Is Thimbleweed Park more immersive than Uncharted 4?

If I asked you, which game is more immersive, Uncharted 4 or Thimbleweed Park, and you’re like most people, you’d say “Uncharted 4, obviously. What kind of question is that?”

Immersive, what does it mean?

First of all, what does “immersion” even mean? Although it’s a term often used when talking about super realistic games like God of War, The Last of Us, and similar, immersive basically means that a game pulls you into its world. Makes you feel like you’re part of it.

And yes, an old-school point-and-click game like The Secret of Monkey Island, or Thimbleweed Park, can be just as immersive. But these games don’t rely on ultra-realistic graphics to achieve this. Quite the contrary, these games are usually super unrealistic. But how do they attain immersion when their characters look like blobs of pixels?

They do it with gameplay.

Ludonarrative dissonance

Games like The Last of Us, God of War, and Uncharted although beautiful, often suffer from the same problems. They focus too much on the cinematic storytelling that the gameplay becomes “Press A to do something”. And for the large part of the game you end up just holding forward while your character slowly walks, or you press A to do some scripted action, to the point where you ask yourself “Is it better to play a game or watch a movie?”

If on the other hand, they have actual fun and engaging gameplay then they usually suffer from “ludonarrative dissonance” – a conflict between the game’s gameplay and the story. That is where you do one thing during the gameplay (killing a bunch of people for example) and in the cut scenes, your character is doing something completely different (you’re a hero that thinks it’s immoral to kill people). This way it’s very hard to get immersed in the game’s world because its mechanics and its narrative aren’t telling the same story.

Verb Gameplay

One of the staples of the Point and Click genre is the verb gameplay. In one corner of the screen there are usually about 9 verbs, or actions (Open, Pick Up, Close, Give, Talk To, Push, Pull, Use, Look At). You click on one of them, then click on some object in the world and apply that verb to that object.

For example, you select “Open” and click on a door, and you’ll open that door. If you select “Talk to” and click on a character, you’ll talk to them, obviously. But what’s so special about this type of gameplay?

Well, many people would say that it’s even pointless since most of the verbs can’t be used on most of the items. With a door, you can only use “Open” and sometimes “Push/Pull” verbs, but if you try to “Pick it Up”, “Talk To it” or “Give” it something, nothing will happen, your character will just give you a small explanation that it’s not possible. So why even bother putting the option of “Talk to the door” if it’s not possible?

That’s where the real genius of this gameplay mechanic comes in. Yes, you can’t “Talk” to the door, and you can’t “Close” a person, but what if you can? You always have to keep asking yourself these questions. Oh yeah, obviously I can’t open a screwdriver, I can only pick it up. I can’t open this box I can only pick it up… Oh, wait! I CAN Open this box.

Every now and then you’ll come across an object that you can interact with in multiple ways. And that’s what makes these games immersive to me. Sure, you can’t use all of the verbs on most of the objects, but it FEELS like you can because there is always an option to try it. And when you stumble across an object like that, it feels so good.

That’s how these games achieve immersion. Because at every point of the game, you and the main character are thinking and doing the same thing. That’s not to say that this genre is without its flaws. There are things like backtracking and “moon logic” that can kill the fun and the immersion out of these games. But when they’re done right, they are absolute gems.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, when you ask people which game is more immersive, Uncharted or Thimbleweed Park, 99% of them will say it’s Uncharted. And rightly so, it has a nice story, beautiful graphics, and awesome cut scenes. When you play it you feel like you’re watching a movie. But when you play a game like Thimbleweed park, you feel like you’re part of that world. Which one is more immersive? You tell me. But just try to imagine if there was a video game with breathtaking visuals like Uncharted 4 or God of War, and non-linear gameplay like in these old point-and-click adventures, that allow you to interact with almost any object in the world in multiple ways. How amazing would that be?