I've said it before and I will say it again........
Telltalegames have completly gone off the rails of their roots........
I'm sure people enjoy the new format but I am not a far of it all.....
Tell tale games used to be full of puzzles, large hubs, great story... What used to be fun to play has been replaced with fruit ninja type movements to slash zombies.....
This new format is just awful.....
Why does TTG make everything so cramp...... The screen angle is way too zoomed up and small.,,.. The best part of the older tell tale games was the wide angle hubs.....
TTG for goodness sake stop this new format and go back to the large hubs and puzzles. All I can say is episode 1 of the walking dead had the police car, clementines house, Hershel's farm, the drug stor, the motor inn......that was a real episode 1. This nonsense TTG is trying out pass to customers is nothing compared to the gold that used to be the gold standard.....
Comments
Well they did say season 3 will be substantially larger than the previous TWDGs so yeah there's still hope.
Personally I prefer their games this way. I like hubs but don't waste my time with puzzles.
By the way their story's are still fantastic and imo always getting better.
Needs more ellipses
Also I'm so glad they no longer do puzzles, they are awful
I never cared for the puzzle aspects, to be quite honest. At least not in TWD series in specific.
Practically none of them felt like they belonged, save for a select few that I will give some credit for. They felt like they are either busywork, or simply there to remind people that this is technically a point and click adventure game. And given the content of TWD, puzzles feel like the last thing you'd need to have. TWD is pretty much entirely character-driven (or at least intended to be), why waste time with random puzzle-solving when that can be further utilized to develop and grow both the characters and their relationships? Again, there are some good puzzles that I enjoyed, and luckily for those select few, they felt like that fit and were utilized well, or just matched/supplemented the current tone/feeling of the scene at hand. If we got more of those types of puzzles (the most notable example being clearing out the motor inn in episode 1), I'd be totally down for it. But otherwise, in all brutal honesty, they can stay gone.
Now hubs on the other hand, I can't argue against those returning, because they should. Hubs accomplished implementing gameplay mechanics and player interaction with the environment much better than the puzzle aspects did, at least in my opinion.
This is the reason TWD S1 is the best game made by Telltale.
In GOT and TFTB choices mattered more but its feels like we're watching a movie in which we only choose dialogues and "press W to move forward"' from time to time.
Puzzles? What puzzles? The train?
I want the same format as Season 1 back but probably won't happen
It's a shame we can't get something like Kings Quest, where the puzzles/hubs and story mix as one from time to time. TT wanna go the route of making their games more cinematic. Dramatic shots everywhere! I would imagine they watch the LPs of their games and find that A LOT of people don't care for clicking around and looking at stuff/talking to people. Spend less time, money, and effort on that and have people move on to the next part of the story.
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
Episode 4
Episode 5
I missed puzzles too. Besides just loving puzzle games, I felt it gave the player time to think and reflect on situations, like some breathing room. Some people may think it's boring in an "action-packed" genre like the walking dead, but the puzzles don't have to be hard, and I really appreciated the extra puzzles that unlocked more information about a character (Carley and the batteries, Molly and the tape). Without them, I do feel episodes are more on rails and like watching a movie than gameplay. That's still not bad (it can be good for games like tales from the borderlands that required tight pacing), but for the walking dead the room for reflection and breathing is definitely needed, if not through puzzles than through large hubs, like you said.
I honestly liked the exploring and the puzzle sections, even the tedious ones. They helped me invest myself into a zombie apocalyptic world and give me some insight on what ways I can do to make myself useful to my group, what path I should take to minimize risks and ensure the group and my own safety against the walkers, and how many steps I must take to accomplish the current objective.
As LoseMyHome also mentioned, they also make for good opportunities to think and reflect on recent situations and take small breaks from fast paced action sequences or intense and dramatic moments. This, I believe, was what helped build the story of Season 1 well, which Season 2 and the Michonne series (so far) failed to do, which was to give me a reason to invested myself into the game and care about what was happening.
I'll agree with you on the story problem. The Michonne story so far, (might be a bit early to judge) really isn't that interesting to me. I do like the new combat, much more exciting, the puzzles, I couldn't give a fudge about. Story is the main key for telltale, and I'm afraid it was one of the weaker elements of the Michonne episode 1.
