibility for whatever the result may turn out to be as possible because... art. And I know that I am totally guilty of blaming him for not making a movie I like to watch (because I know he could) when in fact I should just ignore him.)
My interest for point and click adventures in general has respawned and I am happy that I made the decision to back it. And I would love to see the engine in action once more now that it has been born into the world...)
That's funny, I solved the radioactive waste puzzle in like zero minutes... I had the flier for the gathering in the woods, I had noticed people going in the woods and that I wasn't able to follow them, and I had noticed the pool in the *beeping° middle of the screen, so when I was able to pick up the green fluo radioactive waste it was almost obvious what its purpose was.
On the other hand, other puzzles that people have said they had trouble with, I solved easily, such as the stamps puzzle and using the flower with the Book of the Dead.
Anyway, thank you so much for making such a perfect game (and such a perfect blog). Despite my issues with radioactivity, I think the puddle puzzle was one of the cleverest ones. If you do another Kickstarter, I will give you all my money (again).
Mean thing is only the shovel part...
But I think the actual problem appears when people solve the puzzle with the thimbleberry bush before finding the bunker. It seems like they mark it as done and never think about the forest again.
I think you should have made it that way because the navigator head is such a nice puzzle: It does something original inside the GUI, there is no look at, but instead relies on changing the icon. This puzzle kind of breaks out of the boundaries of the GUI and convention
I was pretty convinced I had to do something with the puddle since it was there and everyone was stepping on it, but I didn't have the radioactive material, so I had no idea.
Then I found the navigator head and thought "ok, I was on the wrong track". But then I understood it was just an easter egg thanks to the Steam achievement popping up, so... it wasn't "more difficult", but still I felt betrayed :P I was so happy I thought I had solved it...
What I think was problematic for me with the radioactive waste puzzle was the fact that the "secret meeting" was so, well, SECRET. I had heard the DJ on the radio talking about a meeting, but I never thought to follow up on it -- I thought it was just one of the random anti-government things she says. And then too, the first time I visited the forest after I got the county map, it was Chet whom I saw disappearing into there, and I didn't think he'd appear back in town; I thought he'd just be staying out in the forest and that was where I needed to find him. So I never found the pizza flier until after I got stuck in the factory (and after I had consulted hints online, I will admit). So I guess the fault lies with me because I didn't think to check back around town to see if I could find anything new.
The first time, the character I have used didn't want to pick it up, so I assumed it was there just for fun.
Then, I tried again and... surprise! The navigator head was in the inventory.
But since I had already discovered the hidden pizza-man place, I reloaded a previous saved game where that place wasn't discovered yet.
But, I solved the puzzle with the puddle very quickly, maybe with a kind of luck. When I saw the radioactive waste at the factory, I wondered what to do with it. It was my first idea to fill a vessel with it and the trophy was the only vessel in my inventory. Later when I was at the puddle in the forest, I simply tried to use the radioactive liquid with the puddle, because it's not far-fetched to mix two liquids with each other. Until then, I still wasn't sure what it was worth for, but it became obvious once an NPC had left the puddle behind, of course.
Hi, good to know you! :-D
The puzzles that I embarrassingly got stuck on are the checkbook stub (for some reason, I knew what to do, but I just didn't see that darn checkbook stub until what felt like my 50th return to that room), figuring out that I could "Zap" doors open in the hotel, and that staircase puzzle early on. I was stuck on that for like an hour or two and then it dawned me. "Naw, it can't be THAT easy, can it?" Sure enough. Loved it, though. I felt clever and embarrassed it took me so long to solve it at the same time.
My Alien Girlfriend is for my wife.
BRAINS! is for my childhood.
<3
Can we get a bulletin board / forums for all of us to hangout at?
I hope this game team's next project is crowd funded and has plenty of stuff for us fans to be involved.
I really wish I was in Thimbleweed's phonebook!
