JimmyTwoBucks

Ideally I want it to be someone who can do a really good Gary Owens impression, or at least mimic the essential qualities that made Gary Owens' voice perfect as the narrator... how he was able to switch from epic-narrator-boom to more intimate-cutting-sarcasm depending on the line. As others have mentioned, George Lowe would be great as he is pretty much the official Gary Owens cover-voice with all his great work on Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast... I think it's good to have someone imitate the voice... when Mel Blanc died, they didn't change the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc. they got people who could do the same character voices really well.

Wowsers...

Gameplay video with new location art for the main street, news room, post office, also with dialogue, characters, etc. -- http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/thimblenickel

New video with the finished bookstore art and new character animation and clothing art... http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/occultbookstore

But is it as much fun as doing the chores for the wizard in King's Quest 3?

Occult book store... not the final colored version (obviously), but looking great so far

New video with a full scene in action -- http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/quickiepal

Are you sure? You make it sound as if there is a law against it or something.

So they used money from a game I don't care about to make a game that I may, potentially, care about? Seems fair enough.

With the trailers so far, I kind of feel like your average dummy/kid/whoever will be like, "kings, quests, monsters, dragons... that means you'll be able to kill everything while running and jumping, yeah!!!" So if it IS an adventure game I think it's leading people down the wrong path with the trailers and they really need to get across how adventure games are amazing because you're NOT reduced to a trigger-clicking moron and you DON'T go around killing stuff 99% of the time. Adventure games have cleverer, more rewarding gameplay, where you can't just shoot or slash at things, you have to use your brain and get things and interact with people and figure things out and explore. I think the ideal trailer would show someone experiencing that glorious moment where it all suddenly clicks in your mind and you go, "Of course!!! I could give the rope to the gnome to get the flowers and then glue them to the chicken so I can fold him into a ball and use him as the key to open the door!!!" And they need to show how this moment often happens when you're not even playing the game, you're in the shower or wherever.

It's an RPG platform race-shooter where Graham drives a gun and you jump on enemies by performing combos. It comes in 26 episodes at $60 each and you can only play it on your phone.

Interview with Mark Ferrari and new screenshot - http://www.geekscape.net/we-talk-retro-gaming-art-with-thimbleweed-park-artist-mark-ferrari

Can still back it -- http://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/backer Also the blog is open to everyone, you don't have to be a backer to read it... I wonder what would have happened if they had used this art style when they were running the Kickstarter, I reckon it would have got them even more funds. I think while people were excited for a new Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick game, the basic Maniac Mansion art style was just a step too far back for some people, perhaps.

Well, looks like my wish was granted, they just hired Mark Ferrari who did the backgrounds for Monkey Island and Loom and already the example they showed looks way better than the Maniac Mansion style they had previously been using... And that is a rough, not-finished background as well... Apparently he's going to be doing most of the backgrounds and so the art style of the game will now be somewhere in between Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island... I'm glad they decided to go in this direction, as I think most people were secretly wishing the art was like this instead of Maniac Mansion style...

It's a fantastic blog, probably the most inside look I've seen with adventure games -- I've just caught up with it by reading it all over the course of the last few days... What I like as well is that they really narrowed it down to a time frame and scope of game that they knew they could likely deliver and in an art style, etc. that is achievable within that time frame and budget. I obviously love SpaceVenture as well and I don't mind the delays with it and I think it will also be a more forward-looking and revolutionary game than Thimbleweed Park, but it is refreshing to see that Ron and Gary took a measured approach in contrast to pretty much all the other adventure game kickstarters. It also feels like they're going back to the fundamentals of great adventure games and building everything up from there. I'm hoping that with the Thimbleweed Park engine built and with their new company established that we will get more adventure games from them in the future, hopefully some in the same art style as Monkey Island...

Yeah, this pretty much nails what I dislike about the game... it starts off on an amazing planet and feels very open and vast, then you get on the ship and it gets really insular from there. Going to Delta Burksilon V just feels like going to another room on the Deepship basically, and then going into the computer and Stellar again feels like you're just stuck in roughly the same place, to me.

I agree that Polysorbate is one of the best parts in the whole series, I put it second only to the Galaxy Galleria... I also really like the DeepShip86, but then I think the game really falls off after that. I don't like the Information Superhighway section and I don't like Inside Stellar either... It's a game I sometimes really feel like I want to play again, but then I remember that it all kind of goes off the boil midway through and I don't want to get disappointed all over again after the great beginning and then not having a great ending to look forward to, lol.

I totally agree - I think my early post was badly worded... I didn't mean to paint Lowe as a sort of inferior imitation of Owens, as yes, he is an awesome vocal actor in his own right (and Lowe's Space Ghost Coast to Coast voice is arguably as widely known or more widely known than the original Space Ghost too). In the earlier Coast to Coast episodes he does pretty much nail the Gary Owens voice too though, if they wanted him to do that -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2cc47zRA_0

If another voice actor could do an absolutely spot-on "Gary as narrator" impression, I wouldn't mind that at all. It's like how Mel Blanc created the Bugs Bunny voice, but since he died in '89 loads of other voice actors have "covered" that same voice. In that way, Gary's vocal style would live on, as do all of Mel Blanc's vocal creations.

I really like the voice he does for Whitley White in the animated version of "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes," that has a lot of the same qualities as Gary Owens... narrator-like but also very expressive and sarcastic, etc. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fqy1Wut-roY&t=0m58s (58s seconds in)... Though I wasn't that in love with the narrator voice he did for Leisure Suit Larry 6+7...

Dang, RIP Gary. I was only just thinking the other day, "I hope he doesn't pass away before he does the SpaceVenture narration (or pass away at all, obviously)," but here we are. His voice/delivery was perfect for this kind of game, as we all knew from SQ4 and SQ6. As far as a new narrator, George Lowe does the Space Ghost voice on "Space Ghost Coast to Coast" (so he's basically mimicking Gary's original Space Ghost voice), so he might be a good replacement if you want a similar vibe to Gary's... though it may also be cool to go with someone completely different, but just as funny.

I suspect they are self-flagellating themselves at this very moment.

Seeing this has got me a lot more onboard with the remaster now... Before I was kinda like, "eh, they just messed with the lighting," and I felt it was almost a bit of a gimmick, like, "what can we change that won't be that hard to update..." But now I understand it more, in terms of the lighting being a really integral part of the look and feel of the game and how it's lit in a film noir style... so the focus on that actually makes a lot of sense to me now. I think the biggest thing for me though is going to be the music, it looks like they really went to town on that side of things and I might get it just for the music alone...

Yeah, if the bridle could have been found by putting in "look in boat" from anywhere near the boat, that would have been fine. Or if you weren't close enough to see in, it could have said, "you're not close enough" as it normally does. Also this whole saga has brutally exposed my woeful lack of familiarity with fairy tales.