I love me some puzzles, but I haven't seen good puzzles in a Telltale game since The Devil's Playhouse. The puzzles in season 1 were dull as dirt and were only made to make the episodes longer. It's nice to actually see them trying with Story Mode, but if they ever go back to boring repetive junk like the train puzzle they shouldn't even bother.
EDIT: I figure I might use these posts for future reference, so I'm adding titles to them.
Why Telltale changed puzzles/hubs after TWD Season 1:
Telltale did lots of puzzle games with hubs before Walking Dead: Season 1, but they looked at the success of Walking Dead: Season 1 and extrapolated that people like QTEs/linear choice making/etc as opposed to hub areas and puzzles. Telltale have gone on record as to say several times that the choice to remove puzzles/etc was a deliberate and conscious choice as everyone who first became a Telltale fan during and after Season 1 liked choice making more than puzzles. When Telltale further streamlined the formula to remove more interactivity in Walking Dead: Season 2 and Wolf Among Us, it wasn't a result of them working on multiple games (which they did several times prior to Walking Dead: Season 1), it was a result of them thinking they were "trimming the fat" and focusing on what they thought people did like after the success of Season 1.
In their minds, they basically looked at Walking Dead: Season 1 compared to their old games. Older games had puzzles, hubs, etc, and they were good but not as popular as Walking Dead. Then, they look at Walking Dead: Season 1, and go off the mindset that people liked all the new additions Walking Dead brought to their gameplay template. Thus, future titles like Season 2, Wolf, Thrones, Borderlands, etc have since focused on replicating only what Season 1 added, but not what existed during and before Season 1 if that makes any sense. I'm not defending it as I agree hubs/longer episodes/etc are great, I'm just explaining their reasoning from their point of view.
People like to scapegoat things like 90 minute episodes, the removal of hubs/puzzles/etc as being a result of Telltale working on "too many games," but when Telltale says they are doing things like that to make their games more cinematic and playable in one sitting, it's not just generic PR euphemisms for "we have to cut down on gameplay because of time constraints from multiple games being made at once" - they are deliberately, willingly, and voluntarily making the conscious choice of doing things like that because they see Walking Dead: Season 1 as having been more popular and unique compared to their previous titles because of those changes that Walking Dead: Season 1 brought to their gameplay template.
People also like to scapegoat Telltale for only choosing to work with big franchises ever since the success of Walking Dead and choosing to focus exclusively on choice based games, but then some of those same people turn around and ignore/dismiss all of Telltale's older games because they don't have choice making and are only based off of niche franchises like Sam and Max, Monkey Island, etc.
I liked the puzzle at the motor inn back in Episode 101. If a puzzle is constructed in a way where it actually fits into the plot as opposed to being added as a way to pad the game out, then it's fine with me.
Article: How Walking Dead turned Telltale into the HBO of Gaming:
http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/10/5193494/how-the-walking-dead-turned-telltale-into-the-hbo-of-gaming
Fan asks why they moved away from puzzles in their games in Minecraft: Story Mode Reddit AMA:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft/comments/3ow502/were_telltale_games_makers_of_minecraft_story/cw10ql0
Interview with Dan Connors (previous Telltale CEO) in 2013:
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/telltale-games-ceo-dan-connors-on-the-walking-dead-fables-and-building-a-television-studio-model-for-games/
I agree. The motor Inn puzzle was great. If they can stick with story driven puzzles similar to Story Mode Episode 4 I'll be more than happy to see puzzles in that style in future projects.
There was also the puzzle of getting out of the morgue, back at the start of Episode 5.
Maybe it's just me , but none of those felt like puzzles.
Yes and i liked the optional sidequests too such as fixing the swing at the St John's or finding water or the box of crackers for Katjaa/Duck in ep 3. It's things like that that season 2 failed to give us and from what i have honestly seen so far on people's playthrough's over the Michonne game, not impressed and I hate to say that but it's not looking good for an improvement with Season 3. However i am looking forward to seeing Clementine again (pretty sure she'll be back) and what direction her story will take in the new game and any new and hopefully interesting characters
even if what u said is correct , i still think the game should act like a game...
i mean now when i play it i think it's more like a movie then a game.. even ur choices seems to not matter at all because it makes me feel like the game or the choices are already maded ( thinking about the choices i have to make on GoT ) . At least the puzzles give the episode more time to play, feels nice and make us think and playing not just watching, thats why Walking Dead S1 was the best game of TTG and won the GOTY award.
i hope they start looking to their first season and make the games like that.
