Thimbleweed Park is a wacky X-Files murder mystery packed with dad jokes
We chat with Ron Gilbert and David Fox about their modern take on classic adventure game design.
Messy hair and a sweater from 1992 were the right choice for my last interview at PAX West, because I got to chat with Ron Gilbert and David Fox of Terrible Toybox, two developers behind some of the best adventure games of my childhood: Maniac Mansion, The Secret of Monkey Island, and Pajama Sam: No Need to Hide When It's Dark Outside to name a few.
They were showing off a new segment of Thimbleweed Park, a new take on classic adventure game design where you investigate a murder in a small town. It's Twin Peaks meets The X-Files meets dad jokes—and I dig it. In the short sequence Gilbert showed me, we were introduced to Dolores, one of the five main characters through a playable flashback. She lives in a huge mansion with her kooky inventor uncle who plans on leaving her his life's work, a huge pillow factory. But Dolores has dreams of working game development, so after getting her favorite videogame magazine in the mail, you help her apply for the job through a series of classic point-and-click puzzles.
For more, be sure to check out the interview above or the official trailer for Dolores below.
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James is stuck in an endless loop, playing the Dark Souls games on repeat until Elden Ring and Silksong set him free. He's a truffle pig for indie horror and weird FPS games too, seeking out games that actively hurt to play. Otherwise he's wandering Austin, identifying mushrooms and doodling grackles.