<3
Interesting answer as I never considered the issues that could occur with being able to use lots of verbs on actors. It's a shame, even the active verbs could have been fun to use on people - I think "Pick up" could have been a good one for Ransome to see him get turned down by every woman in the town a'la Kate Capsize in Monkey Island 2. I do like it when you can do stuff like that - Using "Push" to topple the mime in TP was one of my favourite moments.
So thank you guys, thank you so much. Needless to say I could play another, and another of games made by you guys but of course time, effort, etc... but still, i'm hoping for another because this was a wonderful gift you gave us all.
THANKS GUYSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!! : )
Here's my stab at an explanation for the brief fuzzy glimpse we get of Agent Reyes on the coroner slab. The ending of the game reveals that their world world runs inside a computer and it is being played countless times by strange people (us) outside of the world. That little glimpse is probably what happened in someone else's play-through of the game.
That's an interesting theory, Brian - I need to think about that, and look for more clues.
Has anyone else noticed that when you look at the photo of Agent Reyes as a child and his father holding the watch, sometimes the watch is in his father's right hand, sometimes in his left hand? I don't know if I'm remembering this correctly, but it seemed like this 'glitch' in the photo only happened when Reyes was looking at the photo, but I'm not 100% sure I'm remembering that correctly. I thought this might be related to his "abduction" (the slab scene) in some way, but I am not sure. I did notice after the scene with Reyes on the coroner's slab, he was unable to switch to for a few minutes....
All I can tell you at this juncture is that I would back any further project of you as well where required. I don't want Ron to have to get a real job and I hope so much for more adventure games from you.
Same here! I would back immediately another adventure game by Ron, Gary and David!
IMHO, we got way more than expected and it would be just awesome if something new would arrive within 2-3 years from now.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzmqWMLwscwmWG1zU3lTTlZ4anc/view?usp=sharing
I know i'm late for the podcast but this is a question for the players/fans: is anybody else, apart from me, "diggin" the game for more easter eggs? I'm playing the game a second time after finishing it, based on the fact that the timestamp in the savegames is cumulative if you start playing again after watching the credits at the end (it may not mean anything, but i don't really care). I spent a lot of time going through the library and I found a book in section 2.7 called "stuck" by meta twist which is actually a huge spoiler about the ending of the game and quotes Edmnud along with another character named "Durant". I also found another interesting (twp related) book in the poetry section (2.5).
Biggest mysteries for me atm are the following:
1) the clock in the bank (you can open it, i can't remember it having any use, maybe it's just the n-th red herring)
2) the drinking fountain (ray/reyes re-enter the game in front of it after being kidnapped, and the sequence of gurgles in the dialog when you drink from it could be a combination that could trigger something. Also, there should be a secret passage here becuse the sheriff/coroner goes from the sheriff's office to the coroner's lab without using the hallway)
3) the other fountain in the hotel
4) the computer in the reception of the hotel. When zapped by franklin, it shows a "password: " screen but i found no way to enter a password as the next time i look at the screen it's back to normal
5) the rocky wall right of the entrance of the sewers, which is an active hotspot and explicitly labeled. I found no purpose for it and i suspect it to be part of a cut puzzle chain involving Doug's shovel or something like that
ad 1) The bank scene was created early on and so was the clock, also see the WF world and this blog post: https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/wimpy (conspiracy not confirmed)
ad 2) Yes, the sheriff is definitely getting around in very mysterious ways... Hm, I never thought about the fountains being more than a gag. Btw. its dialog was crowd sourced: https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/drinkingfountain
ad 3) Also don't forget another one is in the factory! (Illuminati confirmed!)
ad 4) That's just normal computer behaviour. After booting, wake up or returning from a screensaver you (should) have to enter a password. The hotel manager knows the login, that's why the only way to peek is when he is using it (even Delores cannot access it, we have all tried it).
ad 5) I think they've said in this podcast there was a puzzle chain involving Doug.
I tried to blow up the rocky wall using C4 but nope. Putting a working chainsaw and C4 in one adventure game is a very bold choice :-)
I expect the next engine version supporting destructible environment.
