Thimbleweed Park

Thimbleweed Park is built by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick — the duo behind Maniac Mansion and the original Monkey Island — and it carries the same verb-coin point-and-click structure forward into 1987. A dead body is found pixelating under a bridge outside town, two federal agents arrive to investigate, and the case opens out into the strangest cast of suspects ever assembled in one rural rectangle of map.

Five playable characters share the campaign: Agent Ray with motives of her own, Junior Agent Reyes carrying a 20-year-old secret about a factory fire, the ghost Franklin who needs to reach his daughter, Ransome the Beeping Clown who is verbally incapable of being decent, and Delores the aspiring game developer torn between family and ambition. You switch between them freely, and many puzzles ask you to use one character's inventory through another's hands.

The writing is Gilbert at his joke-density peak, the kind of comedy that doesn't try to age gracefully so much as it laughs at itself for trying. Casual and Hard modes adjust puzzle difficulty without changing the story. Full English voice acting ships with subtitles in five additional languages.