A blog post from Grumpy Gamer (Ron Gilbert) explains what he's up to during the pandemic. The Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island designer reveals he's created a new Thimbleweed Park "mini-adventure" called Delores with a re-written version of the game engine. Calling this a "strange little game for the strange and stressful times we find ourselves in," he's offering it for free on the Epic Games Store and Steam. Here's a trailer and here's word:

As I write this on the 9th day of May in the year of 2020 the Pandemic is far from over. Different people deal with isolation, fear, social distancing and hoarding toilet paper differently. I built a game. It helped keep me sane.

As I mentioned back in March, I began rewriting the Thimbleweed Park engine with no real goal in mind, it just seemed like something to do and I had a few ideas about UI I wanted to explore.

What began as a way to waste time, turned into a fun little game prototype. A little over a month ago David Fox came on, then Robert, Katerina, and Octavi jumped on to help. The game was built almost entirely from existing art, sounds and music from Thimbleweed Park, more of a remixing into a new game that can be seen as an addendum to Thimbleweed Park. It is not a sequel.

We hope you enjoy it, it's complete FREE on Steam and the Epic Store. A strange little game for the strange and stressful times we find ourselves in.

Did I mention it's FREE.

Stay safe and I hope this little game helps, even a little.

In the coming weeks I'll be posting more about the new engine and how it's different and hopefully better.