Thimbleweed Park is a 2017 point-and-click adventure game with some pretty incredible reviews. Terrible Toybox developed and published Thimbleweed Park with Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick as the lead designers. Gilbert and Winnick consider the game a spiritual successor to two of their previous games, Maniac Mansion (1987) and The Secret of Monkey Island (1990). Part of the reason the designers decided to go for simpler graphics was to mimic the way adventure games looked during the late 80s and early 90s.
In addition to the graphics, the game also plays like a classic adventure game of the time. The gameplay forces players to utilize verb commands to complete most actions. These verb commands can be used for everything, like picking up items, using items, placing items in their inventory, and starting a dialogue with other characters. The game is also broken up into chapters that can only be passed once players complete the required criteria. Thimbleweed Park has many puzzles to solve to advance through the story.
Thimbleweed Park has incredible reviews. Players and critics alike can’t get enough of this point-and-click game. Steam rates it a 9 out of 10 and GOG rates it a 4.6 out of 5. Even IGN gives Thimbleweed Park a respectable 8.5 out of 10 and calls the game great. One of IGN’s top reviews praises the game’s callback to retro gaming by saying it’s “a time capsule adventure game, buried in 1987 and unearthed in 2017. And a great one at that.” Thimbleweed Park was also nominated for several awards, including “Best Comedy Game” in the 2017 Game of the Year Awards. It won a few awards too, including “Best Ending” in the 2017 Game of the Year Awards.
Anyone interested in Thimbleweed Park can probably find it on their preferred console or system. Terrible Toybox released many portals for the game so anyone could enjoy it. Thimbleweed Park is compatible with Linux, macOS, Windows, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Android, and Amazon Luna. Even mobile gamers can play it!
Thimbleweed Park Premise
Thimbleweed Park follows FBI agents Angela Ray and Alberto Reyes to Thimbleweed Park, the game’s namesake. Agents Ray and Reyes are there investigating Boris Schulz’s murder, which turns up several potential suspects. Several persons of interest pop up throughout the investigation, but the FBI agents eventually make an arrest and “leave town” quickly after. Chuck Edmund also recently died in the town. He owned the PillowTronics robotics company. PillowTronics is really what Ray and Reyes are in Thimbleweed Park for, but they carry out their investigation anyway.
Both Ray and Reyes return to Thimbleweed Park for different reasons, though they attempt to hide their presence in town. Each has an ulterior motive for being in town. Ray goes back on a secret mission to steal computer secrets from PillowTronics. Reyes goes back to try and either clear his father’s name or cover up his involvement in burning down PillowTronic’s factory. This leads Ray, Reyes, and a couple of others to join forces and sneak into the factory.
After infiltrating the factory, the story takes a bizarre turn where the group discovers that Chuck has somehow uploaded his personality into the computer system. Chuck tells them that Thimbleweed Park is trapped inside a video game and to escape, they must figure out how to delete the game.
Thimbleweed Park Main Characters
Thimbleweed Park features a colorful cast of characters from the two FBI agents, to a clown who can’t remove his make-up, to a literal ghost in the machine. The game allows players to play several characters and switch freely between them. Some puzzles and challenges require the use of multiple characters, so players can swap to a different character whenever necessary. Gilbert and Winnick featured this mechanic in their 1987 game, Maniac Mansion.
- Agent Angela Ray: Agent Angela Ray is one of the main playable characters and she comes to Thimbleweed Park to investigate a murder with her partner, Agent Alberto Reyes. Ray and Reyes investigate the incident and eventually arrest Willie T. Wino, who claims that he had nothing to do with the murder. Ray, however, has another reason for being in Thimbleweed Park. After the arrest, she returns incognito to attempt to steal computer tech secrets from PillowTronics for a Japanese company she secretly works for. Ray is more serious than her partner and tends to take a more aggressive approach to her work. Ray can go anywhere in the game except for the Old Circus. Federal agents need a warrant to enter this location.