I'm not persuaded about the normal computer behavior but it definitely is a possibility... :( also yes, they definitely say in the podcast that there was a puzzle chain involving Doug's shovel, but they removed it and they don't mention the rocky wall near the sewers entrance but it could definitely be involved.
Another thing I should have added to the list. Ransome wants to go into the factory to retrieve the prototype of its doll... is the doll actually there to be found? I couldn't find it anywhere.
Thanks for replying!
Regarding bugs. The only thing that I found at the start is that at some part in the beginning in the sheriff office where the sound of Antonio disapears. But othervice it's run smooth and nice :)
He either says "They have been taken care of" or "They will be taken care of".
Because the animation for killing Boris and for hitting the agent are the same, I'd say the sheriff is the one who did both. Chuck can't kill Boris because he is already dead yet.
Also there is a dialog between Sandy and Dave after leaving the diner (maybe with the door open and one person still in it) where they say
"Where did we go wrong Dave?" and "But if we can pull this off, I think we'll be fine again."
What do they want to pull off?
Just three categories: "Official news", "Hints" and "General discussions".
It seems to me that backers and other people who loved your game would like a place to interact with each other. The comment zone in this blog wouldn't be the best way to organize the many topics that we have discussed along the road and the new ones that will be discussed in the future.
An official forum would also easily attract the traffic of those people who will search for anything related to the game, in the following years. It could be a nice marketing tool for the long term, *IF* you find a way to keep the costs low.
Cheers!
vBulletin is probably the best software to make forums on the internet, but it costs hundreds of dollars.
Don't know other alternative software.
Most of the long-term costs, though, are related to the time needed for maintenance and to moderate the forum, even for communities that don't have many active users. This is not an aspect to overlook, because all the days/year needed to manage a forum can easily amount to a quantity of money that is orders of magnitude larger that the price of the software.
Just found it while browsing the internet, though.
https://www.discourse.org/
http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/5-best-forum-plugins-for-wordpress/
It looks interesting, with avatars, a vertical timeline, the ability to include multimedia...
The cons: 100$/month ... a little bit expensive, in my opinion.
You can install Discourse yourself:
https://github.com/discourse/discourse
It's very popular.
https://payments.discourse.org/pricing
I thought it was the official site.
I'm the cofounder of Discourse and also a backer and huge fan of the game. I actually sent you an email about setting up a free forum back in the early days of the project but maybe my timing was off! Send me an email if you'd like to make this happen and we can work it out.
Yes. You have basically two options:
1. If your website uses WordPress and you expect to keep this CMS for a long time, go for a WordPress plugin like https://bbpress.org/
This choice will completely avoid some issues related to search engines indexing but it will probably produce an old-style and uglier user interface.
2. If you want a forum more usable and with a better interface, or if you don't expect to use WordPress for a long time, go for a standòalone and more modern software like Discourse or http://flarum.org/
The user interfaces that they create are by default more mobile-friendly and *way* more usable, but they use extensively JavaScript and this can give an headache to some search engines.
My proposal: since one of the goals is to get a forum visible on search engines, let me do a quick evaluation of the HTML code created by "the new kinds on the block". If I don't find giant issues, I'll give you the go-ahead to use one of them.
https://invisionpower.com/features/apps#forums
The mobile version is very good as well.
I have done all I can to spread the game through FB, Twiter etc.. Bugging all I know about the game
how fantastic it is but in the end I think it's an adventure game and I think it's hard to get die hard
FPS gamers etc.. to get the game and play it. So as you say, time will tell.
And even though my phonebook entry still has the wrong audio for the text for whatever reason (text=attempt2 audio=attempt1), I'm so happy that I am "immortalised" in it! :]
I'm going to re-play it again soon, and likely will try to get to know every pixel of it as intimately as those of The Secret Monkey Island! The games ending, I will admit, wasn't so much for me, but that does not mean that I did not enjoy that as well.
