Thimbleweed Park Review

Thimbleweed Park, a small town, is visited by the FBI. The two agents Angela Ray and Alberto Reyes have been sent to investigate a murder. Going their rounds they meet several people – a clown who always wears his clown make-up called Ransome the Clown, Chuck Edmund, the owner of the PillowTronics robotics company (who recently died), his niece Delores Edmund, a computer programmer and lastly Deloris’ father Franklin. Franklin, in an effort to get out of the rut his life has put him in, pitches a new business idea to Chuck, but is in return murdered at the local hotel, and he turns in to a ghost. There are five playable characters within the game, Franklin’s ghost being one of them. The story is split up in different character-archs, that interchange through the game. The other characters you play as are the two FBI agents, Delores and Ransome the Clown.

When playing as Delores you traverse your rich uncle’s mansion, and stumble upon his will where we learn that Delores has been written out of it due to Chuck being angry at her for wanting to pursue a career making video games. The two FBI agents are following their leads, and gather evidence which leads them to arresting Willie T. Wino, a local vagrant, who says he is innocent. As it looks like their job is done they leave Thimbleweed Park, but comes back in incognito. Ray has been tasked with stealing computer secrets, Reyes returns to clear his fathers name as he has been accused of burning down the PillowTronic factory.

In the end Ray, Reyes, Delores and Ransome the Clown ends up infiltrating the factory. Delores being handy with computers hacks and disables the security systems, but in the process she learns that her uncle Chuck has uploaded himself to the factory computer, functionally giving him access to everything within. Chuck reveals to us that everyone who lives in Thimbleweed Park is trapped inside a video game which keeps repeating, and that the only way they can free themselves is by deleting the game.

Throughout the story we learn tidbits of our playable characters. Ransome the Clown, a clown who is very fancy of swearing constantly (and for a small fee you can buy DLC where his swearing is not bleeped out, quite worth it), and was a former insult clown who made people sad with his jokes. In the end Ransome ends up apologizing to the people of Thimbleweed Park for his behaviour, and his apology is accepted. Franklin the ghost, who also used to hold a grudge on his daughter for her career choice, ends up saying goodbye on good terms to his daughter and disappearing to the afterlife. Reyes gets a confession from Chuck that it was in fact not his father who started the factory fire, and gets it printet in the local newspaper. Ray, who has had a secret agenda all along, steals the game design documents from the designer of the game Ron Gilbert, and are in turn ransferred out of the game by her “employers”. Rey has learned that the being trapped in a video game plotline was correct, and wanted to save herself and ‘live on’. Lastly we have Delores, who ends up inside the wireframe of Thimbleweed Park. The wireframe world is a crudely drawn world the game takes place in (and is in fact the first draft of the game), where she finds the main system, and shuts it off.

Thus ends the game on a very meta note. Throughout the game it plays on a lot of video game tropes – one being that the coroner, sheriff and hotel owner is “the same person” just with a slightly other way of talking, and another name. The playable characters comment on this, but the coroner-sheriff-hotel-owner has no clue what they are talking about (a play on the old limit in video games where NPCs looked alike to save memory). The whole idea of learning you are in a simulation is also not new, but being displayed inside a video game is refreshing, and ending the game by going through the game’s wireframe was an interesting idea.

The game itself is made by Ron Gilbert who is famous for making some of the greatest point-and-click games ever, such as Monkey Island 1 + 2, Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle. The game is made in the same fashion as the good old game, as a homage to a forgotten era. The controls and inventory are made in the old fashioned way. The graphics are all in pixelart, and it looks fantastic. Lots of depth, details and very well-done lighting and shading. The musical score fits the game nicely, being nothing over the top, but quite fitting. The whole game has a nice 90’s vibe, with hints of X-Files and a bit of Twin Peaks. It is a splendid game, made by one of the very best in his field, a great homage to the adventure games of old. I give my wholehearted recommendations to everyone, play the game if you like the genre. You will very much not be dissapoint!