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Comment by leetrout | Hacker News Reader

Thimbleweed Park is the first game of this type I’ve ever played. It was so good and the story was fantastic.

I recommended it so some friends and they didn’t care for the story or the art style so I’m not sure why my recommendation fell flat but I felt like I was playing a game version of Twin Peaks. Quirky but captivating!

I’ll have to give Delores an ol play-a-reno!

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A cyberpunk-themed adventure in pixel-art style was released very recently in May 2020. I mention this since I can imagine that some people in the HN audience might love it:

VirtuaVerse

* https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=VirtuaVerse&oldid...

* https://www.gog.com/game/virtuaverse

* https://store.steampowered.com/app/1019310/VirtuaVerse/

I just finished it not long ago. Some puzzles are very hard but the game is pretty good.

The soundtrack is superb too: https://masterbootrecord.bandcamp.com/album/virtuaverse-ost

See also: https://valenberg.tumblr.com

Thanks for posting this! As a fan of adventures, cyberpunk and pixel art, I somehow missed this. It looks just like my cup of tea.

I don't know if this will repay your helpful post, but be sure to check out Gemini Rue, also an old-fashioned point-and-click scifi game: https://store.steampowered.com/app/80310/Gemini_Rue/

Even thoughit looks like I would like the story setting of Gemini Rue, I am not sure whether I would like this game or not. The reviews mention action sequences; these are rather not my cup of tea.

I don't remember any action sequences, so they must be minimal. It's a point and click adventure.

There are a few, mostly when you're being attacked by Boryokudan on the streets of the initial world, but also when you're playing the second character and training your shooting skills.

Also, Technobabylon, published (but not developed) by the same people, Wadjet Eye.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/307580/Technobabylon/

While good, I thought Wadjet's Primordia, where you play a robot in a postapocalyptic civilization where humans no longer exist, was better:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/227000/Primordia/?curator...

Shardlight, another postapocalyptic sci-fi story, is also great:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/336130/Shardlight/?curato...

Wow, these were all outside my radar. Thanks for mentioning them!

Looks amazing, thanks!

Then you should absolutely play Monkey Island. Its available in a good "remastered" edition. https://store.steampowered.com/app/32360/The_Secret_of_Monke...

And Monkey Island II as well as Day of the Tentacle. Both also remastered:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/388210/Day_of_the_Tentacl... https://store.steampowered.com/app/32460/Monkey_Island_2_Spe...

DOTT is particularly special for being a sequel to Maniac Mansion, a Gilbert game I had briefly played somewhere on the original NES.

The entire Maniac Mansion game is also included in playable form within DOTT, on a virtual computer found within the game's environment.

I remember first playing DOTT on the PC and discovering the embedded Maniac Mansion. Up until that point I hadn't realized I was playing a sequel to that NES game I'd long forgotten about.

They're fun games, quirky with a great sense of humor and playful innocence about them.

What's strange is that it is unclear to me which build the Maniac Mansion embedded version is. It is not the PC one. As a kid I tried to replace the lfl files from the maniacm subdir in DOTT om the Maniac Mansion root folder. It didn't work. :)

Even though the first two entries in the Monkey Island series are classics, my personal favourite is the 3rd, The Curse of Monkey Island. Gorgeous artwork, beautiful music, and hilarious writing and voice acting.

I agree, but art-wise the remastered editions are also pretty nice.

Though take the time to revisit the original art because some of it is a master class in early pixel art, and Monkey Island II was a master class in early MIDI work that stands nearly unbeaten in what it did dynamically and adroitly (search keyword for technical tales: iMUSE), and the lone full collaboration between all three of LucasArts' composers. One of the great things that both Monkey Island remasters did was make it a one button push to switch between original and remastered art and music (including the ability to do it mid-scene).

We'll fight you in the harbor
We'll battle you on land
When you meet singing pirates

They'll be more than you can stand.

I really wish HN had spoiler tags so I could give a warning about why lots of people will find the story disappointing compared to classic adventure games. I guess maybe I can say that if you were ever annoyed by the ending of Monkey Island 2, stay far away from this one.

I loved the ending of Monkey Island 2, so maybe I would enjoy this game.

I loved it too. I loved how they connected it to the first game in the ending chapter and all the fourth wall breaks.

