Today, a friend of mine has finished Thimbleweed Park.
Nothing special about it, except for this friend did not play any Lucas* adventure games before, apart Monkey Island when she was 6 years old (and left it unfinished).
She played TWP just because I talked about it many many (^100) times.
She is the girl who was with me at Munich, in January 2017, when Ron Gilbert allowed some users to play a public demo:
After that great experience, she returned home and wanted to resume her old Monkey Island game.
So, she played it (finishing it, this time), then purchased Thimbleweed Park via Steam, and started to play it.
During this past weekend, she finished the game in casual mode, and gave me some questions/impressions about it.
WARNING: possible heavy spoilers ahead, I will not blur them
She didn’t understand why Delores had a balloon animal. She didn’t understand what “kickstarter video” means. So, she imaged that the key to escape would have been the body on the river, because “if it all started with the body, it must finish with the body”. She imaged to attach the balloon animal to the corpse, so it could fly, revealing a secret entrance on the ground…
There are too many unanswered questions:
Who killed Boris?
Who killed Franklin?
Xavier the ghost is still on the Penthouse, crying?
Will Willie be free again?
Why the sheriff, the coroner and the hotel manager are the same person?
Now (yes, after having just finished a few minutes ago) she is replaying it, in hard mode.
Congratulations, Thimbleweed Park team!
You have successfully addicted a friend of mine to adventure games!
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
Love, love, love
There’s nothing you can do that can’t be done
Nothing you can sing that can’t be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It’s easy…
And I worried how future players (in 25 years more or less) would solve that puzzle without resorting to a walkthrough, if youtube, kickstarter and/ or vimeo get out of business and you can’t find that video on the internet any more. Just in case, I downloaded that video and stored it together with the TWP setup file.
Zak’s friend was quite clever figuring out what to do with the balloon!
There is a song (@DZ-Jay take note: it’s by Max Pezzali / 883) which says:
“The Friend(zone) Rule” never miscalculates: if you are a woman’s friend you will never get what you want, never: “You don’t want to ruin such a good friendship”.
La regola dell’amico non sbaglia mai se sei amico di una donna non ci combinerai mai niente, mai: “Non vorrai rovinare un così bel rapporto”.
I was just kidding Zak, I would never jeopardise a good friendiship (and I do believe in friendship between a man and a woman) if there’s not a strong feeling towards the lady.
Beside that… I was wondering about her interest mainly, not yours
Very interesting thought! Even though it may sound hilarious that youtube and vimeo might get out of business we should remind ourself that 25 years ago something like youtube didn’t even exist. And in addition to that other big websites from the past died, to (e.g. altavista, myspace, geocities, …)
Update: she (my friend) is playing TWP normal mode.
She is stuck because can’t find the book of the deads.
She doesn’t want any hint from me, but she told me the following argument:
I know that I should find the book using Franklin, because as a ghost book, the other characters cannot see it. So, it must be in the cemetery or in the hotel, for sure.
Her reasoning seems correct to me. What do you think?
It isn’t, but the blue glowing colour and the fact that she already has finished TWP in casual mode, let her think that the book can only be handled by Franklin.
The point is that she has seen the book in casual mode, glowing blue, in the secret room of the penthouse floor, already placed. And since only Franklin can use it, she thought that’s a ghost book.
That’s the reason why, now, she knows that she needs that book. But she believes it’s a ghost book, and must be found only by Franklin.
