
Source code of “Delores: A Thimbleweed Park mini-adventure” released - Audiophilip
https://grumpygamer.com/delores_dev
======
leetrout
Thimbleweed Park is the first game of this type I’ve ever played. It was so
good and the story was fantastic.

I recommended it so some friends and they didn’t care for the story or the art
style so I’m not sure why my recommendation fell flat but I felt like I was
playing a game version of Twin Peaks. Quirky but captivating!

I’ll have to give Delores an ol play-a-reno!

~~~
silveroriole
I really wish HN had spoiler tags so I could give a warning about why lots of
people will find the story disappointing compared to classic adventure games.
I guess maybe I can say that if you were ever annoyed by the ending of Monkey
Island 2, stay far away from this one.

~~~
Trasmatta
I loved the ending of Monkey Island 2, so maybe I would enjoy this game.

~~~
sedatk
I loved it too. I loved how they connected it to the first game in the ending
chapter and all the fourth wall breaks.

------
re
"Grumpy Gamer" is Ron Gilbert, responsible for SCUMM, Monkey Island, Humongous
Entertainment, and more:
[https://grumpygamer.com/about](https://grumpygamer.com/about)

------
badsectoracula
Interesting but one bit i disagree with:

> I've always skewed away from visual programming and dialogue engines. While
> they are great for beginners, getting real work done is problematic.

Having visual tools is certainly _not_ just for beginners, i guarantee you
that most AAA and many AA and even smaller projects use dedicated visual tools
for things like dialogue. As an example see Obsidian's conversation editor
described here [0] that they have used for several of their projects. For
other examples see the dialog editor used in Witcher 2 (REDkit) or the editors
used in Bethesda's games (the engine might be a bit clunky at times but the
tools are largely visual, outside of quest-specific scripting of course).
Witcher 2's tools also include visual quest and FSM ("steering") editors.
These are all tools that are used to do real work.

Personally i have worked professionally in game tools for many years and
visual tools are always an improvement over something basic. It is usually
programmers that seem to want to ignore them, but i'm 100% sure that is
because they can do most of the stuff with pure text (though rarely at the
same speed as a good visual tool would allow, even if they think otherwise -
note that i'm not talking about scripting here, this is often better done via
a scripting langauge) and they do not like working with GUIs and such (i am
one of the apparently rare programmers who likes working with GUIs) so they
come up with excuses why their way is better.

Many things in games, including conversations (and perhaps high level quest
flow, depending on the game), are better done with visual tools than text -
especially if these tasks are to be done by non-programmers.

[0] [https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/175082312536/im-curious-
as-...](https://jesawyer.tumblr.com/post/175082312536/im-curious-as-to-what-
the-conversation-editor)

------
dang
We changed the URL from
[https://github.com/grumpygamer/DeloresDev](https://github.com/grumpygamer/DeloresDev),
which has the code, to the blog post that gives a bit more background.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
It amazes me how much is available today to anyone even remotely interested. I
still remember cousins having to record radio signal on cassette to later use
on their computer.

~~~
andretti1977
I did it!!! Can you believe in the 80s you could "download" a game simply
recording a public radio broadcast?! Amazing times!

~~~
abiogenesis
Unidirectional wi-fi?

------
bdefore
For those interested in a more modern take on SCUMM, there's a new tool built
for Unity: PowerQuest
[https://powerhoof.itch.io/powerquest](https://powerhoof.itch.io/powerquest)

------
flashgordon
I was always curious if there was a "first-class" port of the scummvm for
canvas/webgl? I know there were efforts using emscripteen and all that but
they all died because of discrepancies in architectures etc. Anybody aware
efforts in this area to write scummvm groundup for the web?

I am really really really hoping the answer is no so then my next question
would be - anybody interested in building one? :)

------
pengaru
The author, Ron Gilbert, did a great fireside chat style talk at Handmade Con
2015 where he discusses developing games at Lucas Arts, and his indie work in
progress at the time, Thimbleweed Park.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cktmhqXMsGI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cktmhqXMsGI)

------
omegabravo
because it took me too long to find it I think it is this:

[https://thimbleweedpark.com/](https://thimbleweedpark.com/)

~~~
boudin
It's the code source from another game, that is a side story of Thimbleweed
Park. It's made by Ron Gilbert too.

------
butz
Note, that actual game engine source is not available. That's a bit sad for
users who want to run this game natively on Linux and other unsupported
platforms.

~~~
zzo38computer
Maybe someone else who want to do, can figure out how Dinky and the other
stuff involved (including TexturePacker; its JSON format seems to be not too
difficult) is working, in order to reimplement a FOSS version of the game
engine. And then, you will be able to implement these things, I suppose.