Thank you, thank you so much! I hope you do come back. And make another game like this. I'll be there again, if that is an option! So long! <3
With the kidnap scene, for me this worked great dramatically, especially at that point in the game. It made me go, "oh s***! Now Reyes has disappeared!" so it upped the tension and the sense of danger and mystery. I didn't really think about what it meant specifically other than weird stuff was happening and that there was something larger going on. I liked that and the telephone ringing thing, I think those things added atmosphere and built up the sense of mystery.
At the end Chuck says, "think about all the odd things in this world" and how there are so many people in the phonebook and how you can't go further on the highway because "you don't have the desire because it wasn't programmed into you, it's not part of "the game"!" So the "odd things" like the kidnapping and phone I put down to being things that are part of "the game" that happen at that time to create intrigue and make you want to keep playing the game.
I'm surprised people had trouble with the puddle puzzle. There were people going into the forest, so it seemed clear you had to find a way to follow them or track them somehow (similar to Monkey Island and Fate of Atlantis). There was just one hotpsot that was clearly on the path and they all walked through it. As soon as I found the radioactive waste my first thought was immediately the puddle.
Though I did get stuck in other places that may have probably been easy for others. With the wrench, I kept scaring the guy in the room, and the hotel manager called and I somehow made the assumption he was calling the Pigeon Sisters and they were busy, so I was wondering how to un-busy them. It was only later when I actually paid attention to what he was saying that I realized he didn't know about the Pigeon Sisters yet.
Also knowing where to get gloves took me a while, but there were a whole bunch of clues that had been given earlier, so eventually it clicked. I did the Riker tools puzzle easily, I think that's because I had spent quite a long time trying things out with Franklin beforehand, to see what things he could do, so I instinctively swapped to him to go open the door.
"Diggin!" ...Doug was excellent and I'm glad he was kept in. Hopefully he will get a cameo in the next game, preferably in a completely random location, still digging.
I loved all the references in the game, but I can see there were some instances where a reference to another game was distracting, particularly if it appeared like a bigger deal than the thing you were meant to be doing. Eg. the easter egg in the forest seemed more important and a bigger prize than getting the berries.
I liked the backer items and felt they added a lot of variety to the inventory, though ideally they would have all had some kind of use. They reminded me of chicken-on-a-pulley, but if that had had no use in the game, it would have been less worthwhile.
Characters not talking to each other didn't bother me at all, the only time was maybe when everyone was on the same screen and they were like silently watching each other, then it did seem odd. I felt like it was enough that they said stuff when you swapped items.
I was also fine with them working with each other and acting on info they didn't get themselves... it made for more interesting puzzles that way. If anything some kind of line like, "huh, not sure why I just did that" like they sometimes did in the older games would have been fine to acknowledge it.
I think another thing that doesn't get enough praise with this game is how professional and organized you guys have been through the whole process and how well you stuck to the budget and the schedule. I think when it works out well like this people take it for granted, but there are plenty of other games that go completely off the rails for years and come out all different or not at all.
:: Positive review...
Wow! They loved it! I am awesome!!
:: Negative review...
Hmm... That can't be right, I'm awesome. He just didn't get it, or adventure games are not his thing. Why does he even bother? I'm still awesome...
He already told multiple times that what people keep defining as "story gaps" have a precise meaning, which was left open to interpretation as an artistic choice. How many movies did you watch where the finale was open to interpretation?
I read quite a lot of reviews on Thimbleweed Park, and I noticed that the negative ones were mostly against the fact that the game is a point and click adventure with puzzles, so against the genre not the game itself.
What he's saying is that he left things unanswered by choice and he won't reveal what they meant, letting players slowly going there. If people get frustrated by not knowing what 2 short scenes exactly mean out of a 20-hour something gaming experience, maybe this wasn't the game for them, and frankly I don't see anything wrong with that.
