A kid's review of Thimbleweed Park

I want to reiterate that there is a lesson to be learned here for future projects, and that it is not dumbing down the game. It is finding an effective way to bridge that confidence/experience gap that newbies have in order for them to be able to play and enjoy the rest of the game as it was intended.

I can’t stress this enough: once Dante jumped that critical hurdle at the beginning (which to an outsider may just look like “casual player kid is too stupid for adventure games”) he was able to enjoy the game, follow the plot and the character arcs, and solve the puzzles.

By the end, he wasn’t a “hardcore adventurer,” but he was definitely on his way to become an adventure game player. :slight_smile:

Thimbleweed Park does a fantastic job at this, but there may be more that can be done in the future.

dZ.

As a software developer who’s been a consultant for a couple of years, I can attest to this. Just try working through a bug report with the end-user who reported it. You won’t merely question their intelligence; after a while you’ll start questioning their sentience too… :wink:

The most important thing to remember is that while the software might be central to your (professional) life, working on/with it 8h/day, 5days/week… To your end-user, it’s just one tool of many they need to get their job done. To them, it’s peripheral, and this translates in less familiarity with its quirks and idiosyncrasies which you no longer notice.

I guess it’s the same for game development: the developers know the game inside-out, know all its quirks, options, expectations it places on the end user. Some things a player could do would never even cross their mind, because they know it makes no sense.

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Part of that could come in the form of more casual adventure games alongside the “real thing”, and more kid-friendly stuff so kids get the chance to learn the mechanics at a younger age.

Having a casual and hardcore mode like TWP is also a good solution: it doesn’t exclude newcomers and it doesn’t annoy veterans. Sounds like a lot of extra work though: you must rework your entire set of puzzles to allow for an easier solution with less steps/objects, and then ensure that the game is still “winnable” in both scenarios. You’re writing two (albeit very similar) games at once, and even minor changes to one can impact the other. @RonGilbert: this sounds like a nightmare, TBH. How much headache did this choice cause you, and how did you manage this added complexity?

An alternative solution could be the game teaching you how to play it without you really noticing. When it lets you figure out how to leverage learned gameplay mechanics, or combine them, to tackle increasingly difficult challenges. But that’s hard to do without it becoming obvious and without the experienced player feeling patronised.

It may, but I don’t necessarily agree with this. I think a casual gamer like my nephew is perfectly capable and maybe even motivated to enjoy the “Hard Mode.” In fact, Dante asked precisely the differences and I described a few puzzle chains after he solved their “Casual Mode” counterparts. He seemed even more excited.

I think framing this as an “us vs. them” is a bit condescending and counterproductive. Like Mr. Gilbert said, he could enjoy a FPS more if he took the time to learn more it’s mechanics and game-play. So what if he were interested in this? Do you think he would wish for a “dumbed down” or “casual” experience? Maybe he would like to play the real stuff.

Mr. Gilbert also says he is not interested in catering to the disinterested and unmotivated player who has no desire for narrative or complex stories. I can identify with this and I think it’s the right attitude.

So we shouldn’t aim for a watered down version of an adventure game – we should strive for a way to make the exact same experience adventure gamers enjoy, more accessible and appealing to the newcomer. And by “accessible” I absolutely do not mean a watered down experience, but a means to train them and let them reach a level of confidence that will open up the world of adventure games to them.

That may not be possible in all cases, but we can try to address some of them. I think this is what Thinbleweed Park tries to do to some measure of success.

dZ.

That is a very interesting question, indeed. I would imagine that the puzzle dependency chart helps greatly in managing this complexity, allowing you to just skip over some dependencies to get to the greater goals.

dZ.

Oh, but that’s not how I meant it. But looking at other genres, you also see games catering more to a casual market and others more to the hardcore crowd. Platformers are a good example: some require cat-like reflexes, precision jumps, and are all about frantic hardcore platform action, whereas others are a bit more laid back and more accessible. Racing games or flight sims are an even better example: you have your arcade racers like the Need for Speed series, but then there’s also the hardcore simulators that are a lot less forgiving.