Too "fourth wall" for you, I'm guessing? I mean the whole game was heavily fourth wall from the beginning.

(That's as close to a non-spoiler as I can get.)

I completely agree. There's a sort of modern sentiment that a reference is funny in itself, and that fourth-wall is funny just by being fourth-wall.

I also had the feeling it was a little too proud of some of its (other) jokes, and wore them out.

In this case it’s not even that modern, since Gilbert was responsible for the MI2 ending. So in the last 30 years he still hasn’t realised that ending with “it was all a dream” isn’t really that clever!

That's part of it, but there's also the part that values shout-outs or references for their own sake. There's much more of that now than there was in MI2's time.

> I really wish HN had spoiler tags

Use ROT13

Pixel Art adventure games like Thimbleweed Park, http://darksidedetective.com, http://snailtrek.com, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unavowed, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primordia_(video_game), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_Rue, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technobabylon work mostly on people who grew up on LucasArts 'Monkey Island', 'Sam & Max Hit the Road', 'Day of the Tentacle', Revolution Software 'Beneath a Steel Sky'/'Broken Sword', and maybe Sierras Kingsquest/Spacequest.

You might like Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis too. That is an awesome game. I like it as much as any of the films. (Or even more. There are at least 3 different ways to play it through.)

Happy to see there are at least some new players introduced to the adventure genre by Thimbleweed Park - I honestly wasn't sure it would be enjoyable without the "nostalgia factor". I can only agree with the other posters: if you enjoyed Thimbleweed Park, you'll probably enjoy the original LucasArts games even more! My personal favourites are Monkey Island 1/2 and the Indiana Jones adventures (Last Crusade & The Fate of Atlantis). As for Thimbleweed Park, I'm sorry to say I never finished it - at some point, it seems to lose focus with lots of locations you can go to, several characters to play and not really a clear sense of what you should do next...

Yes! It gets overwhelming and a bit frustrating. I had to google a couple of the puzzles.

Welcome to a new style of gaming! There's a lot of hidden gems out there. Since you're into quirky I highly recommend Dropsy: https://store.steampowered.com/app/274350/Dropsy/ ... Really unique and excellent character development.

I think it is a must to play the monkey island adventures then! If you want to compare this to a movie or show, Pirates of the Caribbean would probably be mentioned, but monkey island was first.

I grew up with this kind of games and the Lucas arts games were the ones I liked the best. Zak McKracken, Day of the Tentacle and lots of other adventures was what I like to play in the 90s.

Fun fact: Pirates of the Caribbean began life as a film adaptation of Monkey Island at ILM.

Quite a few details survived the script rewrites...remember the jailhouse dog with the keys in its mouth in the first Pirates?

I believe Gilbert has petitioned Disney a few times now for the rights to Monkey Island to create new games, though I don’t think they’ve responded.

I always thought the jailhouse dog was an homage to the part of the Disney ride where a dog is holding a key in its mouth in front of a bunch of prisoners. I've never played any of the Monkey Island games to know if that's significant in them though.

https://pirates.fandom.com/wiki/Pirates_of_the_Caribbean_(ri...

The Monkey Island game was heavily influenced by the Disney ride and (as sibling comment noted) Tim Powers' book On Stranger Tides. The Venn Diagram of who influenced who is nearly a circle, as the game was influenced by the Disney ride and the book and the movies were influenced by the ride and the games and the book and now the updates to the ride are influenced from the movies and the book. Disney even owns the Monkey Island games now in buying Lucasfilm, so all your pirate fictions are belong to Disney. (Yarr.)

Fun fact: The true inspiration for most of Monkey Island was, in fact, the 1987 novel On Stranger Tides¹ by Tim Powers (no, not the 2011 Jack Sparrow movie).

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=On_Stranger_Tides...

> The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise originated with the theme ride, which opened at Disneyland in 1967

IIRC Monkey Island took some inspiration from the rides.

I used to play a lot of these games when they had state of the art graphics. I loved the art style but the story&characters didnt really grow on me.

Something you may want to check out is Backbone (https://store.steampowered.com/app/865610/Backbone/). While not true point-and-click, it is the same style of gameplay. There's only a demo available right now.

You are in luck because Thimbleweed Park is like a 4/10 game and you still loved it. Try Grim Fandango next.

If its the first game you have played in that category, you havent played the best.

The signals are strong tonight!

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