~~~
butz
One of engge (open source engine to run Thimbleweed Park) issues is already
open to implement Dinky support
[https://github.com/scemino/engge/issues/132](https://github.com/scemino/engge/issues/132)
. Help wanted!

------
pansa2
Interesting, it’s written in “a custom language called Dinky that is based on
and inspired by Squirrel”.

Is it common for games to use custom scripting languages? I thought it would
be more efficient to use an off-the-shelf language - Lua seems to be the most
popular?

~~~
schnable
The author has been writing his own game engines and scripting languages for
decades, so he has a lot to go on, and sounds like he enjoys.

~~~
gpderetta
And Dinky is of course one of the islands in Monkey Island 2.

------
dwd
The code is only half the game. Ron and crew had a wicked, warped sense of
humour which played out in the puzzles.

Dinky was the name of an island in Monkey Island 2, assuming some in-joke
there.

------
hombre_fatal
I like how the DeloresDev/Prefs.json you have to update isn't JSON but a
simple "key: value\n" file.

~~~
rmetzler
I don't like this at all. None of the .json files is valid JSON and the .wimpy
files are similar to YAML/JSON but not quite.

A custom format like this doesn't help tooling, it hinders it.

------
phendrenad2
Delores: A Thimbleweed Park mini-adventure is a point-and-click adventure game
for PC from the developer of Thimbleweed Park, a higher-budget kickstartered
point-and-click adventure. Here's the into blog post:
[https://grumpygamer.com/what_i_did_during_the_pandemic](https://grumpygamer.com/what_i_did_during_the_pandemic)

------
ocdtrekkie
It's a little sad he isn't interested in taking PRs to improve the game, even
if I appreciate why: He actually believes in real testing.

One would hope a PR might at least be considered for inclusion when/if he does
another update release of his own in the future.

------
lb1lf
From the GrumpyGamer post referenced on the GitHub page -

«The other downside is these really are the dev tools we used to make the
game, and like most in-house dev tools, they are poorly documented and very
crude around the edges.»

What the man said. Sigh.

~~~
lb1lf
Just to make it clear - I did not in any way intend to comment on the quality
of Ron Gilbert’s dev tools - however, his observation holds true for a number
of tools I’ve been hacking together myself - not to mention a few others which
I’ve had the mixed blessing of being handed in a ‘finished’ state...

------
kelvin0
If you like this, please have a look at some of it's ancestors, all gems:

Maniac Mansion

Zac McKraken and the Alien mind benders

Day of the tentacle

Loom

Monkey Island

... a whole other bunch I wish I had played too ..

...

Enjoy!

------
phendrenad2
This isn't F/OSS, IANAL but the blog post seems to indicate that making a game
with it is prohibited.

~~~
Nursie
The license is here
[https://github.com/grumpygamer/DeloresDev/blob/master/LICENS...](https://github.com/grumpygamer/DeloresDev/blob/master/LICENSE.md)

And yeah, it's not FOSS, it's a limited source license for the game code (not
the engine) with some non-commercial redistribution allowed.

------
ed25519FUUU
> _Don 't believe the myth that programmers can test their own code. They
> can't._

Interesting take that I’m not sure I can agree with. Good programmers write
good tests because, well, that’s one of the things that makes a “good”
programmer. If you take a dedicated test writer out of the picture you must
still have a good program with good tests.

The whole “blind spot” conundrum posited by the author can simply be solved by
having at least 2 people on a project. Each one will look at the code
differently and write tests differently.

~~~
egypturnash
I think the rest of the paragraph you’re reacting from goes into why he
believes this, after a long career of writing video games:

 _Programmers will test for all the conditions they can imagine, but a good
tester will imagine many many more and players will try things programmers
never even considered. Knowledge of their code is the achilles heel of
programmers. I 've had code I was 100% sure was rock solid, only to have one
of our testers reduce me to tears. A good tester excels at poking your code in
places you never considered. I'm not talking about your unit tested sort
routine, I'm talking about complex puzzle logic and odd UI uses. It's the
stuff unit tests will never catch, but a good tester will. Testers are the
unsung heroes of your team, treat them very well._

------
niqmk
Why steam is free, and you gave a source code? How would you planning to make
a buck and make a living?

~~~
senko
He has been making a living out of computer games for decades.

He shared more context about the release here:
[https://grumpygamer.com/delores_dev](https://grumpygamer.com/delores_dev)

