Instead of bickering in circles about this issue, why don't we try this exercise? Take a puzzle you thought was too easy and give us an example of how it could be more difficult, while not being obscure and illogical.
That's a whole lot more productive than what's going on right now.
Instead of bickering in circles about this issue, why don't we try this exercise? Take a puzzle you thought was too easy and give us an example of how it could be more difficult, while not being obscure and illogical.
That's a whole lot more productive than what's going on right now.
1. The cupboard door in the office could have been locked.
2. The tear gas launcher could have needed ammo to be found (onions)
3. The antenna on the helmet plans could have looked more like a real antenna than a coat hanger. You could have had to find the helmet portion too, not just have Bosco make it from one item.
Johnny Walker: Oh silly old me. Here I thought that the fact that there are more than enough good adventures games with really high production values to play, and even more upcoming was enough to call the genre "alive".
Staggeringly, I'm actually shocked to see that you completely missed the point of my comments, and ignored my other observations. Silly me!
It is absolutely NO-WAY Sam & Max is too difficult. Personally, I am shock to find Sam & Max to get the difficulty level just right. Most of the recent adventure games have lost the spirit and the touch, IMHO. The company has done a great job to keep the fun up. Story is excellent and most of all, the game really brings me back the fun from the golden days of Lucart Arts adventures (Days of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Indiana Jones). If you have played those games, the difficult level is about the same as this one.
My only complaint of this game is far way too short.
Okay, look. Yes being stuck on a puzzle is frustrating which is why the old Lucas arts games and even newer ones like The Longest Journey made the effort to create an interesting and compelling world where, even if you were stuck, you still had lots of interesting things going on around you. I used walkthroughs on both Grim Fandango and Syberia (two random examples pulled out a hat) but the difference was that in Syberia it ended up feeling like a chore to complete the game but in Grim Fandango it was joy to play start to finish. Possible the reason for the downturn in adventure gaming popularity is not that the puzzles got too hard, but that there wasn't an interesting enough world to explore when you were stuck. Sam and Max got the cool world bit down but without the difficult puzzles forcing you to look around you have to make a concious effort to stop and find the funny bits, it's very easy to miss them in the race for the finish and the first time you play an adventure game the end is the most important thing, at least for me. I know not everyone found the game as easy as this thread seems to want to make out which is why I think that the easy/medium/hard approach is the only way to satisfy everybody. THE ONLY WAY!
<whew>
I'm just presenting an idea on why you might want to be stuck once in a while. Forced rose smelling if you will.
Discuss/
You've ignored the fact in my original post: All of the original adventure games you describe as being released are being produced by minor companies aiming for a niche market...
The MMORPG genre is alive and kicking. The FPS genre is alive and well. Even the RPG has some fight left in it. But adventures? They're in a very tiny minority.
You quote Charles Cecil (you do know that Revolution went through a massive down-sizing after Broken Sword 3?), and I'm sorry, but as much as I love Charles Cecil, he's had finished software refused to be published because publishers don't think there's anything to adventures anymore, he's been deep into production on games he's had to cancel... so he's bound to try and "big up" the genre (which is all cool by me). Secondly, if Broken Sword 3 only sold the same amount as Broken Sword 2, when the amount of people gaming has increased greatly in the gap between 1995 and 2003, then I don't think that's such an amazing claim.
This is a shame, but you're right to point out the excellent non-LucasArts/Sierra titles that have been released in the last six years by new developers.
There's several reasons why people might say that the adventure genre is "dead" though, and they're all pretty much valid. For a start, it no longer has the mass-appeal it once did, or if it does, why do games like The Longest Journey remain virtually unknown outside of adventure fan circles?
Maybe you forget that adventure games used to be hugely popular?
This discussion is even more fun when one thinks that its being posted on the forum at a developer who has released 5 adventure games over the last 1.5 years, and are now acting as a distributor for other adventure developers.
You're twisting the truth. They've released one full "adventure" (I take it you mean CSI?), two mini-adventures, and one sixth of another. They're not Bioware or Bethesda just yet!
This is all besides the point, though. At the end of the day, this whole thread seems to be you pushing your personal agenda: That Sam & Max was disappointing because of the ease of the puzzles.
While, yes, I agree that the puzzles were easy, I was in no way disappointed by Sam & Max, and it seems that most people agree with me (even the reviewers). But your thread starts "Are Telltale listening to the complaints about the difficulty-level of their games?", which, for a start, isn't even a question anyone can answer, but when people try to tell you that they're quite happy, you seem to leap up and explain to them why they shouldn't be.
(Which is all very odd, because of all the people on this forum, you seem to be the one who is happiest with the plethora of great adventure games available!)
Don't get me wrong, though, if Sam & Max gets a little harder, I wouldn't complain. But at the same time, I don't fancy getting stuck! I'm sure TellTale are trying to find a happy medium, whilst trying to do something different to what has been before. In the meantime, though, you've got tons of other adventure games to play and keep you happy! (And maybe I'll check some of them out, too!)
Okay, look. Yes being stuck on a puzzle is frustrating which is why the old Lucas arts games and even newer ones like The Longest Journey made the effort to create an interesting and compelling world where, even if you were stuck, you still had lots of interesting things going on around you.
I used walkthroughs on both Grim Fandango and Syberia (two random examples pulled out a hat) but the difference was that in Syberia it ended up feeling like a chore to complete the game but in Grim Fandango it was joy to play start to finish.
Possibly the reason for the downturn in adventure gaming popularity is not that the puzzles got too hard, but that there wasn't an interesting enough world to explore when you were stuck. Sam and Max got the cool world bit down but without the difficult puzzles forcing you to look around you have to make a concious effort to stop and find the funny bits, it's very easy to miss them in the race for the finish and the first time you play an adventure game the end is the most important thing, at least for me.
I agree with you, Ed! It's quite possible that that's why we forgave those games when we got stuck in them. I think TellTale have done such an amazing job with the world of Sam & Max, that maybe we could quite happily get stuck in it again!
The very last Monkey Island, Dreamfall (thank you Vesh), recent Broken Sword. Syberia is good but I won't say it is excellent.
