Thimbleweed Park Is Coming to Xbox
by Ron Gilbert
Aug 04, 2015
Aug 04, 2015
Cat's out of the bag (USE KNIFE WITH BAG, PICK UP CAT). The reason I was at Gamescom to was help Microsoft announce that the award winning (Awards TBD) Thimbleweed Park (game TBD) will be coming to Xbox and Windows 10 the same day it release for Windows, Mac and Linux on Steam, GOG and other places (other places TBD).
Please enjoy this new video...
- Ron
I SAID ENJOY!
Any chance of a PS4 version?
There are roughly twice as many PS4 systems in homes than there are Xbox Ones, so it would seem to make wise business sense to release on that as well as the Xbox One.
Unless of course if Microsoft is throwing money at them NOT TO. :P
I will definitely buy this game on one platform or another. Maybe all of them in fact. I am crazy like that. :)
My guess is that with Microsoft helping with the XBox One port of Thimbleweed Park, that in exchange Microsoft gets an increased dollar return from the sale of each digital copy of the game sold on the Xbox Live Marketplace, which is standard and really a win-win situation for both parties involved. Basically, instead of getting $3 per copy, Microsoft gets $4 per copy instead, or something like that. Anyway though, I'd be surprised if TP didn't eventually come out for the PS4 also.
Ah :) with all the shortcuts on a modern gamepad, nobody should be afraid. A PS4 gamepad would be even better, as it has - essentially - a mouse trackpad built-in.
Remember. We used to play this with a joystick.
I love the new trailer! To bad we have no dialogs in there yet; but it's really a sweet thing to look at!
These parallax scrolling water reflections are stunningly beautiful! Clearly something we could not have done in the past. Again, much more modern, than the initial ideas have been. But this is Thimbleweed Park now, it's own, new thing. Old thing. New old thing. <3
Might work ok for inventory too, though it would be nice to see the inventory arrange a little different in that case, possibly also in a circular way, but similar to mac os x dock (showing the current item larger than the rest)...
http://cdn02.nintendo-europe.com/media/images/03_teaser_module_1_square/games_3/nintendo_ds_2/TM_NDS_AceAttorneyTrialsAndTribulations.png
Sorry for the off topic... it's just one of my favourite novel games!
Why you not to use the "SmartGlass" function of Xbox One ? It could allow you to use the finger on a tablet / smartphone sceen to control the pointer on the TV !
Let me know if you like it!
I especially found the fireflies to be very pleasing!
Out of curiosity, the "pixellation" effect used in the credits/presentation texts is performed by the engine itself or by means of a video-making tool?
Did you use Spine in the end for the animations?
Keep up the great work!
Everything is great, except the fact that the detective n°1 does not smoke anymore. Does she stops ?
Cheers from France, keep up the good work :)
Intended to be as CC: I feel this trailer was a bit rushed when it came to editing. The previous trailer has a very subtle and enhancing rhythm. I am really hoping to see the interactive version of that rhythm I the game.
Can't wait for the game!
March
Love all the backgrounds and style. It's like a mix of all the classics plus modern touches. Great job guys!
Meh...
XDDD
So beautiful. Really! This just got perfect.
Only thing that I find I bit inconsistent is the circus background,
which doesn't seem to fit the other ones. I guess it's the lack of
dithering and the many single-colored areas. Also the lines could
need some manual anti aliasing.
Now, back to work! ...
Me, I mean.. Not you. :]
I've high hopes in this game!
Thanks for the brilliant work!
That's not to say I don't really like the new style... it's like, as of Mark had done Monkey Island 2, I suppose, not Steve Purcell. I'll think of it that way. Loving it very, very much. But before I see this circus background go away, I thought I'd say, I really already appreciate it for what it is. :) Thank you for both of these, Mark!
Probably hundreds of nerds analyzing the Video frame_by-frame - nothing stays hidden ;-)
Still, looks absolutly jaw-dropping beautiful. Can't wait how the final game will look like!
Although I am. :D
Wait, that's me too.
Thanks!
(No not really... Last Windows I've used (private) was Win XP some years ago...)
Since there is a GOG Version it will probably by a) DRM Free and b) will run on Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 10.
So i wouldn't worry!
"It lies there on the ground. Yuck!"
PICKUP jaw
"I have it"
USE jaw WITH mouth
The new trailer is AMAZING - they graphical Style is Spot on and makes my nerdy heart burst with pixelated joy. Good Job guys!
Although I hope Sony will also jump on it's good to see that the game will get some broader attention (it's Well deserved!)
Looking forward to Friday @ Adventure-Treff Party!
@Ron: Have a good time there! I hope that it won't be your last attendance to this periodical party!