The Mount Chillad "conspiracy" took three years to be solved (sort of): https://nowloading.co/p/gta-v-mt-chiliad-secret-finally-decoded-after-years-of-mystery/4148615
As you can see, lots of people enjoy discovering things over time.....
My only complaints on the game is the lack of murder mystery resolution. That probably stems from the fact I'm a huge fan of murder mysteries, so seeing a murder mystery adventure game made by my heroes was a dream come true. But then it felt a little lacking not getting that conflict clearly resolved. Reading your comments, and the podcast, I understand that resolving that plotline was never really important; the game's themes and story are meant to be more open, and more of the experience and thoughts of life in a simulation rather than the "whodunnit". But perhaps I just missed a few hints as to who the real killer was. I'll probably be hung up on it until I know the truth :) But thats my own fault, haha.
Still, though, I do think the game would have benefitted from having a bit more resolution on the various plot lines. You've said you don't like to spoon feed the audience (which is obvious, its an adventure game, puzzles are important), and I understand why. But with the genre of a murder mystery, the resolution of finding the killer is the most satisfying part. I feel like the game presented itself in the beginning of gameplay as a "murder mystery adventure game", but along the way just turned into less murder mystery. I believe thats why a lot of people are hung up on the lack of resolution, where they might not be otherwise. I certainly didn't care about any lingering plot resolutions in other adventure games. I really believe the murder mystery genre on there just predetermines to the audience that they'll get to find out who did it with more certainty.
But, if I just happened to miss some clues (along with all the people mad about the game), I'd love some hints to push me in the right direction on my next playthrough. Maybe I'm complaining for nothing. But I do believe thats the reason why the lack of resolution is frustrating so many people, and perhaps why it doesn't bother you too much. It seems to be a miscommunication of expectations in differing genres. Especially if these players hadnt played adventure games before, and came into it expecting a regular murder mystery.
I don't understand why so much complaints about the puddle puzzle. It was a clear example of perfect puzzle. You see people walking into the woods. You wonder where they are going. You also notice a puddle that is clearly there for a reason. The second time you see people walking, you look better and notice they step on the puddle. And then you must get the idea to put something colored in the puddle, so they step on it. You had all the clues people. The problem with adventure games is that people seldom say it's my bad :)
Actually it's not instant logic the puddle puzzle. Instant logic is something like... oh I see people walking in the forest, let me follow one of them and see what I find. This in TMP it's a deeper version of the same puzzle in Monkey Island where you need to find the sword master following the shopkeeper. There was a moment I was stuck in Delores flashback, I was really looking so hard for a match or a lighter, something to light a fire and the solution was in the inventory all the time and even forgot to examine the bottle... sometimes the easy solutions are the hardest to find, lol.
In short: I don't feel represented when people are blaming the game or praising it too much. I had quite some fun when playing the game but I also saw some flaws (lacking more creativity, maturity and courage). For a game from 1987 it works just fine but considering 30 years of experience, the game fails in combining solving a murder case, bringing the characters together and ending into a satisfying solution. Video games' writing still is on a mediocre level. The game has a few design issues, the interface isn't used to its potential and some puzzles are too easy.
Sometimes the game is confusing, it seems to be made for a core audience (makes sense, you've asked them for money)/the dev but at the same time it's full of indications trying to appeal to a broader audience (going for a *beeping* teenager rating, the interface redundance, a tutorial for hard[normal], holding hands when solving puzzles in order not to get stuck, all the marketing).
I liked the game the most when it was raw (Ransome), more adult (Ray), funny (Ransome, dragon dude), clever (the phone book), when i could explore beautiful sounds and graphics (many places), there were interesting puzzles to solve (I like these metaphor-puzzles [like breathing fire on the wood], logical puzzles, puzzle which involve knowledge [which always should be available in the game], puzzles which reward you (puddle) and crazy ones which are weird and fun[computers are at their best when they enable you to do something, which you can't in real]).