Most of the recent adventure games target on storyline twists on twists, thriller, or detective stories. They all try to be atmospheric but this is only short lived.
It is easier for me to point out why I personally find the others are good.
Of course, first thing content is the king. However, I found other adventure games lack of THEMES. This is the main reason why I really like Lucart Arts adventures. Each title is unique in its own way with excellent story line.
Full Throttle - Harley Davidson biker, double hard bxxtard, I still remember the stylish ending with the sunset.
Day of the Tentacle - Past, Present, Future. Enough said.
Grim Fandango - Unique characters (Although I don't find it as good as other Lucast Art titles)
I guess what it comes down to for me is that TellTale is claiming that the Episodic nature of their games is good for the player, and I find that to be total B.S. because they haven't capitalized on the nature of Episodic Content.
One of the few pluses about having Episodes is that you can theme each segment of the game to a particular holiday or a season or something like that. And Telltale hasn't picked up on this yet.
The thing is people say "Oh this isn't xfiles, this isn't a tv show, it's a GAME" Uhh, Hello, it's a game that's being RUN as a T.V show.
And honestly when you have special effects houses like Digital Domain looking to set up their own gaming company--- When Lucas Arts has merged it's offices with ILM in order to better share technologies between the two houses, what you have is a bunch of companies looking to make their games more like movies and T.V. series then ever before.
So far the only advantages to TellTale's gimick of using the episodic format is to give themselves the advantage of being able to recoup their expenditures over the course of the project, but I have seen nothing that makes it advantageous to the player, and I think TellTale's game developers need to get on the ball and find ways to make it more advantageous for the customer. --- They need to be careful here because if they start believing their own Spindoctoring about how players prefer a 2-3 hour game played once a month to completion over a full length game that they might play once an week for 3 hours over the course of a month, then they will become lax in finding other ways to keep the customers interested, because it's simply not true. It's marketing hype, but there is LITTLE basis to it.
This is why I feel people have some valid complaints. Anyone who says the game is PERFECT is lying. Because nothing is perfect.
For an Episodic game to really come alive, it helps to theme each episode towards the season or of it's release. IE: An episode released around November 1st should really have had more of a halloween feel to it to help draw people in and immerse them in the game. It makes their job as a game developer that much easier as well because people are already FEELING and SEEING the halloween stuff all around them, so throwing that into the game draws them in that much quicker and easier.
This is why you will never see your popular T.V. shows releasing a new episode at christmas about how So and So goes to Hawaii for the SUMMER. hehe. It's like "Hello, this is christmas time, where's the CHRISTMAS episode!".
While the ability to theme a game is a good one, it's hardly fair to accuse Telltale of ignoring this option in their games when only one episode has been released (Bone hasn't got that freedom because it's following an already constructed narrative). Who's to say what's in store for the med-Dec/Early Jan Ep 2?
Also you might find Halloween means nothing to a good percentage of non americans. Similarly when the US is in winter, 1/2 the earth is in summer. A lot of Hit the Road is lost to people who haven't experienced US Road Trips (or live in US culture).
I will concede though that as Sam & Max is set in the US, UScentricity is a given. But overdoing jokes / themes that are unfamiliar to 1/2 the games audience could, in certain circumstances, be offputting.
I find a lot of these suggestions extremely egocentric - it all seems about (in the words of Brady Culture) "me, Me, ME" with little to no consideration given to wants / needs of the audience as a whole or that Telltale do actually have a marketing plan, years of cumulative experience in all facets of the industry and an idea of how the games will evolve in due course.
That's not to say suggestions aren't great - we saw a huge number of user suggestions implemented between Bone 1 and Bone 2 (and between Bone 2 and Sam & Max), but there seems to be a prevalence of people who think they know better than Telltale, which, basically... they don't.
One of the few pluses about having Episodes is that you can theme each segment of the game to a particular holiday or a season or something like that. And Telltale hasn't picked up on this yet.
Ah, but we will. Wait until you see what we have in store for President's Day.
The President has his own day!? Why? I thought all Americans hated Jee Dubya?
As for the episodicnesserosity of the games, as somebody else pointed out, that's pretty much the reason that there aren't so many puzzles. Give yourself a smallish amount of time to make a game which will be replaced by another in another month (or thereabouts) and chances are you're going to go for a smaller amount of good logical puzzles as opposed to a multitude of slightly less polished ones. Before someone violently argues though, I too would quite like to see a few more puzzles and maybe have the difficulty ramped up a bit. But, I won't pick up my monitor and throw it through the window if there isn't much change. Mostly because it's an expensive monitor and it's quite heavy. Plus, I don't think my parents would be impressed if I borke a window.
I guess what it comes down to for me is that TellTale is claiming that the Episodic nature of their games is good for the player, and I find that to be total B.S. because they haven't capitalized on the nature of Episodic Content.
They need to be careful here because if they start believing their own Spindoctoring about how players prefer a 2-3 hour game played once a month to completion over a full length game that they might play once an week for 3 hours over the course of a month, then they will become lax in finding other ways to keep the customers interested, because it's simply not true. It's marketing hype, but there is LITTLE basis to it.
One thing you leave out of the equation is Gametap. Culture Shock is still the most played game on Gametap, after nearly a month. I would say that that's pretty solid evidence that people remain interested in the game between episode launches. And Gametap has been marketing the interim Sam and Max machinama shorts that will be coming soon much more than Telltale has (I think Telltale, as a tiny company, has been a little more busy and focused with the site redesign, game premiere, and you know--making more episodes than to focus on the in-between content), but that stuff is also potentially going to keep customers interested. I will concede that Gametap offers the original cartoons and Telltale doesn't, but I'm willing to bet that Gametap customers would still be playing Culture Shock even if Gametap didn't offer the old cartoons.
But nevertheless, Gametap has revolved everything Sam and Max around the idea of episodic release, with a monthly game release, weekly cartoon release, and weekly machinama short release that is looking very robust and popular. Gametap is basically an episodic service--the whole business model revolves around the idea of a steady stream of new content with access provided via a subscription service, and hey, they're probably seen a jump in customers once they announced that the subscription fee will give customers Sam and Max once a month. It could still be just hype and spin-doctoring, but it looks like its working.
