Thimbleweed Park

Thimbleweed Park operates on the same principles of early graphic adventure games. Players navigate various scenes from a third person perspective, using various "verb commands" to perform actions, such as "use", "pick up", and "talk to". Verb commands can be used to perform actions such as allowing a character to pick up an object into their inventory, to converse with another character, or to use an object on another item. The game's story is played out across a series of chapters, in which players must complete a specific set of goals to advance to the next chapter, solving a series of puzzles, some of which require the use of more than one character. The game features five different player characters, with the ability to switch between them in the middle of gameplay, similarly to Maniac Mansion.

In 1987, FBI agents Angela Ray and Antonio Reyes arrive at the town of Thimbleweed Park to investigate a murder. Their investigation leads them to several persons of interest: Chuck Edmund, the recently deceased owner of the PillowTronics robotics company; Ransome the Clown, cursed to wear his makeup forever after going too far in his insulting performances; Delores Edmund, computer programmer and niece of Chuck; and Delores's downtrodden father Franklin.

Franklin attempts to pitch his business ideas to Chuck, but is murdered at the town hotel and becomes a ghost. Delores discovers that Chuck has written her out of his will, angered by her choice to pursue a career in video games. Ray and Reyes gather blood samples, fingerprints, and photographic evidence, and arrest vagrant Willie T. Wino, who protests his innocence. They leave town, but return incognito to pursue other agendas: Ray has been tasked with stealing computer secrets, and Reyes wants to clear his father of causing the fire that burnt down the PillowTronics factory.

On November 18, 2014, Gilbert posted an update to his blog, in which he revealed that talks about the game had begun "several months ago" while he and Winnick had been discussing how fun their time developing Maniac Mansion at LucasArts (Lucasfilm Games at the time) had been, and how they liked the "charm, simplicity and innocence" of the adventure games of that era. Winnick proposed that they should make a new game in the style of their old ones; as such, it is designed as if it had been made in 1987 and as if it were "an undiscovered LucasArts adventure game you've never played before". Gilbert agreed, and suggested that they should crowd-fund it on Kickstarter.

Development started with Gilbert and Winnick building the game's world and story, designing puzzles using puzzle dependency charts, and creating characters around the puzzles. From the start, Gilbert says, they wanted to parody the TV shows Twin Peaks, The X-Files, and True Detective. The game's production was planned to last for 18 months, with Gilbert programming, Winnick producing art, and both writing and designing. Six months into development, an additional artist and programmer was hired along with a part-time musician. Development began on January 2, 2015, and was accompanied by a podcast that documented development and included some of their weekly check-in meetings.

Thimbleweed Park was released to positive reviews from critics, the PC version garnering a rating of 84 out of a possible 100 on the review aggregator website Metacritic, based on 59 critics.

The game was nominated for "Best Comedy Game" in PC Gamer's 2017 Game of the Year Awards; for "Best Mobile Game" in Destructoid's Game of the Year Awards 2017; and for "Best Adventure Game" in IGN's "Best of 2017 Awards". It won the award for "Best Ending" in Game Informer's 2017 Game of the Year Awards. In Adventure Gamers Aggie Awards 2017, the game won "Best Traditional Adventure" and "Best Adventure of 2017", and also won the Reader's Choice Award each for "Best Story", "Best Writing - Comedy", "Best Setting", "Best Acting (Voice or Live Action)", and "Best Sound Effects".