If you ever loved Maniac Mansion of the Secret of Monkey Island, this one’s for you.
Thimbleweed Park is out today for Xbox One, PC, Mac, and Linux. The point-and-click adventure game uses a pixelated style familiar to anyone who loved these kinds of games in the ’80s and ’90s. It costs $20. Thimbleweed Park was crowdfunded on Kickstarter, raising $626,250 in 2014. It intentionally mimics the look of those classic LucasArt games, including its verb-based user interface.
Ron Gilbert, David Fox, and Garry Winnick all worked on Thimbleweed Park. The trio previously created Maniac Mansion, the classic adventure game from 1987 that established LucasArts as a major player in the genre. Gilbert was the director of Maniac Mansion, and would also direct the revered Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge at LucasArts before leaving and creating his own studio, Humongous Entertainment, that worked on adventure game series for kids like Putt-Putt and Pajama Sam.
The game tells the story of two detectives investigating a murder in the dark and strange town of Thimbleweed Park (which, among other things, was home to its state’s largest pillow factory). It has players switching between five playable characters as they solve puzzles and attempt to solve the murder mystery.