Which is why I really wish Gametap would be more forthcoming with their user data, so that we can tell what kind of gamers are playing Culture Shock without speculation. I contend that I think a lot of the people that used to put Tetris and Pac-Man at the top of the list are also now helping to put Culture Shock there, but who knows--maybe its the people that used to put Tony Hawk or Sonic the Hedgehog up there.
---
Note: I really hope nobody brings up that "Gametap is US+Canada only!" since that fact is largely irrelevant to my argument that there exists data to suggest that the Sam and Max attention span remains high within the window between episode releases, even with the "shortness" of the game.
Maybe you forget that adventure games used to be hugely popular?
This is where I remind everyone that adventure games were so big they had the backing of Lucas, Spielberg, and just about any big name actor who had a few spare months and any interest in video games.
You've ignored the fact in my original post: All of the original adventure games you describe as being released are being produced by minor companies aiming for a niche market...
The MMORPG genre is alive and kicking. The FPS genre is alive and well. Even the RPG has some fight left in it. But adventures? They're in a very tiny minority.
You quote Charles Cecil (you do know that Revolution went through a massive down-sizing after Broken Sword 3?), and I'm sorry, but as much as I love Charles Cecil, he's had finished software refused to be published because publishers don't think there's anything to adventures anymore, he's been deep into production on games he's had to cancel... so he's bound to try and "big up" the genre (which is all cool by me). Secondly, if Broken Sword 3 only sold the same amount as Broken Sword 2, when the amount of people gaming has increased greatly in the gap between 1995 and 2003, then I don't think that's such an amazing claim.
This is a shame, but you're right to point out the excellent non-LucasArts/Sierra titles that have been released in the last six years by new developers.
There's several reasons why people might say that the adventure genre is "dead" though, and they're all pretty much valid. For a start, it no longer has the mass-appeal it once did, or if it does, why do games like The Longest Journey remain virtually unknown outside of adventure fan circles?
Maybe you forget that adventure games used to be hugely popular?
Of course I know that the genre is smaller than others. Much more. But with the amount of good games that has been released/will be released I cant see that the genre being "dead" is a......how shall I put it........ "correct" opinion. Its understandable that many think so. Yes. But its also an opinion that is based on ignorance of all good games being released in the genre, and the effort made by very talented game developers.
As for Charles Cecil, you hardly being fare. The gamesindustry is a hard place to work for anyone, and people are having trouble selling their games in all genres. Just think of Richard Garriot, Ultima Online 2, and the MMORPG-genre.
The quotes about sales was about the genre still being profitable, not being the absolutely one the biggest. The only reason that he actually made a fouth Broken Sword-game was that the publisher (THQ) pushed him to do so because they saw the genre as being profitable. The Broken Sword-series was orginaly just gonna be a trilogy.
Again, I can see why many people say that it is dead. I just think that in a discussion like this where you actually take a good hard look at how the genre is doing now, I cant see the genre being dead as a valid opinion, since its based on that you ignore many good adventuregames. Thats why I dismiss retronauts´ opinion. But everyone are of cause entitled to their opinion. The question is just about what value it has in this kind of debate.
Incognito, you've ignored the second part of my post again
I appreciate your response to the first half, but I don't think you should go around dismissing people's opinions and then expect them to see your point of view. I understand what you mean about there still being a wealth of "good" adventure games out there, and I'll probably go and check them out, but I also understand what is meant when people who say the genre is currently dead or ailing.
Many people have been saying since the 1980s that "Disco is dead," but these people are ignoring the fact that there are still some very successful disco artists out there (even new ones), making some very good disco songs, and there are still a couple of old-fashioned disco clubs that are still open and profitable. For this reason, I can only conclude that they are wrong, and must dismiss their opinions since they are clearly ignorant and choose to ignore these facts. DISCO LIVES.
--Update--
Note: This in no way precludes the fact that I don't believe Disco, or adventure games for that matter, can be resurrected to their previous mass appeal, though I'd prefer the latter...
--Update 2--
If you actually believe that Disco is not dead, we'll then I have nothing else to say...
Emily Morganti, Telltale Games
This is not exactly on-topic, but... I was reading a King's Quest article on a retro gaming website the other day, and Ken Williams was quoted saying that King's Quest 6 sold 400,000 copies in the first week. That just blew my mind. (Remember, that was in 1992!)
Compare that to The Longest Journey, which Funcom says has sold about 500,000 copies since it came out in 1999... seven years ago now.
Johnny Walker: My intention was to answer the part about adventuregames not having the mass appeal in the first part of my anwer - where I acknowledge that the genre is indeed a small one compared to others like FPS , but still thinks that it is a fact that still lives a quite healthy live since there are many good games out there with production values that rivals the games in bigger genres.
About me dismissing opinions, you have to look at what context Im dismissing it in. It is in these deep discussions about the genres. Im not talking about people in general not being allowed to have opinions.
One thing I have forgotten to mention here. When Sony showcased PS3, they had an adventuregame as one of the demos (Heavy Rain), and that demo had quite large coverage on the major gamingsites like Gamespot and IGN. It is things like that, along with ex-LucasArts people founding new development studios like Telltale and Bad Brain Entertainment along with promising upcoming games like Overclocked from Anaconda that makes the declaration of adventuregames being dead more "wrong" now than ever.
I apologize for the amount of awkwardness and offtopickery that is about to ensue, but I gotta say this in response to this entire thread:
All you guys rock. Even with all the bickerin', snippishness (which is usually just preemptory defensiveness), heavy declarations (which seem to come off as high-horsin', but usually aren't) and all... you all obviously deeply love both the old guard of [good] adventure games and seem to have your own broken shards of the whole of what the genre is slowly evolving toward.
But as much as you guys rock, you need to calm down and realize that your ideas and opinions aren't really all that conflicting.
(ETA: No, I'm not drunk or high. I just love that amount of vehement passion I'm seeing about adventure games, game development, all the applicable theory and of course, Sam & Max themselves/itself - AND - I would love to see people dropping thier swords to work together to think of how to combine all of these perspectives, ideas and opinions into a working concept with rewarding gameplay and great storytelling.)
