I think it would be difficult to find a game genre that’s undergone more foundational changes than the adventure genre. Think of how you know adventure games from the eighties and nineties: story-heavy, perhaps a little FMV, and of course the infinite loop of pushing, pulling, sniffing and scratching everything on screen with everything in your inventory in hopes that you can line yourself up with whatever malicious puzzle pixies were inhabiting the brain of the game designer that year. Seriously: I have a grudge against some of those puzzles—they keep me awake at night when I should be sinking deeper and deeper into an existential funk. And even if I could fall asleep, I wouldn’t want to: Graham the owl’s voice haunts my dreams.
So with time, the Adventure genre evolved. And I don’t think it would be unreasonable to suggest that it had to. And the puzzles were just the beginning of it. Developers like Telltale and The Odd Gentlemen made adventures more sleek for a modern gaming audience. Our modern zeal for games and nostalgia have combined to create a new renaissance for adventure games. Well, renaissance might be a little strong. Maybe a “mini”sance. But you can’t ignore the fact that for the past several years, adventure games have continued to gain traction in a market that is usually more focused on killing aliens or constructing the wonders of the world out of lego blocks.
And then Thimbleweed Park came along.
Kickstartered by the creators of adventure icons like Maniac Mansion and The Secret of Monkey Island, Thimbleweed Park seeks to be an adventure game in the strictest, most classic sense of the idea. There’s no effort made to beef up the graphical style, and while there is a voiceover, it’s quality is stuck somewhere between adorable kitsch and 80’s obnoxious. That actually could describe a fair amount of the story in this game. Thimbleweed Park is incredibly self-aware: it has to be to exist in this day and age. And while the jokes about games and game design are soaked in that 80’s goofiness that will make some cheer and others wince, it’s the grand finale that really shows why a break in the fourth wall was necessary to make this such a stand out game. But we’ll get to that in a second.
Upon initial inspection, Thimbleweed Park appears to be a game inspired by the X-Files. I mean, just look at two of your protagonists. And while the world is odd and dances merrily into the supernatural at times, if I had to compare the story to a television show it would be Twin Peaks. Thimbleweed Park is like if David Lynch set out to make an after school cartoon for middle schoolers. It’s got goofy situations and a presentation that’s feel good enough, but it’s also got an underlying current of something more sinister. And a cast of bizarre characters that would be very comfortable in either Thimbleweed Park or Twin Peaks. Hey—Thimbleweed Park, Twin Peaks. TP, TP. Fuck, I just caught that.

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Thought-provoking geek commentary that smells vaguely of gin and smoke. Game reviews and Let's Plays that cover everything from the super indie to the AAA to the "made around 700 years ago" category.

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