Thimbleweed Park™ Murder, ghosts and dry jokes

You play five people who have nothing in common and do not know yet how deeply they are connected. Agents Ray and Reyes arrive to investigate a body pixelating under the bridge. Franklin is a ghost trying to reach his daughter. Ransome the Beeping Clown is, generously, working on himself. Delores dreams of making games while her family needs her.

Each character has their own inventory, their own skills and their own way into places the others cannot reach. Some guard their home turf. As the night stretches on, you start chaining their efforts together: one character gets the key, another gets inside, a third does the part nobody else can. They can cooperate, or get on each other's nerves. Both are useful.

This is classic point & click in the old LucasArts style: a verb-based interface where you decide whether to open, push, use or pick up something, and the difference matters. The puzzles are mostly fair, and the answer is usually hiding somewhere in the town rather than in moon logic. When you are truly stuck, an in-game hint system nudges you forward without spoiling the whole case.

There is a lot of town to poke through: a haunted hotel, an abandoned circus, a burnt-out pillow factory, toilets that run on vacuum tubes. You explore at your own pace, and Casual and Hard modes let you choose how much of the puzzle chain you untangle yourself. Fair warning: the ending divides players. Some find it clever, others feel shortchanged.