Improvement's listing
Aloha guys !
Seeing many topics talking about "what's wrong, what I want, what could it be great", I think it's gonna be difficult for the TellTale Games team to catch every point. So I decided to make this post to list improvements where majority agree, all listed here, in this first post (I'll edit it of course). If you disagree with some points or want to add more, just tell me in this topic, and I'll edit too (if it's clever, of course).
Here we go !
List of improvements - Sam&Max Episode 1 : Culture Shock
If you folks have anything else, post a reply
Seeing many topics talking about "what's wrong, what I want, what could it be great", I think it's gonna be difficult for the TellTale Games team to catch every point. So I decided to make this post to list improvements where majority agree, all listed here, in this first post (I'll edit it of course). If you disagree with some points or want to add more, just tell me in this topic, and I'll edit too (if it's clever, of course).
Here we go !
List of improvements - Sam&Max Episode 1 : Culture Shock
- Better sound (voice with more bitrate for example)
- Verbs (or at least a two-click system, description and acting)
- More resolutions screen (it doesn't match with my ratio for example)
- Objects combination
- Mega Monkey-like mode (so much topics about harder puzzles)
- Keep object after "can't do" sentence
- Localization (BarfHappy has found a way to modify subtitles)
- Using max (:D)
- Give Yohmi English Lessons
- Solve Second Monitor issue
If you folks have anything else, post a reply
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Comments
There should also be more spots to go to.
It was a bit of a pity all of the action went down in 6 places.
I hope the next episode will have more places, so it takes more time to solve the game...
As to adding verbs, this is my corollary theory:
But yeah, I can see changing the cursor to Sam's hand and still not really changing too much of what I said.
72MB? Great. If it were over 100MB, I'd be a bit more hesitant to download it.
I"m also really puzzled by the number of people who think the game is too easy...not that it's hard, but I sure don't miss spending hours after logic failed me just trying random inventory items on every conceivable clickable object in the game until I found the right combination. That kind of "difficulty" is happily left by the wayside. At least by me.
Anyone else agree? I mean, every time someone mentions difficulty I shudder as I remember that "How to Get Ahead in Navigating" puzzle from Monkey Island.
That being said, I do wish combining items was allowed in Telltale games, and I agree that a few more verbs wouldn't hurt. "Smell", for instance, would be a good one. Or "taste" (Sam IS a dog, after all). I like a streamlined interface (good riddance to "use"), but only one click per items shrinks the replay value a bit. I recently played Monkey Island again and found stuff I never found before, just because I never looked at or tryed picking up things.
Oh, and there should be two available downloads: High and Low Quality. That way, the user could pick how much hard drive space they wanted to use up.
I think I'm done.
Again, i agree. As much as i love the old Hit the Road game, i found many of the puzzles to be waaay too abstract and illogical. I don't wanna end up looking for a walkthrough.
Culture Shock was, to mee, a teeny bit too easy at some points, but other puzzles were quite hard, so all in all i think it quite well balanced.
Yes, combining inventory items would add a lot to the gameplay, and that's pretty much all that's needed i think.
I disagree with you on this one. When clicking an object it should be obvious what you actually want to do with it. A door? You want to open it, A television? You want to turn it on and watch it, A piece of paper? You want to read it and so on and so forth. Also, if you want to use some machine, there should be a handle you could pull, and it would operate the machine, and if you just click the entire machine, he would describe it. I think it's very intuitive that way, and it takes away some of stupid frustration you get when not know whether to pull, push, open, close or step-on or sniff or lick or whatever.
I honestly can't see why people are complaining about the sound. I heard none of the whizzes and whatnot people are describing. So, i see no reason to change that.
There, now i am done too.
For the verbs, in fact, my point is to have a two-click system, with "look at" and "use", because it' useless to have a "take" third verb : if you can take it, you take, if you can't take it, you use. Newcomers could be disturbed with to much verbs, and it won't help to make the game more complete. If you add "talk to" verb, you'll experience most of the time "I don't talk to that", and if you want to use people, you'll experience the famous quote we all know.
I'll add "sam's hand cursor", but if it has to be done, I hope it will be a great image that won't pixellate in high resolutions. If it's ugly, as we are not in 1993 anymore, don't change anything, it's not annoying at all to have a "normal" cursor.
