I just want to say, I absolutely LOVE the TWP ending. MI2 gives me chills how it slowly builds and releases to the forth-wall breaking finish, but this takes that to a whole new level. It reminds me of all the amazing minimalism art that impacts it’s climax by building on relative themes and destroying everything with it’s jarring minimalism.
The whole buildup through out the game is just amazing, everytime the dark ambient sound plays, I’m given a thrill that I only get with incredible directors such as Hitchcock and Lynch. The spine-tingling last chapter brings a tear to my eye with it’s cinematic beauty, just as I get from halfway into Vertigo and the forth-wall is broken as she looks into the camera and the whole movies plot is turned on it’s head, the last episode of Twin Peaks Season 2, the “Maddy” episode of TP with the most horrifying death ever put to film, thanks to it’s unsettling soundtrack and direction style, the ending of Psycho or even the last episode of the new Twin Peak series.
It’s incredibly disappointing the majority of players don’t understand what incredible vision and direction Ron had with this last chapter (I get creep-chills everytime Chuck cries from help at occasional random times through the monitors!) and I consider it absolutely up at the top of my favorite endings in cinema, not even games because I can’t think of any games that compare to this besides Monkey Island 2.
I’d love if we could keep this thread to just fans of the ending, without rationalising why we could have liked it more or why we dislike it, I think there’s plenty of places on the internet for that already. I just want @RonGilbert to know how much it means to me and how choked-up emotionally and artistically I get from this incredible piece of art.
I think that’s to be expected though when you go down that route… a lot of things that are heavily artistically praised and are challenging are not widely popular.
It can seem like they are because if you’re a movie/game/book buff you will constantly hear critics talking about certain work as if everyone knows it, but it’s usually pretty niche.
Vertigo is amazing, one of the best films ever made, but most “regular” people haven’t seen it, even at the time it was not a box-office smash (it cost 2.5 mill and made 7.3 mill… meanwhile in comparison Gone With the Wind cost about 4 mill and made around 400 mill).
Same with Twin Peaks, amazing show, but it got cancelled after two seasons due to low viewing figures. With the new 2017 series it only got an average of about 300,000 viewers per episode, even with all the buzz, hype, and coverage it got (compared to 7-8 million for Game of Thrones or over 10 million for The Walking Dead).
I love the attention to detail they put in to give little gags such depth.
Seeing the blue Commodore 64 screen at the end really made me smile. I thought it wrapped the whole thing together perfectly, with just the right amount of nostalgia.
I also liked how the whole wireframe world acted as a playable DVD extra, allowing you to not only see but even play those.
I wonder if that was the intention from the start or that idea came somewhere during development. Same with the balloon animal puzzle, which I thought was just a very funny sentence construction purely for the Kickstarter campaign (just like the chainsaw and the can of gas in the inventory). I thought: ok, there’s a clown who probably can make balloon animals and there’s a dead body, so combining those will probably get a funny comeback “no thanks, that corpse is already filled up with gasses as it is” or “you want me to do WHAT now?”. While playing and after unlocking Ransome, I concluded there wasn’t going to be a balloon animal and it was just a red herring.
It’s the the combination of comedy and dramatic beauty. Rarely do the two come together so well, but contrary to the idea that the comedy would somehow make the drama lighter, I find it adds an extra level of emotion, and if done right, is far superior to just straight drama.
Again, Hitchcock and Lynch really are masters at this combination, and I’d rate Ron as highly as either of them.
Sometimes, people just disagree with your opinion. It happens. It does not mean that they do not understand it, nor does it mean they are not capable of appreciating it. They take it all in, see the point, and just disagree with it.
It’s incredibly disappointing that some people don’t seem to understand that. It is even more disappointing when some feel that their opinion is so right, so correct, that all it would take is some education and a bit of explaining; because once the opposite party finally understands “the truth,” they can’t but agree with it.
Sometimes people just have different opinions and give value to different things.
For what it’s worth, it wasn’t sarcasm. It was a sincere comment. I wasn’t “rationalising why we could have liked it more or why we dislike it.” I was just expressing a counterpoint to your statement of how “incredibly disappointing” it is that others don’t share your opinion.
If you sincerely wanted to keep this thread in a positive light, perhaps you shouldn’t have made such an ostensibly divisive and condescending comment towards those who don’t share your opinion.
I found the ending to Thimbleweed deeply unsatisfying, and borderline insulting.
I’ve loved these kinds of games forever, and replay games like MI1/2 often. Solving puzzles is fun, but even when I know the solutions I enjoy the experience; completing the story, feeling the atmosphere. It’s worthwhile to follow the directed objectives to their conclusion.
Thimbleweed Park sh*ts all over that.
There’s no point, because it’s a game.
I’ll probably replay the first few parts every so often and try to forget about the rest.
Hey, @Calypso, could you put all the “how do I flag spam”, “what is spam”, “should we consider off-topic as spam too” postd above and put them in a separate topic? I promise, I will start using that one as “reply in linked topic” then.
Yep, I agree - the whole thread got extremely derailed, so I’ve created a separate topic about what is and isn’t spam. Please continue the related discussion there and let’s leave this very thread for discussions about the game ending.
I honestly don’t know what I expected from this thread, but I guess some people just don’t read or care.
Touchy, much?
Forget it, just turn every nice thought into a negative, I really wanted to just hear from fellow fans of this incredible ending, but I suppose that was asking too much.
Sorry your thread got derailed! I really liked the ending. It was very original.
I’ve never seen another game let you experience their “wireframe world” like that. And after hearing all the podcasts, it was cool to finally see what Gary was talking about all those months ago.
I love then ending! It was unexpected and well crafted. It clicks well with the story. Perhaps I felt a bit disappointing thinking that making another game in the TWP world would be hard with that ending (but that’s not a problem with the game or the game ending per se). So yes, for me it was a satisfying ending overall.
I liked the ending too. The wireframe world was so eerie and I was wide-eyed and holding my breath through that bit, wondering what the deuce would happen next.
Some bits were drawn out a bit too much for me (such as Chuck explaining everything to Delores) but I liked the overall concept and didn’t see it coming.
I guess it was a bit risky as it wouldn’t appeal to everyone, but it’s practically impossible to do that.
