Maniac Mansion spiritual successor Thumbleweed Park takes to Kickstarter
Maniac Mansion creators Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick have teamed up to produce a spiritual successor to the much-loved LucasArts point and click adventure.
Thimbleweed Park doesn't hold with any of that modern graphics and conventions nonsense; it's intended to be truly old school, "like opening a dusty old desk drawer and finding an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you’ve never played before".
"We miss classic adventures and all their innocence and charm," the pair wrote on the project's Kickstarter page.
"They were fun and would put a smile on your face. We want to make one of those again and we want to do it right. We don’t want to make a game 'inspired by' or 'paying homage to' classic point and click adventures, we want to make a real classic point and click adventure."
To this end, Thimbleweed Park will strip "away all the cruft built up over the years" and be "distilled down" to what Gilbert and Winnick love about the genre.
Thimbleweed Park tells the story of "two washed up detectives called in to investigate a dead body found in the river just outside of town". It features five playable characters and pixels so big "a family of six could live inside of and still have room for Uncle Pete when he drops in unexpectedly on his way to the coast".
Check out the pitch video below. Gilbert and Winnick are looking for $375,000 to bring the game to market. There are various rewards on offer and this one, at $25, is my favourite:
"'I pirated Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island when I was a kid and I feel bad!' This reward tier instantly absolves you of all guilt and includes the Thimbleweed Park game. All subsequent tiers also include guilt absolution."