That was my whole point; In Telltale's eyes, they think that's what they've been doing this whole time after Season 1. They look at the success of Walking Dead: Season 1 compared to older games, and interpret the success as being from Walking Dead acting as a choice based interactive story game as opposed to their older puzzle games. They interpret their success as the modern audience wanting interactive stories as opposed to puzzle games.
That's not quite the case; people found the choice system to be new and innovative, as well as an imaginative fit for the Walking Dead source material. People came first for the choice making, not because of puzzles or hubs. By that logic, older titles would have been much closer to the same level of success as Walking Dead. Again, I want puzzles/hubs/etc to return as well - this is just an explanation of their logic.
TTG seems to not understand they need to incorporate the story within the puzzles. None of these puzzles have to be hard but when you are dealing with pure story. It better be one hell of a story otherwise the player will feel like it is dragging on and interest wanes.
Thanks for taking the time to chime in on my venting. You bring a different point of view. I welcome that.
For me thought everything that I enjoyed about TTG is just gone now.
I'm just not interesting in playing a movie with choices..... There is no game in it....
For me TTG stuck gold with TWD S1. They kept the hubs, added really great story line, you felt you were exploring a world. The hubs were so big and had so many different things to explore you felt like you were playing a mini open world type game for each hub.
I'm just not a fan anymore. I feel like they lose everything they made them TTG.....
Just because TTG did XYZ different and TWD S1 blew up does not mean that it was exclusively XYZ..... It was a mixture of that they did best and the new elements added......
Whe way I feel is they cut out what they did best.
I knew something was wrong when Jake felt the need to leave.
Yeah. In my personal opinion, I agree with you that it's unfortunate that Telltale isn't as willing to experiment with interactivity as they did before. At this point, I'd say just sharing feedback might be the best course of action; it did work for Telltale to get rid of 90 minute episodes for Thrones/Tales/Minecraft so far.
Once more, I agree with you. Even though I still like their current games as well, it's unfortunate Telltale doesn't see it the same way, but at this point, what's done is done.
Puzzles? In the Walking Dead? Nooo! Seriously, when?! You want puzzles, bring back Sam & Max.
They aren't completely wrong with that notion. When people praised TWD, that praise was almost never towards the puzzle aspects, it was all about the story, the characters, the narrative, the themes, the emotional bonds, the relationships built between the characters themselves and the player, and so on and so forth. So in a way, they are right about the modern audience wanting interactive stories as opposed to puzzle games.
However, they have been taking the "interactive" part of the interactive stories for granted. They've cut down on the interactive elements too much. Hubs are not the same as puzzles, and that's mostly because hubs can --and have -- played a huge role in building upon and serving the narrative, as well as a great way of involving and immersing the player within both the world and the story; a good blend of gameplay and story elements. S1 of TWD used hubs to very good effect, using them to help strengthen the bonds with the characters, as well as use them as a buffer in terms of pacing, as well as giving the player some breathing space to reflect on what has happened, as well as open an additional outlet for story impacts to emerge (character interactions changing based on choice, or different things in the background changing, IE the balcony at the motor inn being collapsed or not based on the Irene choice).
In my opinion, hubs don't have to come back, they need to come back, no question. Going back to the beginning, so much of the praise of S1 is directed towards the emotional bonds and connections that are formed. And what element of the game helped provide and support the means for those connections to grow? Hubs. They serve the narrative to a T, and compliment the overall style of these games almost perfectly, and streamlining them like they did in S2 for example, is holding back all the narrative potential they can provide to strengthen both their stories, and the way those stories are told, and enrich the world of these stories, and the characters therein.
In my opinion, there's nothing to gain by cutting back on the hubs, trimming them down like they are. There's no real positive benefit to be had they way they're doing it now. But the benefits that could be had from going back and doing them the way they used to? Passing those up would be (and kinda already is) the wrong move.
Let's look at it this way: TWD S1 is pretty much their best rated game. None of their newer series since then have dethroned it, and only a select few have come close to it. One of those select few would be Tales, and as you'd expect, it has a fair amount of hubs and interactive elements, similar to S1. I'm not trying to insinuate anything in particular, but I think there might be a correlation of some size that can be made here.
Meh. As long as the story is great, I'm good.