- AND - I would love to see people dropping thier swords to work together to think of how to combine all of these perspectives, ideas and opinions into a working concept with rewarding gameplay and great storytelling.)
I think we're leaving that up to Telltale. Lets see what they can do with this mess of a thread
I think we're leaving that up to Telltale. Lets see what they can do with this mess of a thread
Close it with luck. That's what happened to the voices thread Both sides seem to not want to change their perspectives and we've been going around in a few circles now that I look back.
Well, I think this is one of the best reading discussions on the board. Lots of good, passionate people sharing their opinions. Some of it even backed up with links, examples and references.
Sure, people are unlikely to change their opinions, but so what? It's all about swaying the 'undecided', isn't it?
Well, I think this is one of the best reading discussions on the board. Lots of good, passionate people sharing their opinions. Some of it even backed up with links, examples and references.
Sure, people are unlikely to change their opinions, but so what? It's all about swaying the 'undecided', isn't it?
Yeah, if you were an American, I would say, "how appropriate you fight like a cow, there was an election today."
There probably are lots of silent people among the close to 5000 views that this thread is getting.
Okay, okay, unless there is anybody that says something so egregious for me to want to refute it, I'll say I'm done as well.
Here's my realization, as Telltale is really starting to pioneer a completely different manner of gaming--story-driven episodic games, there really is nothing else to compare Culture Shock to, only regular games. This is compounded by the fact that the IP from which Culture Shock is based on was also the subject of a much-revered game from 13 years ago--the epitome of "old, regular game" if there ever was one.
With lack of peer titles to compare it to, viewers invariably turn to comparing the episodic games with either old games orHit the Road and in some cases both, whilst Culture Shock seeks to be neither a regular game (or a regular adventure game, for that matter), or even a logical sequel to Hit the Road.
First the episodic point: there really are no other episodic games (or very very very few) out there, so gamers invariably will compare it to full-length games. And people will compare it to full-length adventure games no less. It's understandable, you can only compare things to what you know. When the Simpsons came out, people compared them to Flintstones and the Jetsons, but when a King of the Hill or Family Guy comes out nowadays (after shows like Simpsons and Futurama have been firmly established), nobody really compares those shows to Flintstones anymore--nobody expected cartoons could be different from "normal" cartoons back then, but now we have things like Adult Swim (cable channel with mature cartoon lineup), something unheard of 10 years ago. So there's really nothing that can be done until episodic games really reach a critical mass; you can't blame people from evaluating things based on what they know.
Secondly, the legacy of Hit the Road. The truth is that Sam and Max: Season One is neither a true sequel to Hit the Road, nor does it really seek to be. The collection is called Season One after all, similar to how Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Movie and Buffy: The Television Series are completely different--you don't compare the movie to the television show; even though they use the same characters and are in roughly the same universe, the presentation, stories, and even the actors are completely different and seek to stand on their own rather than in comparison to one another.
And this is why I think there is so much more discussion than you might get from using IP that does not have as much baggage. Both the issues of the new paradigm of episodic gaming and the legacy of Hit the Road combine and compound into this potentially messy situation that stirs passions and elicits extremely long forum threads. And Telltale took a tremendous risk in actually pushing through this potential barrier and went ahead and pushed through their vision of story-driven episodic games.
Tremendously risky and tremendously crazy for such a tiny little upstart company to do. But the crazy thing is, I think it's working.
Great reviews nearly everywhere and Culture Shock remains atop Gametap's most-played list for over 3 weeks running, a service not known for adventure-gaming customers. Complaints seem to be balanced--one review will say Sam's voice is better than Max's, while another will say the opposite, same with length, and same with difficulty. Near unanimity on humor, characters, and the episodic format. While the fanbase used to worry about Telltale's handling of the humor and characters, it's really basically been reduced to nitpicking about gameplay mechanics.
But the baggage of the newness of episodic gaming, coupled with the legacies of Hit the Road and the adventure game genre in general, will continue to exist, and it really is hard for either opinion to be really correct until we see where everything is a year from now. I can say as much as I want that Telltale has a great vision and really knows what it's doing to be very successful, and I really can't know that for sure until I see how things look after it's all said and done. Similarly, others can argue all they want about what changes are needed and required for success and how Telltale would be completely wrong to do X or Y, but, just like me, they really can't prove that until they look at how things are when it's all said and done.
All along, Telltale will have to continue walking this tricky rope.
But like I said earlier on:
Tremendously risky and tremendously crazy for such a tiny little upstart company to do. But the crazy thing is, I think it's working.
Rock on, Telltale.
--update--
Sorry for the US-centric analogies. I did this on purpose because of till receipts.
You can perhaps replace Buffy with Ninja Turtles or Ghostbusters if you don't know what Buffy is, but I think the Buffy analogy is a much stronger one.
you don't compare the movie to the television show; even though they use the same characters and are in roughly the same universe, the presentation, stories, and even the actors are completely different and seek to stand on their own rather than in comparison to one another.
I do, I think a lot of people do, and usually they dont compare well. If culture shock was to hit the road like anything ive ever seen syndicated like that does I would be horrified. Thankfully its not, the presentation is much better (thanks to advances in technology) and the universe is the same. The story hasnt been dumbed down - if all 6 episodes are good it will be better. I dont think TV conversions do seek to stand on their own, they just want to milk the success of a film (with the exception of Buffy, but that was only after it was a success). The new sam and max doesnt fall into that category. Its been created by people who have been involved in trying to get S&M projects going for years.
All people have been trying to say on this board and the others is what improvements they would like to see. I dont understand why some people are so defensive and take constructive criticism as an attack on the game. We all just have this picture in our heads of what we would like the game to look like and somehow were trying to put it all together. You'd think we were suggesting altering the bible to the pope because we thought a couple of bits could do with improvement.
Its got nothing to do with episodic gaming being a new paradigm. Thats helping, if the game had been released as a whole we wouldnt be able to talk about what we'd like to see in future, would we?
Nobody has said I hate this, I cant believe what youve done with the 'legacy of HTR', this is rubbish I want my money back. Almost everyone has said I love it, cant wait for the next one, well done.
The things have been said, and I can scrounge up quotes to prove it if you like, and PM them to you if you want, but I'm not going to publicly do it here out of a desire to avoid restarting arguments in case people want to react to said quotes all over again.
