Ransome *Unbeeped*
We just released the new Ransome unbeeped DLC on Steam and GOG. Give the trailer a watch, but I have to warn you, if you're offended by words like beep, beeper, beephole, or beephead you might want to avert your ears.
It's a little depressing that a few people are actually upset that we're charging $1.99 for this. Making this wasn't free. It took a lot of work. Programming, testing, audio editing, etc. It feels like people think it was just copying a bunch of audio files over. I've always objected to DLC that was made at the same time as the game and all they do is flip a bit. This is not that kind of DLC. The code to make this work was not written until just a few months ago. We had the idea of MAYBE doing this DLC during the development, but none of the work was done.
We've released two MAJOR updates for FREE since launch, so I think we deserve to try and recover some of our costs. It sometimes feels like people expect game devs to make games for free. This is my livelihood. I use it to pay my rent and buy food. Game pricing is completely screwed up, it's why you see predatory free-to-play games and loot boxes.
The other reason it's not FREE is so people don't suddenly (and without warning) get a full-on unbeeped clown swearing at their kids. Having to pay something provides some parental friction.
It's only $1.99 and you'll support game devs trying to make a living so they can keep making games.


you must enable the DLC via Options -> Video -> Ransome *unbeeped* DLC
I will admit to initially having been taken aback that the DLC wasn't free too. That's because you never mentioned it wasn't in your previous post. (Also, to a lesser extent, because I was one of the original backers.)
Arguably I shouldn't have assumed it was, but just for the future, you can (probably) save yourself much gamer grumpiness by saying upfront that it costs money, and how much.
Keep the cheer & keep up the good work!
My name is Hamid and I am 30. All off my childhood was covered with Monkey island series and I have played them more than 5 times!!! Is there any chance for monkey island 6 in 2018 or later?!! Thimbelweed park is nice but monkey island is something else!!!
Pretty Please Answer :D
Is there a new monkey island?
It is impossible for him to make another Monkey Island game, because he does not own the intellectual property (IP) for Monkey Island. Disney is the current owner of the IP, since they have acquired Lucasfilm (and LucasArts). Though, Disney are not interested in selling the Monkey Island IP and Ron is not interested in creating a game with an IP he does not own. So, I am afraid that a new Monkey Island game by Ron Gilbert is highly unlikely, even though he would like to do a "real" sequel to LeChuck's Revenge.
Thank you my dear. :D What do you mean about a "real" sequel to LeChuck's Revenge. Is it possible in terms of IP?
Unfortunately, it is not. It was just an idea of Ron, which he described several years ago in a blog entry. See here:
https://grumpygamer.com/if_i_made_another_monkeyisland
At the same time, he made clear that he has no such plans. He will never do another Monkey Island game, unless he gets the IP. He even has tried to talk to the responsible persons at Disney, but he said that he didn't get through.
Then again, since you'd asked us to buy ten copies of the Thimbleweed Park, that meens 19.90 EUR in DLC money! Not to mention the GOG version and the Steam version. ;)
Great work in either case!
You might not have done wrong anything. Ron announced that he would avoid Twitter as much as he can from now on, because it's a time killer. Source: https://grumpygamer.com/2018_goals
I re-read your comment. It seems that the DLC is not installed on you machine. If you bought the game on GOG, you have to install it separately. I'm not sure how the installation works with GOG Galaxy or Steam, though.
To want money for something so trivial is the big issue we face today in the industry. Instead of doing really add-ons, developers produce minor, trivial stuff that once modders made. Developers and publishers want to maximize profit by either producing content (before or after the release) that doesn't cost anything noteworthy or by providing a non-existing currency to by this trivial content and in the last years even gambling arised.
I buy games but I buy less year after year, because it doesn't seem to be enough to buy a game once.
Do you have the *latest* version of TWP installed? The DLC is only working with the current version of TWP.
If this is the case, please contact the support: support@thimbleweedpark.com
Can we also get a sherrif de-annoy-a-reno? I'd shell out up to 5 bucks for that! :D
Kudos for supporting your game so much after release and not just fixing the ugly bugs and be done with it. I like.
PS: Do not listen to the haters, they're gonna hate anyway.
-dZ.