About puzzles, remember in old adventure games we got maybe five "big" puzzles at all. Here, we have just one... annoying ? Remember, there's 6 episodes ; and it costs less than before. About difficulty, I'm like many people, I'm bad at solving puzzles... but I love these interactive comics. In fact, I think this episode was maybe too easy, but don't make nonsense puzzles to improve that, or mathematical ones (escape frome monkey island was full of these crappy puzzles, with timing and notes to take - I HATE MONKEY KOMBAT !). Remember Day of the Tentacle, the chrono-jun was a very clever invention, but there wa maybe too much possibilities... there was too much for me. I love DotT, but I confess, I was stuck and I cheated.
[EDIT] Oh my god, I can't edit the first post anymore... I'm gonna check how to do that, sorry
1. I didn't mean for the added verbs to take away from the ease of use, but want them for entertainment value. I don't want "smell" to be involved in a puzzle, I just want it there (or something not quite so bizarre) so there's another opportunity for Sam and Max to be funny. You would still be able to complete the game without using other verbs, but should you so choose, they're there. Of course, this alone could up the development time by leaps and bounds, but I think giving us the option of seeing an object/person from a different perspective just adds to the overall experience, especially if you're planning on playing through it again.
2. You just proved my point. Since you didn't have a problem with the sound quality, a Low Quality download would be right up your alley.
3. I love you Telltale. Smooches.
With that in mind, here's my 2c (I've only responded to the ones I'm interested in).
I could easily live without this, although it was *slghtly* annoying with Peepers.
What's the point of this, exactly? It sounds like a stupid idea to me and a step backwards (see my note above).
Again, what's the point? It's counter-intuitive and often leads to pointless puzzles involving combining everything in your inventory. If the connection between two objects is obvious, then why shouldn't the game do it for us instead?
It seems, again, counter-intuitive to me, but it could lead to fun!
Sounds like it could be a good idea. (To TellTale: I think that people really love Sam & Max and want to spend more time with them! Which might not completely fit in your episodic model! :-/ ) I could certainly live with a harder "replay" option (more fun!), but I don't know if that would mean much longer time between episodes. Personally, I'm quite happy for S&M to remain joyous little monthly events, but I understand that people want to spend more time with them.
All technical issues should be fixed!
I'd also like to see RIGHT CLICK open your inventory. Not sure why they didn't do this, but it seems like it would be a good idea to me.
If none of the above were done, or if NO changes were made to the next episode, I'd still be VERY VERY VERY happy with Sam & Max!
Love the game though, I think I enjoyed Hit the Road better, but this is still good, and am excited about this potential series.
This is VERY true, and UTTERLY pointless! TellTale got it right with Sam & Max.
That said, I don't think it's particularly necessary either. It just wouldn't hurt to add it.
First of all, I hope you just noticed that I didn't listed all ideas you can find on the board, only important and most supported ones. In fact, I just want Sam&Max to be better and better, not for me because I just liked it well, but for potential customers. When I say "hey, there's a new game, I think you better give it a try" I must also tell that it's really easy, simple, with not much puzzles, not much challenge, click on every object and then you'll see you'll solve most of puzzles. So, "there is not any challenge ?" not at all, it's just an interactive 3D animated movie with good jokes. You know what ? people are not friendly with episodic games... as much to be not ready to pay for an interactive book.
About sound, It has already been discussed in other topics
Object combination, counter intuitive ? why ? you've got a glass pleinty of salted water, you've got a magnetized switch, you combine them and you've got a compass. Counter intuitive ? Adventure games are the only occasion to become a Mac Guyver... to lost that, it's just like the fashion of modern adventure games, without objects, without spirit, without insanity.
And to combine this with your comment about max, have you ever played Hit the Road ? Now there is a choice to make, make Sam&Max being a new kind of game, with all new bothering smoothness, or to keep in mind there's a legacy of rough humour and a culture of adventure games. But about max (and english lessons, even if I'd better take some), it's a joke, it was funny, that's all... I loved to use him to make a short-circuit on the tunnel o'love :P Relegate a small and insane white rabbit as an object is a part of Sam&Max humour... don't you think ?
And if you think the first two Broken sword are counter-intuitive, I don't know what to do then... Grim Fandango was counter-intuitive, Maniac Mansons are counter intuitive... two click system, it's just like every game today, from god games to fps... if I don't want to sitch down TV but just know strange facts about this TV (like how they tortured the man to whom they stole it), I can't. adventure games are about that, strange quotes that "rules" this world, bring this universe to live.
(I just want to add that I don't have anything gainst you, I just want to understand, if what I am doing is wrong etc.
The game was in fact to way easy...