I wasn't expecting the inside of the radio station to be so run down judging from it's outside. The glass panel of the DJ booth has huge cracks in it, the ceiling is dripping water into a bucket below that's totally full and needs to be empied lol. The place is a dump! At least there's a lava lamp though so it's not all bad =)
Btw, is one of the inventory items a marshmallow with a ribbon on top of it???????
I don't habe the same feeling of glooming doom with this project.
Ron seems to have a good approach of getting things to work/done first and then see how much polish is possible within the budgetary and time constraints.
Also: He has proven that he isn't afraid (or too stubborn) to get help from other People when they can do the Job at Hand more efficient (lighting System, scripting).
As of now I remain absolutly positive about this project, but I can understand your concern.
My problems with the game are that It was missing a Finale act and the one they had was not climactic enough and they left everything to be explained in the credits WALL-E style. I found that to be a big letdown.
Other than that, I enjoyed it and I felt like I got my money's worth.
As for the topic at hand, porting to consoles is easier than PCs because you have less variation; you have only one or two consoles but hundreds if not thousands of variations of different Windows PCs, Macs, and Linux PCs. I don't think this will be a big deal for Ron Gilbert and David Fox to handle.
http://coronalabs-archive.s3.amazonaws.com/anscamobile/blog/uploads/2011/11/David-B-Fox.jpg
Also, I find the fireflies quite nice, they put some magic in the night. I would appreciate seeing/hearing some nocturnal animals like crickets and owls at the nightly "rooms".
Now, a crazy idea: did you consider a 3DS version? It would be nice to see these beautiful layers in stereoscopic 3D (besides the nice parallax effect).
I grew up playing Maniac Mansion on the original NES and cannot wait for Thimbleweed Park!!
I'd pay extra for an Amiga or C64 version :-)
I really dont have any more to say than that, since I am man of few words.
Great.
I have seen how good are you working at this game!
Parallax scroll, vertical scroll, fantastic colored graphics, hilarous situations... and I have just seen 30 seconds!
Amazing!!!!!!
I'm not much of a console player but I'm glad more people are reached and new grounds broken. Also I'm not too concerned that it would affect the oldschool desktop experience. But then again, maybe it does take months off the project to think about how you can choose a verb and choose a spot with just a measly controller...and maybe...the interface will turn to just clickable X and Y buttons and you are allowed to move the characters with the arrow keys only, just to accommodate the consoles :)
Played multiple times, both Monkey Island games on the 360. I know the interface will be different but it played nice and smooth.
Good luck with that! Make good use of those 8GBs for ultra hyper mega X2 HD sprites.
Oh and by the way, is there anyway you could send us an e-mail when you ask for backers' ideas? I saw the book post a day later and it was already closed! No fair!
Keep up the good work
So happy this site is already supporting it.
...uh about the display option?
Thanks for pointing it out!
I hope it will only be the first of many new point & click classics from you guys. I will back any such projects you initiate. In fact, can't I just subscribe to all your future games ;)
It will come to C64 and err. c64 alone :-)
Consider this a shameless plug, though it will be for free anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4P60l_Myo4
The FM Radio frequencies are from 88.0 MHz to 108.0 MHz. So 108.7 FM is a radio station nobody will be listening to. Or is this part of the joke?
Btw. FM broadcast frequencies are from 87.5 Mhz to 108.0 Mhz in most countries, thus most receivers can be tuned in that range.
On the other hand, the One architecture is a shameless ripoff of PS4, so really they are partway funding the development for that platform also.
The PS4 controller has the touchpad so is should be a much better fit for the game.
Besides when Maniac Mansion was available on NES there was no touchpad, too. Xbox users who prefer a touchpad still have the option to buy a keyboard with an integrated touchpad.
But Ron stated in one of the blog posts that the game will have a 16:9 aspect ratio. This can also be observed by looking at the screenshots and/or videos.
So it will be probably more likely something like 356 x 200 and be scaled to match the closest video mode supported.
Back then, how difficult was it to release both CGA and EGA versions of Manian Mansion (v1) for the C64?
In Indy News,
Developer Ron Gilbert gathered quite a crowd today as he announced Thimbleweed Park will support Microsoft's current-gen Console. With beautifully done VGA graphics from Mark Ferrari and amazing 16 channel surround sound composed by Steve Kirk, few speculate there can be any contest for next years Game of the Year(GotY) award. The resulting news sent Microsoft Corp's stocks soaring a whole 10 points today on wall-street, a new record! Set to release in 2016, this 1980's era point and click adventure game Thimbleweed Park is said to to push Xbox One to its limits. "Out of all the innovations from this publisher, support for Xbox One is the most exciting!"- Ransom the clown.
Here is the never before seen footage from the crowded Xbox One event..
http://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/avLoK7X_460sv.mp4
'Secret of Broken Island' anyone? ;-)
A pillarbox mode would also be a solution. That's a matter of opinion.
I myself intend to play it on a 19 inch LCD with an old-school 4:3 aspect ratio. So I might not get any issue with a width of 320 px.
The game's native resolution seems to be of 427 x 240 Pixel (=Viewport size)
That is a pretty weird resolution because it only scales well to 720p (times 3 in each direction). But it will look ugly on Full HD without filtering because every 4th pixel has a different size than the rest.
@Ron: Will the game run in different native resolutions so that there will be nice upcaling factor like times 3 or 4?
(480 x 270) x 4 = (1920 x 1080)
(427 x 240) x 3 = (1280 x 720)
(455 x 256) x 3 = (1366 x 768)
(409 x 230) x 5 = (2048 x 1152)
...and so forth. It seems that a game which tries to have pixels so sharp the poke our eyes out are somewhat problematic when it comes to up-scaling ;-) It will be interesting how you approach this problem!
That means it may look okay when it's static, but it will look pretty ugly when it's scrolling:
Here is an example:
Let's say the image consists of the following pixels (in a row...)
a b c d e f g h i j (10 pixels)
scaled up by factor 2,23 this means it will be blown up to 22 pixels.
aa bb cc dd ee ff gg hh ii jj
Since this is only twenty pixels we have to increase two of those twenty even more:
AAA bb cc dd ee FFF gg hh ii jj
Now it's 22 pixels wide. Every fourth or so is increased times 3, the rest times 2. It may still look OK, but now lets scroll the image one pixel to the left:
b c d e f g h i j k
Scaled up by 2,2:
BBB cc dd ee ff GGG hh ii jj kk
Now let's compare them:
BB cc dd ee ff GGG hh ii jj kk
AAA bb cc dd ee FFF gg hh ii jj
And we see that be scrolling the source image by one pixel to the left "thank" to the nearest neighbor "algorithm" a different row is now multiplie by 3. That means: when the image scrolls there will be constantly increasing / decreasing of certain rows and columns that will lead to a very nasty jittery scrolling senstation.
What can you do about it?
1. Not using nearest neighbor, but that would result in a *SLIGHTLY* blurry image and certainly wouldn't qualify for "pixels so sharp they'll poke your eye out". This method is normally used by games, but most of them don't want to achieve a pixel-perfect look. The most "pixelated" games I know have an even lower native resolution and/or use post-processing effects to simulate an old CRT or something like that. But I don't think that would be a good approach for this project.
2. Use a natural number as a multiplier (2 instead of 2.2). This would mean black bars at 2 or even all 4 sides of the screen on certain resolutions
3. Upscaling all graphic resources on the fly and then sampling the scene at the target resolution. This would remove the jitter effect when the viewport scrolls but would still lead to uneven pixel sizes.
4. Have the game engine be flexible enough too choose a "good" native resolution that can be scaled up by a natural number multiplier to the needeed output resolution. This would require that they make sure there is a safety zone in their graphics which can be cut off without loosing important objects from the scene.
So it's not that trivial I guess...
I think we should better take a look at the vertical resolution: Together with the GUI it seems to be at 240 pixels. 1080 / 240 = 4,5 px. So either the pixel size is on alternate 4/5 px or every second intersection needs to be interpolated. Maybe it actually would be sharp enough since the pixel size is at least 4 times larger than the interpolated line. If not you better use a natural number as a multiplier as Dominik has written.
I used that and the Xbox presentation to calculate the resolution auf 427 x 240, which can be scaled nicely be factor 3 to 1280 x 720 (okay, one pixel off, but that can be cropped).
I tried upscaling the original 427 pixel wide quick-e-pal to 1920 pixel width (factor 4,5 as you mentioned correctly) and it dind't look good at all if you don't apply a filter. Thats mostly because mark uses a lot of dithering and fine lines. The quick-e-pal logo looks especially weird.
So, factor 4 would be one possibility, but that would mean pretty wide black bars (over 100 pixels wide which is about 11% of the screen).
Therefore I have to correct myself: If you use a scaling factor of 5 you lose merely 7,4 % of the screen size. That's much less than the classic games did on a 4:3 screen (almost 17 %)!!
I checked it out via ScummVM and I have to admit that I like the interpolated image, even though it used a non-natural number for scaling! Okay, there is a smoothness but I can live with it as it has square pixels.
Let's just wait and see.
Here you are probably wrong, Sir. You can't compare this historic video modes directly as they produced non-square pixels (eg Mode 13h). No problem with a CRT to get 4:3. So there were no black bars when you adjusted the monitor correctly.
And now that you wrote of non-square pixels I have to agree one more time. In the majority of cases they were in fact not square.
