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Ron Gilbert's 'Thimbleweed Park' adventure is coming to the Switch
Ron Gilbert has had his fingers in quite a few adventure games over the years, including Lucas Arts' Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, along with Hothead Games' Penny Arcade Adventures, Death Spank, and Dobule Fine Productions' The Cave. He also spent some time at Humongous Games, making educational titles like Blue's 123 Time Activities and Spy Fox in Hold the Mustard. Gilbert's latest genre entry, in collaboration with longtime partner Gary Winnick, is Thimbleweed Park, funded on Kickstarter back in 2014. Released to Windows, Mac and Xbox One in March, the title is coming to PlayStation 4 on August 22nd and Nintendo's Switch sometime in September.
Daily iPhone App: The Silent Age is a great, stylistic point and click adventure
The Silent Age is quite an experience. It's a point-and-click adventure game, in the style of old games like Monkey Island and even Maniac Mansion. But as you can see from the screenshot above, it boasts a very original look and feel, one has a lot of style and a little bit of menace added in. The story is about a janitor who's pretty easygoing, when one day he's given a time-travel device and asked to save the world. And that's about all you need to know to start: The Silent Age unfolds itself like a puzzle box, very carefully and with a lot of excellent design. Unfortunately, the same issues that all of these point-and-click games seem to have are present here as well: The puzzles can sometimes get confusing, and the interface can sometimes not be 100 percent clear (usually, you need to find objects to use on other objects, but sometimes the solutions can be more abstract than obvious). But the good news is that The Silent Age's interface is very simple and straightforward, so there isn't a lot of room here for confusion. The game is more about experiencing the story and unlocking just what's going on, rather than trying to get you hung up on a specific puzzle. Plus, The Silent Age is currently completely free. At that price, there's no reason not to download this and check it out this weekend. It's probably not a game for everyone, but if you're ready for an experience that's a little strange and very experimental, give it a look.
Virtually Overlooked Week: JC's picks
Virtually Overlooked has taken over Wii Fanboy! All this week, members of the staff will be outlining their personal picks for future Virtual Console releases.Everyone can guess how my childhood was spent, since I talk about old games constantly. So, instead of relating a nostalgic anecdote for you, I'm going to use this intro space to tell you about the last week or so.When I'm not personally advancing the cause of random old games on next-generation consoles, I'm a full-time grad student at the University of North Texas, working on a master's degree in library science. From last Thursday until yesterday, I was in the midst of my capstone-- a seven-day marathon paper-writing session meant to be the final test of my suitability as a librarian. My wife and I were also preparing to move from Texas to Washington, which happened this Saturday. Add my regular coursework and job responsibilities to that, and, as you can imagine, I've been a complete wreck. My Fanboy colleagues are probably rolling their eyes right now as I complain again about my workload, but I feel like it was a pretty significant experience, one I hope never to repeat.I am now safely ensconced in a Washingtonian apartment, and I turned in my last essay in the early hours of Thursday morning. Getting a chance to write about a bunch of old games is like a vacation. I've been looking forward to this all week.Since this is a VO special week, I'm taking the opportunity to talk about more mainstream games than I usually cover. So there's a better chance that you guys have played this stuff, and we can all share in some retro-euphoria.