Although I really enjoyed playing it, it didn't challenge me at all - I was a little bit disappointed when I finished the game.
I was walking straight trough the game. I only had to think at one or two situations - and even that took only 1-5min.
I understand, that Telltale didn't want to make it too hard for the newcomers - but come on!
It took me like 2-3h to finish the game - that's pretty short, even for an episode-game.
The puzzles were way to obvious.
I little bit more difficulty wouldn't hurt anyone...
And the sound was a little crappy - especially when you have good speakers...
My suggestion would be:
-A bit more tricked out puzzles
-Combining Items
-Add look verb on the right mouse button
-A high and a low sound-resolution-version (maybe combined with higher resolution graphics)
-Support for more screen resolutions (like native TFT resolutions and HD-resolution for big screens)
With that in mind, the new episode would be a blast
Do you still think it is too short when you look at the fact that there will be 6 episodes, between 2-4 hours each (click every dialog choice to lengthen game and add enjoyment
I personally think the length is perfect for the price, but your mileage may vary. I remember being disappointed in the last Monkey Island game for lasting somewhere around 14 hours (finished it in a day, at least, so maybe less) but that is because I paid around $50 for it (or whatever price it was right when it came out).
*Remove puzzles where there is only one way to interact with objects and enviroments, like Sams hypnosis-dreams
*Two click-systems
*More Riddle/hint-puzzles (like the insults in Monkey Island 1, the bone-song in Monkey Island 2, the latin-documents in Broken Sword, the clues in Bladerunner)
*Contraption-puzzles - (like the golf in Sam&Max: Hit The Road, the spitting, contest in Monkey Island 2, the alien machines in The Dig)
The psychoanalysiz-puzzle was very fun by the way. Good work there Telltale.
Interesting. Interesting.
I want more Songs, more Songs, more Songs !
I always remember to that great, legendary monkey island song. Well the soda-popper-song is a start. But its at the end... I would like songs combined in a puzzle.
I don´t need much more places.. but more interactivity in places. Even, if it´s senseless. Well.. if someone is confused by too much interactive objects, let them say something like: "This doesn´t make sense but its fun (or hurts) every time" or whatever, wich clears up, that it´s just for fun in there.
Also, I would like a "look"-function on the right mouse-button.
and a little bit more difficult puzzles.
Hmm... Interesting.
The more you speak, the more I'm convinced that you don't actually know what you want, and the same goes for other people who agree with you. If you want interesting, or more challenging puzzles, then that's fine. But don't think that by adding verbs you're going to get them. By adding the things you mention you're doing nothing more than creating more of a barrier between the player and their environment.
I guess I can relent on the object combination, except... No I can't. Look, there's no object combining in Grim Fandango or Full Throttle. Did that make them bad games? No! Would that have been better if they had it? No! In fact the vast majority of games where you can combine objects in your inventory (Monkey Island 1&2, Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max, Curse of Monkey Island), it only happens once, maybe twice in the entire game. It's used so infrequently that it's almost cheating to include a puzzle that uses the system.
Would any of these games be worse off without "object combining"? No! So why do you think that by adding it to Sam & Max it will make the game better?
Yes, most of the games you mention featured control systems that are counter-intuitive. (The games themselves were not... except maybe for that goat puzzle in Broken Sword 1
At the end of the day, you walk, look and interact. Later adventure games reduced their verb lists to these three things. But when you think about it, you're not going to want to talk with a piece of the floor, you're not going to want to examine it unless it's unique, so you can presume that the player wants to walk there.
I certainly don't think Sam & Max: Culture Shock suffered any from not allowing me to 'look' at a bowling ball, a boxing glove, a cupboard door, etc, etc., or indeed any of the characters. Anything that was interesting was automatically 'looked' at, and it worked fine.
I agree with the creator of Mario, Zelda and all round genius, Shigeru Miyamoto: "If it's boring, then the player shouldn't be doing it", and adding unnecessary verbs are NOT the answer to creating more challenging puzzles, or indeed, a "better" game.
Don't even compare Grim Fandango with other adventure games, Grim Fandango has a huge script, with stunning music, stunning actors, stunning architecture, huge puzzles, big ambiance, a new style has been created for this game, new style of music, new style of people, new style of gameplay etc. and it was very counter-intuitive, by the way. But as they did big puzzles, in a very big universe, you can't do that on episodic game. You can't really developpe psychology and love story in a 3 hours game.
