Thimbleweed Park struck my fancy when I saw it on the eshop. It looked retro, and it looked like it would be a relaxing 80’s mystery game that I could just sit down and play all the way through. After playing through the game, I realize what a great purchase it was. It was charming, it looked great, and it had an incredible story, which is one of my favorite things about games.

Essentially, Thimbleweed Park is a point and click adventure game reminiscent of those old computer games that told a story. Thimbleweed Park takes place in 1987, in a small down that is almost entirely run by one company. This company has made technology far more advanced than what should be probable in that time period. You play as two main characters, switching between them, who are both FBI agents, who each carry their own baggage. The story was immersive, and I couldn’t put it down. I just had to keep going and find out what happened. Another factor of the story was the voice acting, which was decent in my opinion. It made it more immersive, because literally all characters had voice acting, which made the experience much better. Overall, the story is the best point of this game, as most adventure games are merely interactive story tellings.

Thimbleweed Park also has a charming play style, which is reminiscent of old command games, though slightly simplified. You have a choice of nine verbs to choose from, such as “look at”, “open”, “close”, and others. This can be used for doing various things, and making sure you do exactly what you want to do. However, this is also the game’s downfall. The price of the precise actions, is the controls. Using a controller on this game is an absolute nightmare, for many reasons. Firstly, you control a pointer with your joysticks. This would be fine, but sometimes you have to make fairly precise movements, and this makes it difficult. I often found myself overshooting verbs, and ending up pressing on the wrong one instead. This definitely made my experience less enjoyable, and I ended up just using tablet mode, so that I could tap on everything. This was better, but still not great.

Overall this game is fantastic. I sunk a solid 20 hours into this game, which is quite a lot for a story game. I enjoyed my experience for the most part, however the controls really hampered a lot. I would give the game 4 out of 5 pillows, a solid game in the switch’s arsenal, and I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to become immersed in something for a few days, or really just wants a good story.