So anyone if they want, can PM me if you want said quotes.
update---
Anyway, a dirty little truth is that Telltale wants to do the same thing as with Buffy, milk the success of licenses for products that also happen to stand on their own. That's why they made CSI and Bone as well. We don't talk about CSI that much, but from what I glean from interviews, its doing very well due to the popularity of CSI. I've heard Dan Connors casually mention "The Simpsons" in at least two interviews as examples for episodic gaming, and though I wouldn't expect it to happen, I'm willing to bet that Telltale would be happy to have that license.
And Kevin Bruner, CTO of Telltale offers this statement that kind of tells you that they plan on doing a lot more milking in the future:
Next Generation interview with Kevin Bruner, CTO Telltale
Looking a few years down the road, Bruner has big plans for the company and for properties that are ignored in today's market. "I hope we're bringing out a new game every month on a number of different franchises and making the television metaphor really work. We want to be a channel like HBO or Bravo and really seeing licenses that don't play well right now in the game space, find a home at Telltale.
"You can imagine there are all sorts of things that don't map well to driving and shooting. We think that we can do some good treatments for that stuff."
The fact that they basically will be milking licenses for money does not preclude the possibility that Telltale actually will do a good job. They had zero experience with Bone or CSI, and turned out good products. Dave Grossman, the putative guy in charge of Sam and Max at Telltale, had nothing to do with Sam and Max (he left Lucasarts after DOTT) until he arrived at Telltale. So I'll still say Buffy is Buffy.
But I'm now going wayy off-topic. And I don't know what I'm saying anymore. I'll just PM you the quotes.
I dont see this kind of milking as a bad thing. I meant in a cynical money grabbing way. A simpsons game could be great. The fact is when most people do this kind of thing it stinks though. The TV example from film you used is the personification of that.
I dont see that people having problems with an episodic game is the same as people having a problem with a paradigm shift to episodic gaming. Thats not what paradigm means. My point was to try and illustrate how a paradigm shift is a positive thing in this instance.
I dont see why a few people whinging about the content of the game is the same as people saying they hate the game and want their money back. I know a couple of people didnt like it but there isnt anything everyone likes.
You seem to have a serious problem with people in anyway challenging what you say about things. I think other people have noticed this before and I fully expected this response from you. I only post things on here because I really enjoyed the original sam and max game and I thought that the way an interesting community built up around the release of the new one was great.
I notice you havent picked up on what I said about constructive criticism. Please dont send me anymore PM's like that... Chill out... :cool:
1. The cupboard door in the office could have been locked.
2. The tear gas launcher could have needed ammo to be found (onions)
I'm not sure if that raises the difficulty of the puzzle. That's just stacking puzzles, of equal difficulty, on top of each other. It's also assuming that the player is certain that using the tear gas will work on Peppers, or that the cupboard contains the cheese. Unless you mean something more clever than just an onion from the store and a key on the desk, then I don't see how this would raise difficulty rather than just annoy people. Just finding stuff isn't clever, and doesn't make you think.
3. The antenna on the helmet plans could have looked more like a real antenna than a coat hanger. You could have had to find the helmet portion too, not just have Bosco make it from one item.
Agreed about that one, it was too easy. I did like how they introduced the antenna of the TV before, though. Hadn't even noticed it until that Waking-Up-Sam sequence. Making the antenna look less like the coat hanger, and introducing that helmet-like object earlier on in the game, would help in that one. Especially because it's near the end.
I still think it comes down the number of hints given in game. As BigJKO suggested one of the puzzles that could have been made harder, without just adding more puzzles, was one which had an obvious answer. The easiest way for Telltale to make the games harder would be to add an option to remove some of the in game hints.
Yeah, it seems from the hints forum that the few people that did get stuck got stuck on the non-hinted portions of the game--last puzzle, knocking out the poppers, and the psychoanalysis stuff. So even an acknowledgment of a hint system might help Telltale in that regard, since people seem to have no problem with the cheese (both Sam and Max give BIG hints for this) or antenna. Some people got stuck with the driving game though... which is kind of annoying given that I think they pretty much point you in the right direction with hints.
Since I don't know what the topic of this thread is anymore (we've gone on so many different tangents), this may or may not be topical:
Here's an article published today (at least I think it was today) by Mygamer.com, that includes an interview with Telltale designers Dave Grossman and Brendan Ferguson on their thoughts on the state of adventure games:
Comments
That's a whole lot more productive than what's going on right now.
Those who wants the challenging bits from adventuregames cut, since they dont have the time to play such games.
Can you quote some of that from this discussion please? I think you're misreading what's being posted.
1. The cupboard door in the office could have been locked.
2. The tear gas launcher could have needed ammo to be found (onions)
3. The antenna on the helmet plans could have looked more like a real antenna than a coat hanger. You could have had to find the helmet portion too, not just have Bosco make it from one item.
Staggeringly, I'm actually shocked to see that you completely missed the point of my comments, and ignored my other observations. Silly me!
My only complaint of this game is far way too short.
May I ask for examples?
<whew>
I'm just presenting an idea on why you might want to be stuck once in a while. Forced rose smelling if you will.
Discuss/
The MMORPG genre is alive and kicking. The FPS genre is alive and well. Even the RPG has some fight left in it. But adventures? They're in a very tiny minority.
You quote Charles Cecil (you do know that Revolution went through a massive down-sizing after Broken Sword 3?), and I'm sorry, but as much as I love Charles Cecil, he's had finished software refused to be published because publishers don't think there's anything to adventures anymore, he's been deep into production on games he's had to cancel... so he's bound to try and "big up" the genre (which is all cool by me). Secondly, if Broken Sword 3 only sold the same amount as Broken Sword 2, when the amount of people gaming has increased greatly in the gap between 1995 and 2003, then I don't think that's such an amazing claim.
This is a shame, but you're right to point out the excellent non-LucasArts/Sierra titles that have been released in the last six years by new developers.
There's several reasons why people might say that the adventure genre is "dead" though, and they're all pretty much valid. For a start, it no longer has the mass-appeal it once did, or if it does, why do games like The Longest Journey remain virtually unknown outside of adventure fan circles?