I disliked the moments when ... Push/Pull/Use wasn't differentiated (gate, poster, ...), I needed to click through cumbersome conversations (the voodoo chick[apart from her no ones was truly annoying]), it told me what to do (Franklin), it opened an interesting option but without following the branches (pizza dude, Pigeon brothers, signals), the puzzles were boring (hotel, Franklin) or way too easy, it tried to be funny to a ten year old (Chuck, AI), there was too much self referencing, the sound quality was lacking.
In my opinion some puzzles should have been harder, more exciting and fun, there should have been more inventory combinations. Better usage of the interface. I'm glad that you were able to enable the classic sentence. I don't understand why someone would prefer the inferior popping up texts near to the cursor. I certainly would have preferred a different ending (there exist better books about this subject). I would have wanted to explore more of the world (the Arcade, solve more puzzles with Ransome and Ray, getting close(r) to the characters [there could have been a lot of fun with the pizza dude], I was curious about leaving the town via the bus and going to the moon).
Anyway it was a very nice experience but it also could have been more/better/different.
I too had to look up this puzzle and did not see the logic. I understand that everyone stepping in the puddle might have been a clue, but why would I know that the toxic waste would leave a glowing mark when stepped in? Was this hinted at some point, which I missed?
RG and team - thank you!
Part of the fun now is ruined by hints available instantly everywhere. Back in the days I was stuck in Last Crusade (damn Nazi castle) and no way I could figure out all the inventory items to give to the nazi guards, I remember once a week replaying again again and again till Biff and the funny thing is that my savegames on Amiga floppy disks were corrupted and I had to replay the whole thing each time. Then growing up basically I switched to pc and other games and that Last Crusade became an unsolved classic. I think this is why some Lucas classics are so special to me. But TWP is a beautifully crafted game for sure.
I don't think TWP is quite easy: Most of us are grown up and have played many adventure games. So we have the experience and the knowledge how puzzles in adventures games are "working". So it seems to us that the puzzles are easier than back in the 90th.
...Thimbleweed Park has been updated...
..
..
.... a new option was added...
..
..
............. ... ... " annoying in-jokes " ????
And it's OFF by default??
.
.
.
OK, I'll turn it ON immediately! :-)
I'm replaying the whole game without in-jokes, I'm curious what was removed. :)
I guess the pigeon "lecture" on adventure game design was removed... and what else?
More, I consider the option a very smart one, because it turns something that could be perceived like self-celebration (which is a thing that couldn't be more distant from what we are used to know abou the devs, they are caring people and not ego-maniacs, and I consider it a great lesson of behaviour and always appreciated it) in a nice add-on touch with a self-ironic title of the option.
I admit that some in-jokes are nonessential, but none of them would have been worth such a step, in my opinion. Well, at least we have the choice.
The complaints I've mostly seen were about jokes breaking the fourth wall (e.g. talking about saving/restoring the game). Those may often be in-jokes but they are only a small part.
I wonder... will the gunshot be removed too with this flag?
I have noticed that the build version number was changed, so... I discovered that option! With big surprise...
I loved each of them! I really don't understand how they could be annoying...
It seems that it's part of the game fun & logic: everything must be done by clicking VERB + OBJECT [+ OBJECT], regadless shortcuts.
And he really likes the special (idle or not) animations. He sometimes stares at them, observing them.
They are fascinating, undoubtly :-)
[A secret: making games for kids is nice because they're easier to please.]
I got one question: What is that part at 21:48 about? As being non native, I don´t understand the English word Ron repeatedly uses at that point. Foreswalling .... is what I understand. :D This can´t be it, can someone please explain?
Thank you!
Of course I can. ;-) Ron speaks about the fourth wall: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_wall
Do you think that the last trial of Ace Attorney's Apollo Justice is "only a game"?
Please read this article:
https://www.wired.com/2017/04/courts-using-ai-sentence-criminals-must-stop-now/
do you think that on the second half of May 2017, the mobile version of Thimbleweed Park will be available on the mobile shops?
