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Ron Gilbert's 'Thimbleweed Park' gets physical collector's editions
Fans of adventure game classics have a reason to give Thimbleweed Park one more look -- it's about to get a physical release, complete with both standard ($35) and limited collector's editions ($65) for PS4 and Switch. Made by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick (Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion) the side-scrolling adventure game erupted from a 2014 Kickstarter before its eventual release on PC, consoles and mobile devices.
Retro adventure 'Thimbleweed Park' comes to Switch on September 21st
You no longer need an iPhone to take the traditional adventure gaming of Thimbleweed Park on the road. Terrible Toybox has confirmed that the Nintendo Switch version of its retro mystery will be available for $20 on September 21st, or about a month after it reached the PS4. Portability is clearly the selling point of this release, but it also gives you a distinct choice of controls -- you can use the Joy-Cons or the touchscreen depending on your tastes.
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.
Hothead Games to publish Ron Gilbert's 'DeathSpank'
Described as -- and you'll want to sit down for this -- "the perfect melding of a Monkey Island style adventure game with the wicked RPG game play of Diablo," Ron Gilbert's latest creation has been revealed to be an episodic title dubbed "DeathSpank: Episode 1: Orphans of Justice." The adventure legend has joined Vancouver-based Hothead Games as Creative Director, noting that he's spent over four years searching for "the right publisher for this strange little game." He went on to quip, "Now that I've done it, you just know that somewhere four horsemen are saddling up." Followers of Gilbert's grumpy ramblings may remember DeathSpank as a satirical game character mentioned in a series of Flash comics, created with the aid of Clayton Kauzlaric and offered on Gilbert's personal blog. They'll also recall that Gilbert is currently providing his expertise and surly demeanor to Penny Arcade's episodic endeavor, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness. Expect to hear more on both titles... soonish.
Ron Gilbert (ie: our hero) working on Penny Arcade Adventures
We try to avoid overtly sycophantic groveling here at Joystiq -- it's unbecoming and we drool enough already -- but when we discovered that legendary adventure game designer Ron Gilbert (Monkey freakin' Island, folks) was working on the inaugurual Penny Arcade Adventures installment, On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, we sorta couldn't help it. That headline was propelled out of our nervously clacking fingers.Like at the end of a hackneyed thriller, we began to piece it all together. Of course! It all makes sense now! When we called Gilbert's next project "Diablo Lite with a funny adventure-game story and goofy adventure-game puzzles" we never even realized we could have just as easily been describing Penny Arcade Adventures, which PA's Robert Khoo described as "an RPG in short" with elements of adventure games befitting its "comic adventure" moniker. We're still no closer to learning when this super-band is going on tour, but we'd wager PAX '07 is as good a place as any (better actually) to start talking specifics. %Gallery-1545%
Carnival of (grumpy) Gamers
We have been tracking the carnival of gamers for months now, and its latest stop seems to be at Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert's footsteps. With the self-proclaimed grumpy gamer playing as ringleader, we are given a wide variety of intellectual treats from articles discussing the merits of abandonware, the score system of NiGHTS into Dreams, and the obnoxious PR from Sony HQ. We love the Carnival for scouring the internet and given us a heap of interesting gaming goodness. Check it out.Follow the trail!Carnival of Gamers #15: roll up, roll up!Carnival of Gamers celebrates first anniversaryCarnival of Gamers gets n3rfedCarnival of Gamers rolls on to Virgin WorldsCarnival of Gamers gathers under Slashdot's tent
Ron Gilbert talks up his new game, a lite RPG
When he isn't busy dressing us down for bullying up on student plays, Ron Gilbert -- the lead designer behind adventure-game classics like Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island -- apparently has lengthy chats with outlets like Gamasutra on what's missing in gaming today (the stories, stupid) and how to fix it (make his game). Yup, he talks a bit about that secret project he keeps going on about ... but, first the stories! "I think there are a lot of people out there who are just not willing to play games that involve a lot of twitching and a lot of action. But if there was more of a slower-paced game like an adventure game, or a kind of light role-playing game, I think these people would be a lot more interested ..." A light role-playing game, eh? Wonder what he meant by that ... we may never know. Or maybe he'll spill the beans on the next page. "The thing I'm trying to do with the game right now is kind of meld it with an RPG. So what you've got is the kind of large world exploration that you have in an RPG that you don't really have with an adventure game. You've got the action, some light combat, you know, Diablo-style combat going on with it, but it is also infused with really good adventure-game-style puzzles and adventure-style sensibilities to the storytelling." Diablo Lite with a funny adventure-game story and goofy adventure-game puzzles? We are so there.
Edge asks, "Why aren't games funny?"
Edge Magazine takes a look at comedy in games ... and comes up pretty short. With the exception of oft-cited titles like pretty much the entire early LucasArts gems (Secret of Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Day Of The Tentacle, and others) and the occasional Conker's Bad Fur Day or Bard's Tale, there isn't much gamers can point to. They talk with Grumpy Gamer (and writer of the hysterical Secret of Monkey Island) Ron Gilbert who frames the problem this way: "I think games have spent a lot of time trying to be movies, but the thing about games is that they’re organic, that players can hopefully to do whatever they want, and if you can work humor into that, then that’s great.” So games like Secret of Monkey Island are passed over in favor of the occasional gag in Metal Gear Solid? Hopefully gamers still crave the scripted comedy of the adventure classics. With fellow Lucas Arts alum Tim Shafer taking top honors in writing at GDC for Psychonauts, and a new Sam & Max adventure coming our way, there's at least a modicum of hope that gamers will embrace funny games.[Via GameSetWatch]