Maybe you forget that adventure games used to be hugely popular?
You're twisting the truth. They've released one full "adventure" (I take it you mean CSI?), two mini-adventures, and one sixth of another. They're not Bioware or Bethesda just yet!
This is all besides the point, though. At the end of the day, this whole thread seems to be you pushing your personal agenda: That Sam & Max was disappointing because of the ease of the puzzles.
While, yes, I agree that the puzzles were easy, I was in no way disappointed by Sam & Max, and it seems that most people agree with me (even the reviewers). But your thread starts "Are Telltale listening to the complaints about the difficulty-level of their games?", which, for a start, isn't even a question anyone can answer, but when people try to tell you that they're quite happy, you seem to leap up and explain to them why they shouldn't be.
(Which is all very odd, because of all the people on this forum, you seem to be the one who is happiest with the plethora of great adventure games available!)
Don't get me wrong, though, if Sam & Max gets a little harder, I wouldn't complain. But at the same time, I don't fancy getting stuck! I'm sure TellTale are trying to find a happy medium, whilst trying to do something different to what has been before. In the meantime, though, you've got tons of other adventure games to play and keep you happy!
I agree with you, Ed! It's quite possible that that's why we forgave those games when we got stuck in them. I think TellTale have done such an amazing job with the world of Sam & Max, that maybe we could quite happily get stuck in it again!
Most of the recent adventure games target on storyline twists on twists, thriller, or detective stories. They all try to be atmospheric but this is only short lived.
It is easier for me to point out why I personally find the others are good.
Of course, first thing content is the king. However, I found other adventure games lack of THEMES. This is the main reason why I really like Lucart Arts adventures. Each title is unique in its own way with excellent story line.
Full Throttle - Harley Davidson biker, double hard bxxtard, I still remember the stylish ending with the sunset.
Day of the Tentacle - Past, Present, Future. Enough said.
Grim Fandango - Unique characters (Although I don't find it as good as other Lucast Art titles)
One of the few pluses about having Episodes is that you can theme each segment of the game to a particular holiday or a season or something like that. And Telltale hasn't picked up on this yet.
The thing is people say "Oh this isn't xfiles, this isn't a tv show, it's a GAME" Uhh, Hello, it's a game that's being RUN as a T.V show.
And honestly when you have special effects houses like Digital Domain looking to set up their own gaming company--- When Lucas Arts has merged it's offices with ILM in order to better share technologies between the two houses, what you have is a bunch of companies looking to make their games more like movies and T.V. series then ever before.
So far the only advantages to TellTale's gimick of using the episodic format is to give themselves the advantage of being able to recoup their expenditures over the course of the project, but I have seen nothing that makes it advantageous to the player, and I think TellTale's game developers need to get on the ball and find ways to make it more advantageous for the customer. --- They need to be careful here because if they start believing their own Spindoctoring about how players prefer a 2-3 hour game played once a month to completion over a full length game that they might play once an week for 3 hours over the course of a month, then they will become lax in finding other ways to keep the customers interested, because it's simply not true. It's marketing hype, but there is LITTLE basis to it.
This is why I feel people have some valid complaints. Anyone who says the game is PERFECT is lying. Because nothing is perfect.
For an Episodic game to really come alive, it helps to theme each episode towards the season or of it's release. IE: An episode released around November 1st should really have had more of a halloween feel to it to help draw people in and immerse them in the game. It makes their job as a game developer that much easier as well because people are already FEELING and SEEING the halloween stuff all around them, so throwing that into the game draws them in that much quicker and easier.
This is why you will never see your popular T.V. shows releasing a new episode at christmas about how So and So goes to Hawaii for the SUMMER. hehe. It's like "Hello, this is christmas time, where's the CHRISTMAS episode!".
Also you might find Halloween means nothing to a good percentage of non americans. Similarly when the US is in winter, 1/2 the earth is in summer. A lot of Hit the Road is lost to people who haven't experienced US Road Trips (or live in US culture).
I will concede though that as Sam & Max is set in the US, UScentricity is a given. But overdoing jokes / themes that are unfamiliar to 1/2 the games audience could, in certain circumstances, be offputting.
I find a lot of these suggestions extremely egocentric - it all seems about (in the words of Brady Culture) "me, Me, ME" with little to no consideration given to wants / needs of the audience as a whole or that Telltale do actually have a marketing plan, years of cumulative experience in all facets of the industry and an idea of how the games will evolve in due course.
That's not to say suggestions aren't great - we saw a huge number of user suggestions implemented between Bone 1 and Bone 2 (and between Bone 2 and Sam & Max), but there seems to be a prevalence of people who think they know better than Telltale, which, basically... they don't.
Ah, but we will. Wait until you see what we have in store for President's Day.
Meaningless historical public holiday?
As for the episodicnesserosity of the games, as somebody else pointed out, that's pretty much the reason that there aren't so many puzzles. Give yourself a smallish amount of time to make a game which will be replaced by another in another month (or thereabouts) and chances are you're going to go for a smaller amount of good logical puzzles as opposed to a multitude of slightly less polished ones. Before someone violently argues though, I too would quite like to see a few more puzzles and maybe have the difficulty ramped up a bit. But, I won't pick up my monitor and throw it through the window if there isn't much change. Mostly because it's an expensive monitor and it's quite heavy. Plus, I don't think my parents would be impressed if I borke a window.
We'll find out tomorrow...
One thing you leave out of the equation is Gametap. Culture Shock is still the most played game on Gametap, after nearly a month. I would say that that's pretty solid evidence that people remain interested in the game between episode launches. And Gametap has been marketing the interim Sam and Max machinama shorts that will be coming soon much more than Telltale has (I think Telltale, as a tiny company, has been a little more busy and focused with the site redesign, game premiere, and you know--making more episodes than to focus on the in-between content), but that stuff is also potentially going to keep customers interested. I will concede that Gametap offers the original cartoons and Telltale doesn't, but I'm willing to bet that Gametap customers would still be playing Culture Shock even if Gametap didn't offer the old cartoons.