Thanks
Btw. I couldn't be bothered to investigate the data which was gathered for google-analytics whilst playing the game but wouldn't it have been decent, if this would have been an option in the menu (default: being turned off)?
Watch out for those radioactive puddles!
When an application does this without it asking me, I don't care what good benefits it provides, how anonymous it is, or how respectful of privacy the developer *thinks* he is -- the application is "phoning home" and tracking usage without telling me, so it's a violation of my trust. (And doubly so if it's with Google, since that is to me one of the least trustworthy enterprises around. I don't think they are "evil," I just think they do not share the same core beliefs in privacy and personal space that I cherish out of principle. That to me is scary in itself!)
I will admit that, when an application is kind enough to offer the option first, I do consider activating it, depending on the goals of the developer and my respect for them.
-dZ.
To me it's like inviting an old friend to your house, someone you haven't seen in a long time. Then moment he walks in, as you turn around, you find him looking in your closet! If you ask him, he may tell you, "sorry mate, I wasn't digging around. I was just looking for a good place to hide a nice gift I bought for you"; and that's OK.
However, rightly or wrongly, I am more inclined to kick him out of my house before asking, for being so rude. It's a matter of perception. :)
-dZ.
What are you doing with these patterns? In which ways do they help? I.e. can you reduce the travel distance between the rooms in your next game?
(If you explain what are you doing with the collected data, there would be more acceptance. And I can't imagine in which way these data can help in creative products/art like a game ... )
I also read a couple of very intriguing books in section 2.7 of the Mansion mansion's library. And then realised that the cover note says that "some" of the books are written by fans... The more I think about it, the killer and kidnapper is a character within the game, but not one that anybody expects.
Again, congrats!
1) Something interesting browsing through the folders
2) Some combination of X in tic-tac-toe
3) The text adventure. The hints book "hints" at something that it might be hidden there
And if they didn't?
Maybe they haven't hide any secrets and they are now just laughing about all of us trying to interpret something in each menu item? ;-)
So I don't know where that leaves us.
Is the slab secret an exception which has a concrete meaning that "only one person" has figured out yet?
Or did that one person figure out some kind of non-concrete metaphorical answer?
I think a lot of people got burned spending so much time and thought trying to figure out Lost's non-existent secret answers and so are now skeptical about anything that seems like a JJ Abrams mystery box.
You mean you read some books that could be connected to who the kidnapper or killer is?
It's not LeChuck. It's Chuck. Chuck was the plant in Maniac Mansion:
http://maniacmansion.wikia.com/wiki/Chuck_the_Plant
Cite: "Chuck is a horticultural horror. Otherwise it's just an useless red herring." That implies that Uncle Chuck in TWP is a red herring.
"... that "some" of the books are written by fans..."
You need some of the books to solve the puzzles. These are wirtten by the developers. All others were written by fans.
I definitely don't think that Uncle Chuck is a red herring. on the contrary, I think he's the piece that most people who criticise the end of the game is missing.
Do they have a translation? All books related to the story have a translation, the books written by the fans doesn't have one.
"I definitely don't think that Uncle Chuck is a red herring."
Chuck was the (unimportant) plant. In *all* LucasArts games. Why should this be suddenly different in TWP?
- Did the machine get turned off?
- Did they even get to the factory?
- Did Chuck even died?
One of my ideas is that the run of the game is quite special... The game that usually takes place in Thimbleweed Park is quite different, but Chuck actually forced his death to control the game from the AI and killed Boris to trigger all that we see in the game, except the flashbacks, which pertain to the original timeline.
In the timeline that we play some events are triggered by Chuck himself, from the AI, trying to get Delores aware of all being a simulation, like he being dead, killing Boris, ...
And others by the game devs (which actually bleed into ThimbleCon, where they wouldn't normally be), in a struggle to keep the player not noticing what's going on, like the flashback with one of the agents in the table.
I had Ray there. Is it normal?
I still don't get it but perhaps there's a deeper meaning... I too am curious!