Developer: Terrible Toybox

Genre: Point and Click Adventure

Release Date: March 30, 2017

If you're anything like me, you've grown up playing The Monkey Island series, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, The Broken Sword series and dozens of other titles during the glorious golden era of point-and-click adventure games in the 90s. There was always a subtle charm in finding unconventional ways out of a predicament by using your wit in a very narrative-driven, graphic adventure. However, the genre got lost amongst a plethora of more action-oriented titles. With the recent revitalization brought about by Telltale Games, Thimbleweed Park hit a home run this year with its charming aesthetics and old school gameplay. 

The basic premise of Thimbleweed Park is simple: you point towards the direction that your character will go or interact. Initially the player takes control of two detectives: Agent Angela Ray and Antonio Reyes, who are investigating a murder of a mysterious German man named Boris. Throughout the game, the player triggers "flashback" sequences where he gets to control the characters that are in the flashback. These characters are eventually included in the game and you will find yourself playing as five different characters. All the non-playable characters in the game are unique as well, and have their own stories to tell. You come across two plumbers who dress up as pigeons, an odd Sheriff who adds "a-reno" to everything he says, a coroner who is the same person as the sheriff (presumably), a store employee who is a recurring character from "Day of the Tentacle" and many more. 

Even though the story starts out with a simple murder investigation, it unravels into a much more profound extrication of the events that led to it. It's a lot to digest. However, I found myself laughing my way throughout the entirety of the story. Ransome the Clown, without a doubt has to be one of the best video game characters this year and I always tried to play as him to initiate hilarious dialogue with the townsfolk of Thimbleweed Park. 

As the game is homage to graphic adventures of yesteryears, it unfortunately also brings some of the problems associated with it. For starters, you will sometimes get stuck wondering what to do next. You will have to tinker with every single item in your inventory in order to figure out how to progress your storyline. 

The characters, as you switch between them do not engage in dialogue with each other unless it's a cutscene. These, however, are minor complaints to an otherwise fascinating experience. Created by maestros of the point and click genre: Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, the game is self-aware and constantly breaks the fourth wall poking fun at itself. It took me a while to understand that Mucasflemm was actually a friendly jab at Lucasfilm, the company responsible for a plethora of amazing adventure games. We should all be grateful to all the good lads who contributed in the kickstarter campaign, without whom we would not have this delightful ride through nostalgia-ville.