But nevertheless, Gametap has revolved everything Sam and Max around the idea of episodic release, with a monthly game release, weekly cartoon release, and weekly machinama short release that is looking very robust and popular. Gametap is basically an episodic service--the whole business model revolves around the idea of a steady stream of new content with access provided via a subscription service, and hey, they're probably seen a jump in customers once they announced that the subscription fee will give customers Sam and Max once a month. It could still be just hype and spin-doctoring, but it looks like its working.
Which is why I really wish Gametap would be more forthcoming with their user data, so that we can tell what kind of gamers are playing Culture Shock without speculation. I contend that I think a lot of the people that used to put Tetris and Pac-Man at the top of the list are also now helping to put Culture Shock there, but who knows--maybe its the people that used to put Tony Hawk or Sonic the Hedgehog up there.
---
Note: I really hope nobody brings up that "Gametap is US+Canada only!" since that fact is largely irrelevant to my argument that there exists data to suggest that the Sam and Max attention span remains high within the window between episode releases, even with the "shortness" of the game.
(And Gametap will be worldwide soon...)
This is where I remind everyone that adventure games were so big they had the backing of Lucas, Spielberg, and just about any big name actor who had a few spare months and any interest in video games.
Of course I know that the genre is smaller than others. Much more. But with the amount of good games that has been released/will be released I cant see that the genre being "dead" is a......how shall I put it........ "correct" opinion. Its understandable that many think so. Yes. But its also an opinion that is based on ignorance of all good games being released in the genre, and the effort made by very talented game developers.
As for Charles Cecil, you hardly being fare. The gamesindustry is a hard place to work for anyone, and people are having trouble selling their games in all genres. Just think of Richard Garriot, Ultima Online 2, and the MMORPG-genre.
The quotes about sales was about the genre still being profitable, not being the absolutely one the biggest. The only reason that he actually made a fouth Broken Sword-game was that the publisher (THQ) pushed him to do so because they saw the genre as being profitable. The Broken Sword-series was orginaly just gonna be a trilogy.
Again, I can see why many people say that it is dead. I just think that in a discussion like this where you actually take a good hard look at how the genre is doing now, I cant see the genre being dead as a valid opinion, since its based on that you ignore many good adventuregames. Thats why I dismiss retronauts´ opinion. But everyone are of cause entitled to their opinion. The question is just about what value it has in this kind of debate.
I appreciate your response to the first half, but I don't think you should go around dismissing people's opinions and then expect them to see your point of view. I understand what you mean about there still being a wealth of "good" adventure games out there, and I'll probably go and check them out, but I also understand what is meant when people who say the genre is currently dead or ailing.
Many people have been saying since the 1980s that "Disco is dead," but these people are ignoring the fact that there are still some very successful disco artists out there (even new ones), making some very good disco songs, and there are still a couple of old-fashioned disco clubs that are still open and profitable. For this reason, I can only conclude that they are wrong, and must dismiss their opinions since they are clearly ignorant and choose to ignore these facts. DISCO LIVES.
--Update--
Note: This in no way precludes the fact that I don't believe Disco, or adventure games for that matter, can be resurrected to their previous mass appeal, though I'd prefer the latter...
--Update 2--
If you actually believe that Disco is not dead, we'll then I have nothing else to say...
More context.
About me dismissing opinions, you have to look at what context Im dismissing it in. It is in these deep discussions about the genres. Im not talking about people in general not being allowed to have opinions.
One thing I have forgotten to mention here. When Sony showcased PS3, they had an adventuregame as one of the demos (Heavy Rain), and that demo had quite large coverage on the major gamingsites like Gamespot and IGN. It is things like that, along with ex-LucasArts people founding new development studios like Telltale and Bad Brain Entertainment along with promising upcoming games like Overclocked from Anaconda that makes the declaration of adventuregames being dead more "wrong" now than ever.
All you guys rock. Even with all the bickerin', snippishness (which is usually just preemptory defensiveness), heavy declarations (which seem to come off as high-horsin', but usually aren't) and all... you all obviously deeply love both the old guard of [good] adventure games and seem to have your own broken shards of the whole of what the genre is slowly evolving toward.
But as much as you guys rock, you need to calm down and realize that your ideas and opinions aren't really all that conflicting.
(ETA: No, I'm not drunk or high. I just love that amount of vehement passion I'm seeing about adventure games, game development, all the applicable theory and of course, Sam & Max themselves/itself - AND - I would love to see people dropping thier swords to work together to think of how to combine all of these perspectives, ideas and opinions into a working concept with rewarding gameplay and great storytelling.)
I think we're leaving that up to Telltale. Lets see what they can do with this mess of a thread
Close it with luck. That's what happened to the voices thread
Sure, people are unlikely to change their opinions, but so what? It's all about swaying the 'undecided', isn't it?
Yeah, if you were an American, I would say, "how appropriate you fight like a cow, there was an election today."
There probably are lots of silent people among the close to 5000 views that this thread is getting.
Here's my realization, as Telltale is really starting to pioneer a completely different manner of gaming--story-driven episodic games, there really is nothing else to compare Culture Shock to, only regular games. This is compounded by the fact that the IP from which Culture Shock is based on was also the subject of a much-revered game from 13 years ago--the epitome of "old, regular game" if there ever was one.
With lack of peer titles to compare it to, viewers invariably turn to comparing the episodic games with either old games or Hit the Road and in some cases both, whilst Culture Shock seeks to be neither a regular game (or a regular adventure game, for that matter), or even a logical sequel to Hit the Road.
First the episodic point: there really are no other episodic games (or very very very few) out there, so gamers invariably will compare it to full-length games. And people will compare it to full-length adventure games no less. It's understandable, you can only compare things to what you know. When the Simpsons came out, people compared them to Flintstones and the Jetsons, but when a King of the Hill or Family Guy comes out nowadays (after shows like Simpsons and Futurama have been firmly established), nobody really compares those shows to Flintstones anymore--nobody expected cartoons could be different from "normal" cartoons back then, but now we have things like Adult Swim (cable channel with mature cartoon lineup), something unheard of 10 years ago. So there's really nothing that can be done until episodic games really reach a critical mass; you can't blame people from evaluating things based on what they know.
Secondly, the legacy of Hit the Road. The truth is that Sam and Max: Season One is neither a true sequel to Hit the Road, nor does it really seek to be. The collection is called Season One after all, similar to how Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Movie and Buffy: The Television Series are completely different--you don't compare the movie to the television show; even though they use the same characters and are in roughly the same universe, the presentation, stories, and even the actors are completely different and seek to stand on their own rather than in comparison to one another.
And this is why I think there is so much more discussion than you might get from using IP that does not have as much baggage. Both the issues of the new paradigm of episodic gaming and the legacy of Hit the Road combine and compound into this potentially messy situation that stirs passions and elicits extremely long forum threads. And Telltale took a tremendous risk in actually pushing through this potential barrier and went ahead and pushed through their vision of story-driven episodic games.
Tremendously risky and tremendously crazy for such a tiny little upstart company to do. But the crazy thing is, I think it's working.
Great reviews nearly everywhere and Culture Shock remains atop Gametap's most-played list for over 3 weeks running, a service not known for adventure-gaming customers. Complaints seem to be balanced--one review will say Sam's voice is better than Max's, while another will say the opposite, same with length, and same with difficulty. Near unanimity on humor, characters, and the episodic format. While the fanbase used to worry about Telltale's handling of the humor and characters, it's really basically been reduced to nitpicking about gameplay mechanics.
But the baggage of the newness of episodic gaming, coupled with the legacies of Hit the Road and the adventure game genre in general, will continue to exist, and it really is hard for either opinion to be really correct until we see where everything is a year from now. I can say as much as I want that Telltale has a great vision and really knows what it's doing to be very successful, and I really can't know that for sure until I see how things look after it's all said and done. Similarly, others can argue all they want about what changes are needed and required for success and how Telltale would be completely wrong to do X or Y, but, just like me, they really can't prove that until they look at how things are when it's all said and done.
All along, Telltale will have to continue walking this tricky rope.
But like I said earlier on:
Tremendously risky and tremendously crazy for such a tiny little upstart company to do. But the crazy thing is, I think it's working.
Rock on, Telltale.
--update--
Sorry for the US-centric analogies. I did this on purpose because of till receipts.
You can perhaps replace Buffy with Ninja Turtles or Ghostbusters if you don't know what Buffy is, but I think the Buffy analogy is a much stronger one.
I do, I think a lot of people do, and usually they dont compare well. If culture shock was to hit the road like anything ive ever seen syndicated like that does I would be horrified. Thankfully its not, the presentation is much better (thanks to advances in technology) and the universe is the same. The story hasnt been dumbed down - if all 6 episodes are good it will be better. I dont think TV conversions do seek to stand on their own, they just want to milk the success of a film (with the exception of Buffy, but that was only after it was a success). The new sam and max doesnt fall into that category. Its been created by people who have been involved in trying to get S&M projects going for years.
All people have been trying to say on this board and the others is what improvements they would like to see. I dont understand why some people are so defensive and take constructive criticism as an attack on the game. We all just have this picture in our heads of what we would like the game to look like and somehow were trying to put it all together. You'd think we were suggesting altering the bible to the pope because we thought a couple of bits could do with improvement.
Its got nothing to do with episodic gaming being a new paradigm. Thats helping, if the game had been released as a whole we wouldnt be able to talk about what we'd like to see in future, would we?
Nobody has said I hate this, I cant believe what youve done with the 'legacy of HTR', this is rubbish I want my money back. Almost everyone has said I love it, cant wait for the next one, well done.
So whats wrong with that?
So anyone if they want, can PM me if you want said quotes.
update---
Anyway, a dirty little truth is that Telltale wants to do the same thing as with Buffy, milk the success of licenses for products that also happen to stand on their own. That's why they made CSI and Bone as well. We don't talk about CSI that much, but from what I glean from interviews, its doing very well due to the popularity of CSI. I've heard Dan Connors casually mention "The Simpsons" in at least two interviews as examples for episodic gaming, and though I wouldn't expect it to happen, I'm willing to bet that Telltale would be happy to have that license.
And Kevin Bruner, CTO of Telltale offers this statement that kind of tells you that they plan on doing a lot more milking in the future:
The fact that they basically will be milking licenses for money does not preclude the possibility that Telltale actually will do a good job. They had zero experience with Bone or CSI, and turned out good products. Dave Grossman, the putative guy in charge of Sam and Max at Telltale, had nothing to do with Sam and Max (he left Lucasarts after DOTT) until he arrived at Telltale. So I'll still say Buffy is Buffy.
But I'm now going wayy off-topic. And I don't know what I'm saying anymore. I'll just PM you the quotes.
I dont see that people having problems with an episodic game is the same as people having a problem with a paradigm shift to episodic gaming. Thats not what paradigm means. My point was to try and illustrate how a paradigm shift is a positive thing in this instance.
More info here (Wikipedia)
I dont see why a few people whinging about the content of the game is the same as people saying they hate the game and want their money back. I know a couple of people didnt like it but there isnt anything everyone likes.
You seem to have a serious problem with people in anyway challenging what you say about things. I think other people have noticed this before and I fully expected this response from you. I only post things on here because I really enjoyed the original sam and max game and I thought that the way an interesting community built up around the release of the new one was great.
I notice you havent picked up on what I said about constructive criticism. Please dont send me anymore PM's like that... Chill out... :cool:
I'm not sure if that raises the difficulty of the puzzle. That's just stacking puzzles, of equal difficulty, on top of each other. It's also assuming that the player is certain that using the tear gas will work on Peppers, or that the cupboard contains the cheese. Unless you mean something more clever than just an onion from the store and a key on the desk, then I don't see how this would raise difficulty rather than just annoy people. Just finding stuff isn't clever, and doesn't make you think.
Agreed about that one, it was too easy. I did like how they introduced the antenna of the TV before, though. Hadn't even noticed it until that Waking-Up-Sam sequence. Making the antenna look less like the coat hanger, and introducing that helmet-like object earlier on in the game, would help in that one. Especially because it's near the end.
Here's an article published today (at least I think it was today) by Mygamer.com, that includes an interview with Telltale designers Dave Grossman and Brendan Ferguson on their thoughts on the state of adventure games:
Days of High Adventure: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Adventure Game