ThimbleWeed park in 640x480 on a Commodore 1942 CRT

Devoting every minute of available development time to working on a new two-year project instead of devoting a little bit of time to a fun, post-release feature that can be trivially removed if it breaks anything, is how occupational burnout happens.

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Yes. But Ron’s post on Twitter referred to the post-release features/ports of TWP. He is still working constantly on this game. And as I said above: It’s not only one little feature.

Beside that, the first phase of a new project is fun (Ron called it “honeymoon phase” if I remember correctly), so at least this phase could reduce the stress.

I agree with you that Ron must take care that he does not spend too much time on a game which is already released. I remember that Ron himself told that a friend of him had been developing a game since many years and might never release it, because of his perfectionism.
Then again, the Arcade, the uncensored Ransome voice-overs and the editor for fan-made translations have been announced many months ago, so it’s almost a kind of a duty for Ron to create these features first. That said, I wouldn’t be angry if he canceled these features in order to have more time/money for his next game.
By the way, while the uncensored voice-overs and the Arcade are rather interesting for fans and for people who want to play TWP more than once, I think that fan-made translations might even help to increase the sales, because the game would become more accessible for people who prefer a different language!
An, as already mentioned, a few more ports are already in the works.

I agree with @BigRedButton. Especially with the translation tool: It keeps the game alive and opens it up to new customers (who don’t speak one of the “official” languages). So I would recommend to give such a tool a higher priority then the floppy sound. :slight_smile:

We don’t know how much code exists already. So maybe it’s easy to open the Arcade …

I gather it´s very close to completition and would only require very little work but has been put on the backburner because priorities for ports are higher.

Are not the ports done by other people?

Ron’s a developer with over 30 years of experience. Burnout would have hit him long ago if he didn’t find a development method that works for him. If he were a fresh developer working on his first title, I’d agree there’s a lot of room for advice. But as an experienced industry veteran who has an enviable combination of technical and creative skills, and who is responsible for multiple critically acclaimed game, I’d like to think he has a pretty good understanding of where his limits are.

The development of software (and especially of games) has changed a lot in and over the last years. Ron worked a lot of the time for a publisher, within a studio or as a freelancer (for someone else). These working conditions are not comparable with the current situation respectively having your own business. Trust me: If you are running your own business you tend to work (much!) more then you should. (And the scary thing is: You know all the time that you are working too much.) And we shouldn’t forget that Terrible Toybox’s financial situation isn’t that good… [as a big company like EA or Ubisoft.]

/Edit: With the last sentence I just mean that Terrible Toybox is a small company with a limited budget! - and nothing else!

Could we get Amiga and C-64 (5.25) versions? I don’t think we need PC as they always came with hard disks anyway.

The Tandy 1000 I first played games on (including Monkey Island) shipped with two 5.25" 360KB floppy drives. Putting a used 20MB hard drive in it required spending an additional $200. Not that I’m arguing for extra floppy sounds, but IBM-compatible computers definitely came in floppy-only versions back then.

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Fair enough, my country started to catch up with western technology in the 90’s, so what do I know really. In those times I’ve never seen a PC that would work without a hard drive.

We went straight from Commodore 64 to Amiga. My first PC was already Windows 95 so I completly skipped the whole DOS stuff (which of course was still integrated in the early windows versions). So that whole VGA, CGA, EGA thing is still mostly alien to me since the Amiga (at least for Monkey Island) went straight to the graphical superior version.

I was still using our C64 long after everyone else had moved on to IBM PC’s. Eventually I convinced my mom to get us a 486SX, because the SysOps of the local BBS’s were getting tired of me asking for non-ANSI compatibility.

Maybe because of that the VGA remakes of classics like Zak and Maniac just look wrong to me. Even when the kids faces are the same color as the wall on the C64, it still has its charm!

That’s a little unfair. Our financial situation is great, mostly because we have no employees, and can pay all of our ongoing expenses. Don’t confusing “not making a lot of money” with “financial trouble”, they are very different things.

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Actually, it hasn’t. It’s pretty much the same process that has been around for forever. Tech has changed a lot, but the process hasn’t that much. Same issues I’ve been dealing with for 30 years.

Doing stuff like the floppy disk sounds and what keeps you sane. They are fun little tasks that are easy and make you smile. I’ve seen projects where a overly ridged producer actively prevents anything like this from happening, and you’re always left with a soulless, dead game.

The toilet paper was one of those things. It took us a hour to do, was totally unnecessary, but it’s generated a ton of PR.

You never know with this stuff. Me adding floppy disk sound isn’t going to hold up a new game. I haven’t even decided what new game I’m doing next. I will most likely spend several months building fun throwaway prototypes, just messing around with ideas that have nothing to do with my next “serious” project.

They free the mind, as does adding floppy disk sounds.

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Exactly, I mean Zak wears that one piece green top in the C64 version and doesn´t really look like he does on the cover (though I still think I prefer the neutral resting face to that perma-smirk) but I will always prefer the original.

Same goes for the entry hallway in Maniac Mansion. There is just a single pink colored wall instead of the tapestry of the later version. But I like that and I still prefer the flesh colored family over the blueish one.

No need to remake something that takes the majority of it´s charm out of making the best out of itself within it´s own limitations. At least looking back now…

Having said that I kinda like the FM Towns version of Zak with the ambient backround music. But Maniac Mansioni just NEEDS to be without music, that´s where it´s thrill comes from, that discomforting quietness only broken by the footsteps of a family member about to catch you!

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Yes, sorry! I didn’t chose my words wisely. I just meant that you are a small company with a limited budget. So you can’t add an unlimited amount of features.

My experience was and is, that these little things could drive you mad at a certain point. At first they are fun but at some point they could change into work. It’s like planting one little cute tree after another and then you suddenly are trapped in a forest. Maybe you have other experiences but in my (creative) projects I have to make a cut at some point and reset my brain with completely other things. (And after that I have more interesting new ideas for the old project. :wink: )

Yes, this was luck. :wink: But what about the specs of dust? I remember you saying somewhere that these things drive you mad - and they haven’t generated any PR.

“Making a new game” should be just an example. In the creative industry you have to do sometimes completely different things …

… to keep your “creative brain working” - and it seems that this is not my own experience. :wink:

Then go ahead. :slight_smile: I would love to see -ehrm- hear the floppy sound… :slight_smile:

I rather grew up primarily with MS-DOS and secondarily with the SEGA and Nintendo consoles from the late 80s and early 90s, so I am not very familiar with the C64 versions, but am very familar with EGA and VGA - and also with the sounds of a floppy drive and the acoustic differences between 5.25" and 3.5" floppy drives, of course.
I can confirm that there were some PCs with no HDD back then, but my family was using HDDs from the beginning.

From my experience the “original” version is the version that you have played for the first time. So if there is someone out there who played Maniac Mansion on the Amiga, this version will be the “only valid version” for him.

Another “problem” are the childhood memories: If we look back, everything seems “better” then it was.
For example I loved to play “Stunt Car Racer” on the C64. Nowadays for me it looks like a mess of jumpy lines on the screen … (and I would prefer the Amiga version).

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Some? :slight_smile: We played Zak on a monochrome display with only one floppy drive! The PC was so slow that we were unable to solve the puzzle with the egg in the plane: The movement of Zak was so slow that he reached the microwave too late …

The first PC generations had only one floppy drive - for example the first PCs made by Commodore (like the PC 10-III). HDDs were very expensive and even a 3,5 inch disc drive was luxury. :slight_smile:

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