This makes me realize a bit more how long it's ago now...
This game will most definitely require at least 4K display. Maybe 5K. And a graphics card to handle that. Oh boy, we must buy some $2,500 system to play this game.
Either way -for the people interested in nice, smooth scrolling- here are two GIFs to show the difference between scrolling using a natural number as a scaling factor and jittery scrolling because of choosing the "wrong" scaling factor:
Please note: The gif-files are meant to be viewed at full screen. So make sure your screen has at least Full-HD resolution and that your browser isn't scaling it in any from.
Quick-e-pal scrolling & scaled by factor 4,27 to match Full HD resolution:
The jitter effect is especially well visible in the quick-e-pal logo itself and the "FOOD-BEET" sign.
http://80.244.219.130/transfer/test-1920-b.gif
Quick-e-pal scrolling & scaled by factor 4 to remove jitter effect:
http://80.244.219.130/transfer/test-1720-b.gif
Sure, not everybody will take much notice, but I for one would love to see Mark's and Garry's graphics as crisp as possible.
I'm sorry if it seemed as if I was mocking you. I was not. I did see your point, found it valid and I agree with you. I was being sarcastic about the "problem" about the scale factor we might have.
Now, I should be offended about the fact that I was misunderstood, as it seems to be the trait in internet conversations, but am not :) Again, I'm being sarcastic here.
Though in my opinion it might be sufficient to interpolate the intersecting lines in order to decrease this effect as well as to make sure that all the pixels are square.
In any case the game will have to support several differing screen resolutions. So the engine will have to be able to support a lot of different scaling factors. Therefore it would be reasonable to build one single universal interpolation algorithm that works for any resolution you may ever need.
When you're playing such a game you fortunately are not scrolling all the time.
Regarding the "problem": I think it could also be solved by making the game have a flexible viewport width. The different in the height can be simply "filled" by enlarging or shrinking the verb-menu and inventory.
It the viewport is flexible between 427 and 480 you can almost upscale to any common resolution using a natural number as a scaling factor. You might need to crop a pixel or two on each side (427 x 3 = 1281), but that should not be noticeable.
Though Ron mentioned a potential pixel-retro™ mode. I hope for it. (http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/parallaxing)
Can we have the trailer "sound track" in 8-bit music please?!!?
Meanwhile a fan linked this in Ron's Twitter feed : https://youtu.be/uYRZV8dV10w
And their blog: http://jasontammemagi.com/making-a-pixel-art-music-video/
I've been plaing some Zak McK lately and keep looking for a "Look At" option. I read up on it and found out that it was not included because it was thought that you could just see things on the screen. That got me thinking that the verb look at something should actually be "Inspect". Fits the detective theme.
Peace,
-Nathan
To the console controls (i.e. controls with a game controller)
I think there should be a cursor AND direct movement of the chracter.
You can still move the cursor and click somewhere (LeftStick + A) to make the character go there, but you also can use direct control (right stick) to walk. If you start walking the cursor will be automatically moved where your character is.
Direct control should be fairly easy to implement:
- When the right stick is pushed in any direction just use the X/Y-offset of the thumb stick, add them to the feet position of the character and make the character walk to that point.
- When you release the right stick the character should stop where it is and the cursor is positioned on eye level of the character
Prime examples are Grim Fandango and Monkey Island 4, which shared the same engine. The control was one of the weak points in these two games. In my opinion it was extremely annoying. I was used to the point & click style back then and I really missed it in these two games!
Even if a direct control would purely be an optional function many players would make themselves familiar with it until they wouldn't be willing to play the game in the classic way of point & click any more. In that case TP wouldn't be a point & click adventure game any more, which would be really sad!
But: The problem wasn't the direct control itself but how it was implemented: You rotated your character with the left/rigth keys and moved the character in the direction the character was facing by pressing "up". Tim Schafer called them "tank controls" because in the Broken Age Documentary I think... Yeah, it sure felt like it! Moving a big, fat, slow tank.
I think it was implemented because they had just for discreet directions (cursor keys). Since we now have analog sticks on the game pads this is much easier to solve and better to implement: Just move the stick in the direction the character should walk.
I'm not sure it would take anything away from pointing & clicking since other games have pulled this off in combination with a point & click cursor. I think all the Tell Tale games do this, and they had pretty good controls.
Of course, on a PC the mouse would be my way of control number 1, but if I sit in the living room I probably don't want to hassle with a cordless mouse.
I don't know... I think some playtesting is required to answer what is the best choice for TWP.
If you want to be able to cut a path short I would prefer the idea from The Curse of Monkey Island to skip the leaving/entering of a room/building by double-clicking the door.
Is there any more information/links/blogs like e.g. something from the adventuretreff party?