The creators of classic ‘Maniac Mansion’ are making a spiritual successor

25 years ago, Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick designed Maniac Mansion, one of the defining titles from the golden era of adventure games. Now they’re making a spiritual successor.

The two creators just launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund development of Thimbleweed Park, a new game that not only plays like a classic Lucasarts game, but looks like one too. “We don’t want to make a game ‘inspired by,’ or ‘paying homage to’ classic point-and-click adventures,” the duo says, “we want to make a real classic point-and-click adventure.”

The game stars a pair of detectives investigating a dead body found in a river and will feature five different playable characters — including a clown who can’t remove his makeup — and multiple endings depending on how you play. It features a deliberately old-school look, with huge, chunky pixels and an interface that will feel intimately familiar if you played games like Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. (It will also feature an easy mode for those who don’t want to deal with the genre’s notorious difficulty.) Gilbert and Winnick are looking to raise $375,000 to fund production of the game, which will include adding another programmer and artist to the team six months into development.

“We want Thimbleweed Park to be like an undiscovered classic Lucasarts’ adventure game you’d never played before,” the Kickstarter page explains. “A game discovered in a dusty old desk that puts a smile on your face and sends a wave of nostalgia through you in the same way it does for us.”

The game is expected to launch in 2016.