These more casual experiences exist alongside the hardcore stuff, so he can still go for the “real thing”. But for those wishing a more gentle introduction, there’s the more casual market, through which they will inevitably discover the more serious stuff e.g. through the surrounding community.

True, and I’m not saying every game should be casual, nor that Ron should be the one making them. There are other developers who can cater to that crowd.

Agreed. If you can gently introduce the player to the gameplay mechanics, and let them figure it out from there, without it becoming patronising, then that’s indeed the most elegant solution. But also hard to do well, and there will always be a small vocal minority who will complain. But that’s unavoidable, no matter what you do.

I share your view on all you said. I just don’t care about the purely casual player (and I don’t think anybody here does), so I have no interest in discussing who should cater to that nor how.

dZ.

I’m not sure, if understand you right, but I won’t say that this is true: As kids my friends and I tried a lot of games without knowing what to do in the games. Even if we had the manual, we ignored it. So in a lot of cases we can’t figure out what to do. But we don’t blame us or assumed that’s our fault. We didn’t say: “Oh, we have done something wrong!” Instead we said: “Ok, we have to read the manual first.” We knew that we should read the manual or invest more time or play the tutorial or read the in-game-hints. We just hadn’t the motivation or -hm- “desire” to invest more time into the game at that moment. So the disc with game went back into the shelf and we gave it a new try some days or month later.

And from what you wrote, I am confident that your nephew would have figured out the mechanics himself after a while (without your help).

Yes, I know. :slight_smile: But even if you take the joke seriously, it won’t work (due to the reasons I mentioned above). :slight_smile:

We have these “casual” adventure games already. Think of the Telltale games and now the new Daedalic adventures.

I miss kid friendly adventure games. Since Freddy Fish and Co. I haven’t seen an adventure game designed especially for kids - or family games. (Or can someone name one?) The most “casual” games with a simple UI aren’t really suitable for kids.

Yes, for me this is the best way. But as you said: It isn’t easy to achieve and you have to consider this in the design phase of the game.

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That may have been true at some point, but modern day players are not so open to training. In any case, my point was specifically regarding the newer generations.

It may be an American cultural thing, though.

Nope, not at all. I categorically assert that he would have given up in a huff of frustration very early on.

Indeed, this almost happened a few times and it was only my reassurance and guidance (and mine and his mother’s insistence that he kept trying) the reason why he persevered until he finally “got it” and got more confidence.

This is the reason why it is very important to me to figure out a way to bridge that gap.

There is no doubt in my mind that Dante loved and enjoy the game immensely once he got into it; but it is also equally clear that he would not have given it the necessary attention and effort if left to his own devices.

Starting with the fact that it was his cool, game programmer uncle (hehe, yours truly) playing the game that sparked his interest. :wink:

Agreed! It is not easy or trivial and its a testament to Mr. Gilbert’s talent that Thimbleweed Park gets very close.

dZ.

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I wonder what kind of tutorial we are talking about, to address those who have never played adventure games. (“he didn’t seem to really understand how to solve puzzles at first”, as DZ-Jay said). I mean, it can’t be just something that explains the UI (“to open a door, click here then here”). Because by that description, the problem is not that he can’t understand how to open doors, but that he does not know that he has to read between the lines and do inferences of his own, and not expect the game to tell him exactly what to do.

Take a look at the “Casual” mode, it does a fantastic job at this: It tells you “TALK TO Willy,” “PICK UP Rock,” “USE Rock ON LIGHT,” etc. – and if you stare at it in confusion without doing anything, a cursor appears showing you where to click, repeatedly until you do so.

This may be fantastically stupid to some of you, but I find it astonishingly brilliant.

dZ.