Yeah but that was pretty straightforward. I've listed only the hard ones.
Atleast they were better than nothing. Now we got choice based movie. It doesn't fell like a game at all
The quick time events beg to differ.
sean vanaman and jake rodkin left and they took all of those aspects with them to camposanto. play firewatch.
Sure
I wasn't aware that Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin created puzzles and hubs
You know, I could have sworn Telltale was already doing that before the two of them even started working there
EDIT: Adding titles to my posts as I figure I might link to these for future reference down the line.
Role playing vs Interactive Cinema carrying over into newer Telltale Games
Yeah, that's what I was getting at when I responded to Cisco's response above your post. You and I are pretty much on the same boat in terms of what you said in the rest of your post for the most part.
I would say Tales was a lot closer to Wolf/Season 2/Thrones/etc than it was to Season 1 in terms of how many hubs/etc were present; instead, I would say Tales benefited from a few other things - but, yeah, I agree with you that interactivity in the form of hub areas, the occasional puzzle, etc definitely helps and I think it is unfortunate to reflect upon lost potential that hubs can add in helping players relate to characters more.
Another part of what made Walking Dead: Season 1 work was, in part, other ways players could "role play" as Lee outside of making choices, such as taking off the hand cuffs in Episode 1, swinging Clementine in Episode 2, etc. It's the small additions like that that help players become immersed in the universe, and I think it was Telltale making some of those same choices in Tales with things like costumes, the Jack/Fiona choice having minor consequences carry over throughout the rest of the Season, etc that work. With some of the newer series like Walking Dead: Season 2, Game of Thrones, etc, they focus more on conveying action and having the story move at all times than they do conveying moments of humanization and subtle drama where the nuances of choice making can be appreciated as much as they were in Season 1, which is why I think some people don't like those Seasons as much. With hubs in the newer games, it's just a brief moment of downtime, whereas in Season 1 and older Telltale titles, hubs were actually placed at points in the story where it genuinely made sense for characters to sit down and breathe, and they had likewise written stories where it was OK to not have action going on at each point in the story. I mean, I like Game of Thrones, but with other people noting that games like Thrones only focus on the illusion of larger choices without also focusing on the more intimate and grounded characterization of people, I can kind of see where they are coming from even though I still like the game.
Instead of Telltale using the same template they used for previous games for Walking Dead: Season 1, they tailored the template to fit the Walking Dead source material, which was yet another part of why the game caught on so well. I can see why they've since stuck with pushing games where you make choices that tailor the story, but still, I think it would benefit them to tailor their template differently for each game to add new interactive portions or types of story tailoring/choice making that fit the source material. Despite this, it currently seems like Telltale is pushing less towards the role-playing types of interactivity/choice making like in Season 1 and instead pushing towards interactive movies where you just choose your character's response if that makes sense. I still like their games, but I can totally see why others aren't as fine with the changes, and I agree all of the untapped potential is unfortunate in my personal opinion.
[Mods are not Telltale staff; our opinions are our own...]
Fuck puzzles.
It's nice to see an informative post get made here every once in a while.
While we're on this subject, I found out about a site called Glassdoor.com which allows employees to submit reviews about places they worked, and the reviews for Telltale Games offer some insight as to what it's like to work there. Plus, the negative reviews especially, pretty much confirm suspicions as to why The Walking Dead Season 2 turned out so bad. You can't read reviews on the site unless you sign up first, but a tumblr blog has some reviews posted: http://youngandyoungatheart.tumblr.com/post/131780649051/read-telltale-games-former-employees-reviews-on
And there's more where that came from.
I'm not defending the Glassdoor reviews, but keep in mind that Wolf/Tales/etc came out around the same time and people liked those games. I don't think that alone correlated to the change in quality from Season 1 to Season 2.
[Mods are not Telltale staff; our opinions are our own...]
Exactly,it's Telltale. Not Tellpuzzle.
Just because people like a game doesn't mean that it was good. 400 Days was made by the same team as season 1, but it was just like season 2, and Tales and Wolf had some of the same problems too, though Tales to a lesser extent. These games being the way they are is a result of executives who don't know what they're doing having more creative input on a project than the people actually working on the game.
I will say though, it is quite odd that Tales from the Borderlands turned out good when I know what I know from the Glassdoor reviews. It makes me wonder just how/why Tales from the Borderlands turned out as good as it did.