Well, this was a surprise: More Thimbleweed Park on the way!

Quoted from our news announcement on the main site:

Quote:To paraphrase Ransome the Clown: Holy beep, there's a beeping sequel to Thimbleweed Park coming!

That's right, Thimbleweed Park 2 is now officially a thing, though production has only "just started." The new game, described as "not really a sequel, not really a prequel" to the acclaimed 2017 Ron Gilbert/Gary Winnick comedic mystery, promises to start off with a bang – again – as another dead body is found, this time at the Edmund Mansion. (Looks like that "Population: 80" sign is going to need another update.) Fortunately, Agents Ray and Reyes are "back to investigate... or are they?" The culprit is someone in the mansion, and over the course of one "long, strange night," it'll be up to you to determine which of the suspects is the killer if you can. Of course, you should expect the unexpected in Thimbleweed Park, and prepare yourself to end up with "more questions than answers," because in this town, "a dead body is the least of your problems."

Along with the two dubious investigators, this "spoof of a classic whodunit" will feature other familiar faces, including Delores, Franklin, and the foul-mouthed Ransome, who will no doubt be much more mild-mannered this time. (Okay, probably not.) The team behind the scenes will be largely the same as well, with Gilbert joined by "Mark Ferrari, Gary Winnick, David Fox, Octavi Navarro, Robert Megone, and others from the original team" to deliver another stylish point-and-click pixel art adventure. No further story details have yet been revealed just yet, but one thing's for sure: the game will be "more Thimbleweed Park than ever ... and just as weird."

We're still a long way off from release, naturally, but the project is being self-published "with the help of a private investor" and is due to arrive on Steam sometime in early 2028. In the meantime, Gilbert announced on his Grumpy Gamer website that he will be "starting up a Thimbleweed Park 2 dev blog ... and posting regularly to keep everyone up to date."

Sounds like a slightly scaled-back production, but more Thimbleweed Park is always welcome!

I keep getting question marks in my posts. They turn up mid sentence or at the end of a sentence. A bit annoying actually. I've had to edit most of my posts.
How come? (that one I did type? ☺️)

I got to play The Silver Crow ahead of its July 30th release and put together a full spoiler-free video review.

The premise really caught my attention: it's a point & click set in Franconia in 1582, but instead of playing the usual detective, you're the town executioner. An outcast everyone fears, and precisely for that reason he gets into places nobody else could. It's made entirely by one person, Uwe Sittig, who hadn't released anything since Dirty Split back in 2008.

The review covers narrative, characters, puzzles and art direction, where I'm fairly critical: the backgrounds are AI-generated and the clash with the sprites is very noticeable.

Video is in Spanish with subtitles in several languages.

Anyone planning to pick it up? And what do you make of AI-generated backgrounds in one-person indie projects?

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1133950/The_Castle/

Has anyone played it? It's seemingly inspired by Maniac Mansion to the point of using the same engine and mechanics. It looks interesting but it also seems to have either flown under everyone's radar or... maybe it's just not good and everyone has chosen to ignore it.

Either way, have anyone here bothered?

Hi! After a very long time without any time for gaming due to life ( I have three grandchildren now) and work, I discovered that the AG - forums were gone. I couldn't believe it at first. So I contacted Stepurhan from the AG-forums and he explained what had happened. Such a shame! 
Today, after searching a bit online I found you guys. ? I thought I'd pop in and say hi! Some of you may remember me from the Chit Chat section on AG. 
I also aim to find some new exciting adventure game. I may be a granny, but deep inside always an adventure gamer.

I think it's high time to come out of my bubble, and get some public feedback on my game. This is Reypunk - my upcoming Point-And-Click / Beat'em Up game that I'm solo developing. It features a unique turn-based combat system, along with real-time playback features. If you're interested in an Alpha test build, visit the website www.reypunk.com!
Steam Page, Proper Trailer, and Demo ~ Coming Soon.

  What are some wild environment interactions you hope to see? 

Hi all,

I'm very happy to 'formally' introduce my story-based puzzle adventure 'The Last Night Train' in the forum  ..

Gameplay

• 'The Last Night Train' is a story-based puzzle adventure with a '90s JRPG look' and movement patterns. It's a solo indie dev project 6 years in the making.
  
• You play as Ovid, solving environmental puzzles, e.g., by using elemental weapons and having boss encounters that include puzzles. (There are different difficulty levels).
  
• The game focuses on atmosphere, mystery, humor, and narrative depth with psychological themes.
  
• All game assets are fully AI-free.
  
• The release of the full game is planned for February 2027.
  

Story:
When Ovid wakes up on a train where the night never ends, his love, Thera, is gone. To find her, he must unlock the cargo car, convince a whimsical wind gnome to help him, and face a strange woman who brings back memories of Ovid's last journey with Thera – a trip aboard a night train to his farmland, the last remnant of his family. This sets in motion a journey through a strange world in search of Thera. But what if she was never the one he needed to find?

Demo and Full Game

• The first playable demo is out and includes Act 1 (approx. 1 hour of playtime).
  
• The demo runs on Windows and is on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/46752...rain_Demo/
  

Trailer


Any thoughts or feedback would be highly appreciated. 
(If your feedback includes spoilers, I also have a Discord channel where you can share it with me: https://discord.gg/ZxvN8AuFdG).

Cheers, 
Nici

PS: Currently, I'm also participating in the 'Steam Train Fest', which is still ongoing this weekend; just in case you're looking for some more train adventures on discount (though, of course, I'd appreciate it if you also give 'The Last Night Train' demo a try  ).

Hello! I’ve always found it frustrating that I couldn’t see all my games in one place. I tried GOG Galaxy, but found it a little cumbersome, and it didn’t support all the digital stores I use.

A few months ago, I stumbled across Playnite, and it quickly became my preferred frontend. I can find and hide duplicate entries, clean up my library, and even add my physical game collection. Seeing everything in one place also helps me avoid accidentally buying the same game twice. It supports ScummVM and DOSBox too, which makes it especially useful for older adventure games.

I also like being able to add local games manually, edit the metadata, and create my own categories and tags. I use Backloggd alongside it for ratings, reviews, and tracking what I’m playing, while Playnite serves as the main home for my entire collection.

What frontend do you use? Has anyone else here tried Playnite, or do you prefer something else? I’d be especially interested to hear how you organise your adventure games.

Playnite: https://playnite.link

I think we can / need to add action adventures into this discussion. 

I started watching the first Alone in the Dark, last night and I have been enjoying Christian Slater running around in jeans, a tank top and a duster.      It's cheesy fun.

I watched the Professor Layton cartoon movie and I ended it by enjoying the games a little more now that I feel like I know Layton better. 

Silent Hill was....hard to watch.

Uncharted was a lot of fun to watch but I couldn't help but critique the handling of the characters.

I wanna hear from you!!

A place to chat about adventure puzzles and games!  Awesome   So, I will start the ball rolling - discussing puzzles and what is good, especially in relation to classic <> new game adventure and how I personally make puzzles for games.

Firstly some obviousness;  Classic adventures - Shadow of the Comet, Monkey Island series et al, their puzzles were a combination of hidden item / combinination use of collected items on the right item.  This worked because of the nature of the format - we were trying to unlock another room, another area.  Areas in games were, by necessity expensive for developers - not in financial terms although that matters - but in terms of resources on the computer as well.  A lot of what we deem classic games had very few actual screens - Sam and Max hit the highway for example once you go back and look at it had suprisingly few screens, but we were doubling back a lot and some of the screens had modified versions which gave the same effect as the finding of a new screen.

So puzzles would come to;

1. Enter room containing things.  Possible dialogue and story happens.
   
2. Locate object that can be interacted with.  Object is gated and needs item X.
   
3. Explore room for item X.  If it is not there, search previous rooms.  Check inventory.
   
4. Use item X on object.  
   
5. New room opens.
   

The reason this works is the classic skinner box.  We are also anticipating more of what we are allready enjoying.  We get our buzz from solving the clue if there was one, pointing out where an object is.  Our reward is what we expect, more of the game.  

So using this we can see what the issues for the game developer of the classic adventure had.  Now this is a gross simplification, however if we treat dialigue choices the same was as objects - with dialogue unlocked for finding a specific other dialogue or item and also we look at combinations of items (use item on item) then we can see how the classic adventure grew.

Now, this carries well into our modern adventures.  Rusty Lake for example uses just this system mixed with animations and so forth to give us the classic unlock an area and move on experience.  For modern game engines however this poses significant problems and we can look at ways it goes right and wrong shortly.  First though lets look at translating adventure into modern 3d engine.

Adventure is not fighting and killing things / being killed all the time.  Some people enjoy that, however adventure works well when you, the protagonist, are relatively impotent against things.  This is in particular the case with horror.  Shooting our way out of things makes the adventure weaker through losing the reward of discovery and replacing it with simple combat.  There is a place for combat - if you look at the Uncharted games for example, they would balance it by having adventure / exploration (find a new section) and then a combat section.  They were seperate, and sometimes (Uncharted 2 boss fight) spoiled the experience and sometimes improved it.

The biggest problem there though is that adventures need to have some gating in place.  We cannot give you an open city where you can explore everything and then expect you to work out everything.  Not because players are stupid but because you have other things to do.  Imagine there are 5 houses.  In one house is hidden a key.  To get that key you need to;

1. Explore house 1, discover it needs a key to open mystery basement.
   
2. Explore all of house 1 carefully to find key ... fail.
   
3. Explore all of house 2...
   
4. ...etc
   
5. Then explore the street
   

This open ended system can work for some BUT they still need guidance - in this instance see Painscreek Killings.  You have to work out things using notes left, little clues etc.  It takes ages and you keep your own crimeboard to do it using a pen and paper.

So what modern game developers have to do a lot of the time is bracket players in using classic adventure recipes.  So for this I use a puzzle I created, which is still too damn hard for a lot of playtesters.  I'll give you the simple rundown;

Player is in a new area.  it is an automated cargo loading dock.  They need to get past it to get into the old hospital, all entrances are locked.  

So the first route - the player has to explore, find written notes that point out that someone was breaking into the orchard that links to the hospital supplying them with food.  This leads to a clue that someone dropped their key need a maintenence hatch, this locates a key, shows the hatch is open.  This in turn unlocks an office where there are a few more clues that eventually lead to the player discovering they can move the automated cargo loader, make a bridge to the greenhouse area and then cross via the dropdown into the maintenence hatch.

Cool - playtesters got that about 20% of the time because they didnt think like adventure players and because its a fairly large area though.  some got frustrated, others tried to brute force.  This led to making;

Route 2.  

Pharmacy loading bay.  There are 5 buttons.  Operating them in the right order loads a conveyor with pharmacy supplies, puts it in the right place, opens the automated locking gate to the pharmacy mini train and starts the conveyor.

Awesome - people that love levers and switches used that and more people got through to the hospital. There are still some left though.

Route 3.  

Theres a  big old hole under the deck someone kicked out.  Explore and find it then explore under the deck til you find the greehouse that way.

So now anyone can work out how to get there but there are different rewards.  The animations and puzzle solving of solution 1 are the endorphins you want.  solution 2 is also good - levers and sequences, no story.  Finally there is the brute force exploration - which STILL gives what you want as you are rewarded with the new area.

But, making that area took about a month if not longer as the area had to be repeatedly fine tuned and worked on.  As a solo developer therefore I have to constantly request feedback and track how people use it.   And that is just one of the puzzles - to get to that you have to have solved about 4 prior puzzles with various clues - including just telling you how to do one of them on a poster.

My next thing will be to explain about using NPC "enemies" I think as that is rather facinating and a massive rabbit hole.  Powerlessness over the "Bad guy" is an effective tool in the adventure game, acting as a gate in itself to progress!

Cris Olblue Robson