- Agent Alberto Reyes: Agent Alberto Reyes is the second main playable character and joins Agent Ray in the murder investigation. Just like Ray, Reyes also has an ulterior motive for being in the town. He returns with Reyes after the wrap of their murder investigation so he can dig through PillowTronics’ records. He wants to prove that his father had nothing to do with a devastating fire that destroyed PillowTronics’ factory. Unlike Ray, Reyes is more easygoing and he tends to believe in superstition. As strange, supernatural occurrences happen in the town, he takes them more seriously than she does.
- Ransome the Clown: Ransome the Clown is another playable character and he’s essentially an insult comic. Insult comics make fun of everyone and everything to make people laugh, but Ransome’s jokes often have the opposite effect. While he considers them top-notch comedy, the people of Thimbleweed Park disagree. Many of them take his negative jokes to heart and become sad or depressed because of them. He used to be a headliner at the Stupendous Brothers Traveling Circus, but he was cursed to never take off his clown makeup after his insults went too far.
- Delores Edmund: Delores Edmund is Chuck Edmund’s niece and Franklin Edmund’s daughter. She’s the fourth playable character and she’s a computer programmer. Delores doesn’t have a mother and doesn’t remember anything about her. She’s also raised by Chuck, rather than by her father. Delores also doesn’t remember anything from school either, which seems particularly suspicious. She does remember Ransome’s last performance, though, because it traumatized her. Delores joins the others as they infiltrate the factory because she wants answers about what happened to Chuck and Franklin.
- Franklin Edmund: Franklin Edmund is Delores’ father and Chuck’s brother. Franklin has fallen on hard times and decides to pitch a business idea to his brother. Before he can meet with Chuck, he’s murdered in Thimbleweed Park’s hotel. Franklin becomes a ghost, adding to the supernatural occurrence in the game. Before he can truly move on, he needs to speak with his daughter one last time.
- Chuck Edmund: Chuck Edmund is Delore’s uncle and parental figure. He’s also Franklin’s brother. Chuck is an extremely successful man, as he owns PillowTronics and the town’s hotel. He’s the main benefactor of Thimbleweed Park. Chuck dies before the start of the game, but he’s a continuous presence throughout the story. He’s the driving force for why Delores is involved. Eventually, the group discovers that before Chuck died, he uploaded his mind to his computer system. Chuck’s version of Thimbleweed Park turns out to be a video game in which the characters are trapped.
Thimbleweed Park Titles in the Series
As mentioned above, Thimbleweed Park is a spiritual successor to Maniac Mansion (1987) and The Secret of Monkey Island (1990). These two games are not directly related to Thimbleweed Park, however. Since the game’s release in 2017, Terrible Toybox released a free follow-up called Delores:
A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure. Delores’ Mini Adventure was developed and released during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Thimbleweed Park (2017)
- Delores: A Thimbleweed Park Mini-Adventure (2020)
Thimbleweed Park Cheats, Hints, & Trophies
Thimbleweed Park is a simple point-and-click adventure game, so it doesn’t leave much room for cheating, exploits, or mods. The game does feature puzzles the player needs to figure out, but with how minimalistic the gameplay is, there’s no need to cheat. Players can choose between two difficulties, so the difficulty of each chapter may increase depending on what mode the game is on.
Fortunately, in addition to guides and walkthroughs players can look up, the game does offer a way to call for help. For players who don’t want to cheat by looking up tutorials, the game built-in a hint function. To get a hint, find an in-game phone and dial 4468 (HINT). This will give the player hints about the section they’re currently playing.
Thimbleweed Park also features plenty of achievements and/or trophies for players to work towards. Fortunately, these achievements seem to be almost identical across all platforms that have a trophy or achievement function. This guide will take a look at the Steam achievements and the PlayStation 4 trophies since these are two of the largest systems Thimbleweed Park is available on.
Steam Achievements
- *Beephole*: Complete Ransome’s Flashback.
- *Beephole* Mime: Pushed the circus mime over.
- *Beephole* Redux: Got Ransome’s bad ending.
- Book Worm: Read 100 books in the library.
- Buried Treasure: Navigated to the buried treasure.
- Dust Appreciator: Collect 25 specks of dust.
- Dust Collector: Collect 50 specks of dust.
- Dust Hoarder: Collected 75 specks of dust.
- Easy Win: Complete the game in casual mode.
- Great Escape: Escape from the sewers.
- Hard Won: Complete the game in hard mode.
