But characters like the Pigeon Brothers, who are actually sisters with an inaccurately named van, only succeed in being grating, and the less said about that *bleeping* Ransome the *bleeping* clown, the *bleeping* better. And the vacuum tube-saleswoman I found particularly unsettling, all smiles in her softly glowing dominion. The sheriff, for example, makes me think of Ned Flanders on the brink of a psychotic break. Don't trust those distinctive verbal tics.)īy and large, Thimbleweed Park succeeds in crafting a menagerie both humorous and sinister. (The last three are probably the same people. There's also a clown, a game developer, a woman who works in a cake shop that once sold vacuum tubes, plumbers in pigeon suits, a coroner, a sheriff, and a hotel manager. The two head down to the shambles of Thimbleweed Park, which once profited from the presence of an eccentric pillow magnate. The scene ends with him blue, bleeding, face-down in the water, and clearly dead because look, you can tell by the pixelation.įourth wall-breaking federal agents, who bear more than a passing resemblance to certain characters from The X-Files, then show up to investigate, at which point everything becomes even stranger. Things escalate without the concept of brakes. It opens with an European-sounding man wandering down to the water, a reversible teddybear in grip, no explanation at all. What I love about Thimbleweed Park is its willingness to catapult players straight into the weird. (Example A: The Lester Dent Pulp Paper Master Fiction Plot) Nonetheless, I can't help but slightly miss the lunatic genius of inexperience. Media is, by and large, a carefully structured experience, adhering to certain specific structures. In that respect, Thimbleweed Park can, at times, feel peculiarly over-rehearsed, as though the jokes were built to an empirically proven formula. Like a Swiss-made watch or a production of Hamilton, every actor and cog sliding perfectly into place, aware of their place, their importance in the overarching narrative, and so very conscious of the genre's foibles and strengths. When Thimbleweed Park works, it works beautifully. Expecting some esoteric solution, I scurried about the dilapidated mansion, fruitlessly jamming items together, until at last, I thought, "Why not?" The pivotal moment for me was when a character discovered an out-of-order spiral staircase. Thimbleweed Park relaxes after a while, and stops trying to prove itself. Luckily, and I say this with a gusty sigh of relief, it does get better. Nonetheless, there's something frankly uncomfortable about staring at the options and thinking, "Do I rag on the kid in the wheelchair, or do I make the old woman cry?" I understood that our vitriolic pierrot was intended to be an ass and Thimbleweed Park doesn't allow him to escape unscathed. There's a sequence with a truculent clown where you stomp onto the stage to deliver insults by the pound. Come back after an episode.)īut it is smug, and it does take its jokes slightly too far. (You don't know what Nightvale is? Here, have a link. I dug the hell out of fact Thimbleweed Park evokes some serious Nightvale vibes, marrying humor with existential dread. The tone, the artwork, the subtle callbacks, the five-character menagerie, the way they used modern technology to improve ever-so-slightly on nostalgia, all those variables are here in their Sunday's best, shoes polished and hair beautifully pomaded. Make no mistake, Thimbleweed Park delivers on its Kickstarter promises. Yes, everyone knows that the King's Quest series was obtuse, murderous, and frankly unplayable at times, but to have a character in your game gush about howlucky they are to be a protagonist in the hands of a certain other studio?īut slowly, you realize that this is all just bluster, its swagger a way to deflect from its existential uncertainty. Even worse are the shots that Thimbleweed Park takes at old-school adventure games. It doesn't so much wink at its audience as it does demand we fall into position, singing paeans to its cleverness. In its worst moments, this point-and-click adventure from industry legends Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, without putting too fine a point on it, can be insufferable. Thimbleweed Park is a little bit afraid you won't love it. Thimbleweed Park is what would happen if you moved Nightvale into Monkey Island, and gave everyone too much rum.
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