I’m the player who smiles at your story and attempt to make it serious-like-movie-serious. I’m the player who presses whatever key to skip anything that is not gameplay. I’m the player who doesn’t read/listen to any existential shout outs between characters.
I so do not want to run that errand for that generic, lifeless NPC who’s talking and who I don’t listen to. Having said that, there’s someone who makes me want to follow the story and read everything:
I mean, I’m not the only one and Ron got me when I was a kid so I guess he’s like that uncle who tells stories better than anyone in the family and I’m looking forward to the time when he’ll tell a new one. I think there’s a formula:
Mysterious agency and unexpectedness
I think Ron is like the Coen brothers: the basic plot is always simple but the way it will be treated will be good. You know it’s going to feel different. You know Ron treats you like an adult. Thimbleweed Park, his last game: Thimbleweed Park is the curious story of two washed up detectives called in to investigate a dead body found in the river just outside of town. […] Meanwhile, on the 13th floor of the Edmund hotel, Franklin wakes up with no idea how he got there. But that’s not the weird part. The weird part is that he’s dead. Spoiler: He’s not the body found just outside of Thimbleweed Park. Wow! That’s confusing. Don’t panic, we’re just as confused as you are. All about the journey and not the destination kind of design. I’m sold already.
Humor
Probably the hardest part. Ron uses that “90s Simpsons” style that always has been extremely efficient, regardless of where you’re from: The Simpsons probably aired there and you probably liked it. You know, the stupid puns and funny little phrases and regular pop culture jabs. The English non-sense, satire all the way… Very efficient stuff and I insist on the international traction at least for my generation. And what is great and that most people miss with humor and story based games is that it functions as a mechanic/reward: you explore dialogue and it’s going to end with a something funny, you smile next time you’ll try another branch.
In serious games with serious scenarios, you just go for the obvious and move on. It’s anti-exploratory. Humor solves that in a very elegant way. It is however really hard not to have a patchwork of different humor that works more or less like in most games.
I think those two marks are also parts of why Kentucky Route Zero is fantastic or how Oxenfree sounds pretty awesome though both are darker in tone.
This is the puzzle dependency/story chart for Thimbleweed, still in development. Ron says it’s the most complex he’s ever done. The development blog shows once again how making games is hard, even with a “simple”, old school adventure game. $0.6M is not much to build everything around that chart and make it come true.
Adventure games have a lot more to share with us. We need more awesome authors like Ron.