Well... did you read the part where he states that this DLC wasn't planned in advance?
I re-iteratate the criticism I've seen repeated oftentimes online: it's a fantastic, brilliant, impressive game which I enjoyed immensely and thoroughly -- up until the end. It doesn't ruin the experience, it just cheapens it. If you want to take that to mean that we hate you and that we will never pay for another of your games, that's also your prerogative -- but it wouldn't be too accurate.
It's very easy to dismiss opinions that you do not like with "pffft! haters gonna hate." It takes courage and wisdom to accept other people's opinions. It's your blog so I am obviously at a disadvantage.
Still, I say that providing DLC for the /good/ ending would sell more than "unbeeping" the clown. Then again, people would say that it should have been included originally. I would still pay for it, as I paid for multiple versions of the game, and for this DLC just to support you. Yeah, I'm a hater.
Cheers!
-dZ.
I'm sure this will lead to a long and probably interesting discussion, on the understanding that each author's choice must be respected, as expression of a personal and artistic form.
Sorry, but I found your comment to be taunting and disrespectful. You can say "I didn't like the ending", you already did lots of times on the forum and it's your opinion. But bringing up again the "bad ending" basically saying there will be people willing to pay to forget how bad the original ending was... that's not an opinion.
I'm with you on the ending of TWP. I didn't like it, to me it felt stale, utterly unsatisfying and unexciting (sorry Ron; you're still my idol). On the other hand, I don't think telling Ron to "provide a good ending" makes any sense. Since we're not talking about some technical issue here, good or bad is purely a matter of taste: to Ron, that's obviosly the good ending - nay, that's the *best* ending. What would you expect him to do, come up to you with an ending and ask you "How do you like it?" and then change it as many times as it doesn't please you? What about all the other people? Some *do* like the ending of TWP, so they would certainly consider what you think is good to be bad. Should he change it again and again, making sure *everyone* likes it? Because you know, that's quite impossible. I think pretty much no one ever makes something thinking, "I'm making something bad, but who cares?". They do what the think it's best and you have to respect that. Your opinion is as valid as any, but asking Ron (and the whole TWP team) to make what you want (which BTW I bet you don't even know what that is) is completely unreasonable.
For example, the puzzles are playtested and if lots of playtesters have a problem on a puzzle, that part is often changed to "fix" it, so it's driven by how the audience may react to it... but then I assume things like the story and reactions to the ending are not playtested?
It's like there an invisible line between the two... potentially you could put everything in the author-driven box (eg. puzzles exist purely as puzzles and as works of art, they are not for the audience to enjoy, so don't playtest them), or everything could go into the audience-driven box (let's playtest the reactions to the story, ending, etc. to make sure most of the audience will enjoy them).
I'm not saying any one way is correct, or what elements should be in which box, but it's interesting where the lines are drawn.
"There are two options, either zero work was involved in this DLC because it's just an edited soundfile or unnecessary work was involved because of incompetence."
Can you point me to your groundbreaking contribution to the gaming industry? Or maybe do you wanna discuss a little bit about data structures and algorithms? Memory optimization perhaps?
You make me happy Ron, I lOVE your adventures since I was a child, you gave me the posibility to think, feel, laught and live in your worlds. My creativity and imagination are fitness of that. In conclusion, you inspired me ;)
I have bought this morning Thimbleweed Park on PSN store. It's going to be awesome, I have a free day at least for myself.
Well, I Will read and follow your blog. And now I need yo buy the DLC and support your awesome job.
May the enthusiasm be with you
Looking to the bright side.
All this work to make a gameworld and characters that inhabit it... and then tell the player - haha, you have wasted your time - you invested emotionally, but it was all worthless.
And, because the existence of the characters is limited and constrained, everyone should be killed and their fake world should burn. So now we're justifying not just nihilistic murder, but nihilistic genocide. But oh, wait, genocide is not possible, and that makes even moral choice irrelevant. That's the level of philosophical and ethical maturity the author has.
I can't understand what thought process made mr. Gilbert and the others believe even for a moment that such a choice is going to be okay. Perhaps the others thought everything is a parody and one big joke and that can justify anything, including ruining any empathy or investment the player has built.
I would understand the idea of "nihilistic art" for the sake of nihilism itself (or art itself), deconstructing any meaning out of a story, but this is also something that gets sold, in a very, very American way. I paid three times its regular price to support its development, falling for all of the marketing tactics, not knowing that I'm paying for a nihilistic self-serving anti-story.
It's as if someone draws a cartoonish, but well done version of Mona Lisa in front of you for weeks, and then at the end throws random paint on it, tears it in half and sets it on fire. Aaaah, it's actually post-modern art! But it's also false advertising. Perhaps I should have known better, because mr. Gilbert has always been like that, but I guess I was so naive that it had to take two decades for the truth to truly sink in.

Feels like you're one of those people that wants everything explined to you in a story at the end. I'm not that way, I love stoies where I really have to dig and figure it all out. There is a point and puspose to the story, the last thing I was "was tired of it", just to opposite, I was invigorated by it. But that kind of story isn;t for everyone, I knew it wasn't going to be.
So I assume it's like "The Tunnel under the World" by Frederik Pohl, which ends in a similar way. But "The Tunnel under the World" is a very dark and serious sci-fi story that doesn't do fourth walling, and the character is not trying to happily kill everyone just because he doesn't like his limited existence. He just tries to escape from the fake city and finds out this is more than impossible and he is trapped in a very absurd and terrifying way. Same story, totally different feeling.
Mar 06, 2018
I'm growing a little tired of people ripping on the ending. It is the /good/ ending. It's exactly the ending I wanted. I'm sorry if you didn't like it, but it was the ending the story need. Endings to my games will always be weird or controversial. You are free to never buy another one of my games again. Endings don't exist to please the audience, they exist for the story and the story alone. Make your own game and do the ending you want for it, I'm sure 100% of your players will love it!
Wow Ron, you used to be, like, my hero. Now you sound like a jaded old asshole. The ending, and the ENTIRE STORY exist to please an audience if you want to get paid. Which you OBVIOUSLY do since your MAJOR updates were such a hassle. You're straight admitting that you don't care that your fans like your story or ending, then you pull the good old "Go make your own game! I'm sure it'll be perfect!"
You're a total fucking dickhead and now I'm ashamed of having this game in my library.
**Thank you!**
No regrets :D