- Hotel Tourist: Visited every floor in the hotel.
- Itchy Fingers: Used Ransome’s Itch Cream.
- Justice: Catch the killer.
- Last One Out: Stayed for all the credits.
- Mean Person: Make everyone cry about their life.
- Messy World: Didn’t pick up any specks of dust.
- No One Is Home: Listen to 100 Voicemail messages.
- Nuke It: Blew up the Mansion.
- Out Of The Will: Complete Delores’s Flashback.
- Part 1: Begin Part One.
- Part 2: Begin Part Two.
- Part 3: Begin Part Three.
- Part 4: Begin Part Four.
- Part 5: Begin Part Five.
- Part 6: The Factory – Part Six
- Part 7: The Madness – Part Seven
- Part 8: The Escape – Part Eight
- Part 9: The Deleting – Part Nine
- Plantastic: Grew Leonard’s plant to superhuman size.
- Secret Meeting: Complete Franklin’s Flashback.
- Sky High: Get an alive character into the Hotel penthouse.
- Well Informed: Read all the Thimbleweed Nickel newspapers.
PlayStation Trophies
- *Beephole*: Complete Ransome’s Flashback.
- *Beephole* Mime: Pushed the circus mime over.
- *Beephole* Redux: Got Ransome’s bad ending.
- Book Worm: Read 100 books in the library.
- Buried Treasure: Navigated to the buried treasure.
- Dust Appreciator: Collect 25 specks of dust.
- Dust Collector: Collect 50 specks of dust.
- Dust Hoarder: Collected 75 specks of dust.
- Easy Win: Complete the game in casual mode.
- Great Escape: Escape from the sewers.
- Hard Won: Complete the game in hard mode.
- Hotel Tourist: Visited every floor in the hotel.
- Itchy Fingers: Used Ransome’s Itch Cream.
- Justice: Catch the killer.
- Last One Out: Stayed for all the credits.
- Mean Person: Make everyone cry about their life.
- Messy World: Didn’t pick up any specks of dust.
- No One Is Home: Listen to 100 Voicemail messages.
- Nuke It: Blew up the Mansion.
- Out Of The Will: Complete Delores’s Flashback.
- Part 1: Begin Part One.
- Part 2: Begin Part Two.
- Part 3: Begin Part Three.
- Part 4: Begin Part Four.
- Part 5: Begin Part Five.
- Part 6: The Factory – Part Six
- Part 7: The Madness – Part Seven
- Part 8: The Escape – Part Eight
- Part 9: The Deleting – Part Nine
- Plantastic: Grew Leonard’s plant to superhuman size.
- Secret Meeting: Complete Franklin’s Flashback.
- Sky High: Get an alive character into the Hotel penthouse.
- Well Informed: Read all the Thimbleweed Nickel newspapers.
- Player of the Year: Collect all trophies.
Thimbleweed Park Cheats FAQs
How do you get hints in Thimbleweed Park?
Players can get hints about the current section of the game they’re working on. To do this, players need to find a phone and dial 4468 (HINT). This will give them various clues about what they should be doing to complete the section.
Does Thimbleweed Park have different endings?
Technically speaking, yes, Thimbleweed Park does have different endings. Each playable character has their own ending, so the endings the player gets depend on which characters they play and how they play them. There are five playable characters in the game; Agent Ray, Agent Reyes, Delores, Ransome the Clown, and Franklin. To complete the game, players need to get every character’s ending.
Is Thimbleweed Park difficult?
The game has two difficulty settings, Casual and Hard. Needless to say, playing Thimbleweed Park on Casual will be a lot easier than playing it on Hard.
Can you lose Thimbleweed Park?
The only way to officially “lose” the game is if the player gives up. It’s easy to get lost and immersed in the point-and-click world, derailing them from the main story. Regaining one’s footing after such a stumble can be difficult, but not impossible.
How long does it take to complete Thimbleweed Park?
According to HowLongToBeat.com, Thimbleweed Park’s main story takes about 10 and a half hours while main and side quests will take 14 hours. To 100% the game, players are looking at around 16 hours in total.
The image featured at the top of this post is ©GameSpot Trailers / Terrible Toybox.