I'm guessing, given they're relying on private financing, the ability to reuse assets from TP1 is the major reason to make it a sequel instead of a new IP.

Personally I liked TP1 a lot for the most part, but I agree that the ending was a horrible misstep. I'm not adverse to metafiction, and this is Gilbert after all, that's kind of his jam, but the sheer nihilism of it all left a horrible taste in the mouth. Ironically, for someone who cares so deeply about game design, it felt like an ending entirely borne of Gilbert and his fellow designers pleasing themselves, instead of thinking about how it would feel for the player.

That said, I'm still glad there's going to be a sequel. Hopefully it has more of what I liked and less of what I didn't.

Yes, the ending was kind of lame. Worse, it has been done before, again by Ron Gilbert. It is practically a rehash of the Monkey Island 2 ending, which got us nowhere in the long run.

If you feel like trying a hail Mary to perhaps improve the ending I have two theories that I couldn't muster enough strength to check. Also, spoilers from here on.

First, there's a fridge that you can't open close to the ending of the game and that I understand as containing the body of the ghost character. I imagine there must be a way to open it, if only to give him closure.

Second, and related: given that the ending shows you a Basic prompt I imagine there has to be a way to use it for something other than restarting the game. I believe there was (for instance) a part of the game about getting a videotape but, once you had the right equipment, was no longer available to get. Perhaps those parts of the game can be unlocked if you know how to use the console to set the proper variables.

I've long hoped that we've all been getting the bad ending while there's a second one hidden somewhere (which has been hinted at [1]), but since I was fairly down after the ending I got I couldn't muster the energy to replay it all again.

> Thimbleweed Park 1 has possibly the worst ending of a game, ever.

I see that someone hasn't played the latest Monkey Island.

[1] https://blog.thimbleweedpark.com/maniac_the_cave_thimbleweed...

If you every played the first two Monkey Island games, and understand the lore behind that, then the ending is pretty good. Thimbleweed park, in many way, was a spiritual successor to Monkey Island 2 that Gilbert couldn't make for IP reasons back in the day. With at in mind, I enjoyed the ending. That said, Monkey Island 2 got a lot of criticism for its ending too...

I found Thimbleweed Park 1 very difficult. The puzzles were too hard. I didn't complete it. I tried to play it with my girlfriend, I thought it would be a nice game to work together to play/solve. It stumped both of us. No fun.