I’ll tell you my experience in case it can shed light on the mind of those who have never played adventure games. I was fourteen and I had never heard of adventure games, when a friend of mine (very very excited) invited me at his place and showed me this new game. It was a kind of game never seen before. It was called Monkey Island (for amiga). Now, my friend had a written walkthrough, which had been sold to him together with the game; and he started showing me this game. And he played by just following the walkthrough. He asked me to read him what to do next. For some reason, he assumed that was how the game was supposed to be played. (I’ll never know if he was misled into believing this by the fact that the walkthrough had been sold to him together with the game). And, since he presented the game to me this way from the start, I did not question that assumption. I accepted it. It did not occur to me that maybe you were supposed to understand those things by ourselves. Only after maybe 1 hour into the game, I remember it occurred to me that maybe we were supposed to figure things out. But I wasn’t sure. And I suggested to him that maybe we should try to figure things out. And he (almost aggressively, very convinced) turned to me and said “no, that would be IMPOSSIBLE”. And he sounded sure, so I thought he was right. And so I finished Monkey Island with the walkthrough, convinced that was the way it was supposed to be played, until the end. The question is: am I stupid? I am still uncertain about the answer. :slight_smile:

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This is interesting: If I watch the kids in my neighborhood, they are still able to dig into something new and experiment with this (game) - if they want to. (As we did long ago. :slight_smile: ) At first sight, it seems that they have a very small attention span. But if they aren’t distracted by something else, they are still able to dig into a game (or whatever) and figure these things out.

So the question is: Are you sure, that your nephew would have given completely up? Or would have he tried TWP after a few hours or days again? (Or would have he asked you what he has to do?)

(And maybe we are impatient too: If a kid can’t figure something out, we didn’t give him time to try it again. No, we have to tell him instantly the solution. This is what I’m observing in my neighborhood. But maybe the parents are a special case. :slight_smile: )

DZ-Jay has already given an example. Another possibility would be to activate one verb after another. So the player has first to “pick up” an object. After that he can “use” an object, etc.

I might have misunderstood, but I thought the problem was not to understand how to use objects and how to execute any given action, but how to figure out what actions you need to execute…

Both. :slight_smile: You have to tell players who never played an adventure game, how to play an adventure game. So you have to show these players how to execute the actions and that (and how) to solve puzzles.

Well, I can’t read the future that would have been, but many things suggest he wouldn’t.

First of all, being 11 years-old, there is a very good chance he would not have paid for a game he’s never heard of, of a genre he’s not familiar with.

Second, assuming I would have paid for the game as a gift (which I intend to, once it comes out for iOS), he wouldn’t have any personal nor emotional investment in it, nor motivation to learn such an alien type of game.

Yes, I said alien – it would be to him at least: it’s got some funky pixelated graphics, there is no shooting or quickly attainable gratification, there are verbs on the screen, a lot of talking, and lots and lots of words. It looks like home-work.

Then there was the time when he almost threw a tantrum because he couldn’t figure out a puzzle. He wanted to stop playing completely, and almost cried in frustration. Faced with a myriad other games in his collection that he loves to play – and more importantly, knows how to play already – I indeed question whether he would have come back to it.

I had giving you the nice abridged version of the story before. But yes, there was some initial frustration when he started playing. I will admit it was not too much, and that it did not last too long; but he was very frustrated, and likely would’ve quit the game.

Yes, it is possible he would have followed through, but most likely he would have just deleted the game.

dZ.

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Don’t underestimate peer pressure with kids. All it takes in one adventurous kids to figure something out, then peer pressure can take over and the others will give it a shot. From MI stores I heard, this is likely what happened. If one of your nephew friends suddenly showed up at school raving about TWP, my guess is he’d figure it out.

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Absolutely.
That’s one of the reasons why I let kids try and play TWP.

Oh sure, I agree with that completely. So let me work my magic on Dante and have him be the kid that shows up with TwP at school. :slight_smile:

If this works out, I’ll send you a bill for… hmm… “newbie consultancy fees.” :laughing:

dZ.

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Are you sure? Because when I look at the games available on the XBox, most do a lot of tutorial/handholding in the early game. It’s something I really noticed after a decade of being out of gaming altogether: in the old days, you read the manual to learn the game, while nowadays in the digital download era, people expect the game to teach them as they play.

Lol, I can almost imagine this scene playing out in some nerd comedy… Hilarious tale, man. :slight_smile: