Thimbleweed Park
A dead body has been found just outside the town of Thimbleweed Park, and two federal agents have been sent in to investigate who this person is, why he was in Thimbleweed Park, and of course who killed him. As the investigation starts you notice that everything is a little off with this town, and maybe investigating this case is going to be more than it first appears.
Thimbleweed Park is a homage to yesteryear’s point and click adventure games. The town will be broken up into different screens that you’ll have to leave in order to get to the next location. When there are interactive events (objects or people) there is a very good chance that you’re going to have to select your exact option from the provided list in the lower left hand corner. Sometimes those actions will require some additional selections, such as giving an item to someone.
As you advance through the game you’ll gain the ability to control five characters, each with very distinct qualities to them. You can change between the characters at almost any time (there are a few exceptions), and some of the information that you uncover can be used with a different character, even if they have never come across that specific information (ie. phone number). This ability will pay dividends during certain parts of the game. As much as I wish you could transfer inventory items as easily as you can switch between characters, you’re going to have to be face to face to do so. There will be one type of item that you’ll have several copies of that you will NEED to give to each character if you don’t want to struggle later in the game.
Even though the game does have that late 80s early 90s look to it, and that was an era of gaming where there was plenty of dialogue and almost no voice acting, I’m happy to report that each character in the entire game does indeed have a voice. I have found that the voices can add an extra dimension to the characters, if done correctly, and this game indeed did it right.
It was an entertaining game from start to finish. I enjoyed the character interactions, even though I wanted to strangle some of the characters. The biggest obstacle I had to overcome, and it was one that CONSTANTLY appeared, was trying to play a point-and-click game on a device that didn’t really have a point-and-click peripheral. Sure, you have the ability to use the touchscreen to try to give you a little bit of that “action” but it's still a delicate operation and doesn’t always do what you are trying to do. You can go with just using the controller route but you will have to get used to the short-key buttons to switch between panes or you’ll have to do a lot of moving the cursor around with your analog stick.
This is a solid game. It has a great twisting story, humorous dialogue, 80s and 90s inside jokes (I enjoyed these a lot), and it was definitely worth my money (every cent of it). As much as I enjoyed playing this game on the Nintendo Switch, in hindsight, I would have much rather played it on the PC.