Miyamoto has never done any adventure game. His point is about immediate fun with action. I love his way of think, but I'll never let him manage an adventure game, it's not how he think. Adventure Games are a mix of script, puzzles, and universe. They're just like books, but in a really more entertaining way. I think the ability to look at the world would make a better game, yes. You can disagree, you can think people are fustrated if they must use more than a finger, but I don't.
Combining objects is fun, it's not because some good games don't use that than this is a crappy feature. I never heard a such think...
So your point is : Combining objects is crap and two buttons are a barrier.
If someone think that, tell me, people I know (thos who likes and those who don't really care about adventure games) never told me that... I on this board, you're the only one who complains about that...
Combining objects add more possibilities of puzzles, a touch of brainstorm...
I don't want puzzles to be more difficult, I just want to have to spent more time in details, because all adventure games can be finished straight on, really quickly... if it's logical, clever, it's quick. And i prefere logical puzzle than complicated ones. So, how to make the game stronger ? My point is on making this universe more complete. But that's my view, and it has nothing to do in this thread.
I like to have funny and useless things on my pocket... I like to combine objects, I like McGuyver things, I like weird quotes and netherlands tatoos.
[I can't edit first post, apparently it's only while a short time, and now it's too late, i'm sorry]
As Johnny Walker pointed out, combining puzzles only happened one or two times in the entire game. I certainly remember the times when I was stuck in a game and I would spend a long time going through each item in my inventory and seeing if a combination worked.
But maybe since the episodic model is short, it's limited inventory makes such combinations a little more obvious--use battery with dead flashlight for example. But in such a case, wouldn't it make sense to make the combination when you pick up the second object? You've got a dead flashlight, once you pick up a battery, Sam knows to load it into his flashlight.
And such combinations have to be obvious, unlike the paper cup to golf ball retriever that I'm sure many people just stumbled to randomly. But once again, if it's so obvious (like your salt water and magnet example), it's not really going to add more time to the game, is it?
So I'm personally ambivalent to such a feature. If it will make other people have more fun, I'll say by all means, add it.
Having said that, I'm completely against having useless things in my pocket.
Me too. Damn this wallet with nothing but old till receipts and business cards of people I will never call stuffed into it. And a maxed-out VISA card
Useless things might still be fun if they'll prompt funny responses from characters.
Outside of America, both of those holidays mean squat. You'd be catering to only part of the audience if you did that. I guess there are some holidays which might be okay... Christmas for instance. (Apparently it's quite difficult to detect sarcasm on forums. I've decided that this would be the easiest way to make it obvious -->) <sarcasm> But then you might get some angry Jews picketing the TT offices. And maybe a few muslims. </sarcasm>
The ESC key brings the menu down, but I'd really like a way to hold the game still, in order to concentrate on some words I may not know (I'm not English, so I use the subtitles).
Just a thought.
Dear jp-30,
What's a till receipt?
Sincerely,
Ignorant American
good fitting gfx
funny
cool characters
great fitting music
good dialogues
very accessable
cons:
-sometimes annoying voices (Peepers comes to mind)
-some characters look very plain, while others look more detailed (Bosco didn't look very detailed, but Sybil looked better)
-even though they aimed at 2 hours game lenght I think it takes only about 40 minutes to finish the game if you know exactly what you're doing and many puzzles you could figure out after 5 minutes..
-even though I had a problem with a puzzle once (because of the language), the game was too easy. I mean the last dream sequence could have been made so much more difficult..
- I know not many locations are possible in such a short dev time, but I'd still like to see 1-2 more..
so improvements for me:
- raise difficulty.. not by making everything ridiculous and not logical at all, but by giving us combinations or some more objects to use.. Also I noticed that almost all puzzles could be solved in the same room. Make it so that you need something from 1 room to use it somewhere else..
- don't use the extremely high pitched voices as much anymore. My ears still hurt after I think about Peepers
- maybe 2 more locations.. or maybe some bigger ones..
- driving with keyboard..
-Higher difficulty in puzzles
-Longer game
-More environments (you see, when you have too little environments , the puzzles get easier, since it gets much more obvious where to use each item)
-Pointless bonus games (like the wack-a-mole and the battleship)
-Ability to combine items
-Ability to use Max
-Right mouse button opens up inventory (in the middle of the screen, not bottom)
-Max should be a little less whiny and more unpredictable
-Sam and Max would keep all items aquired in episode 1, except a good explanation for them not to is given (this will add a sense of continuity, and let more puzzle-solving possibilities)
You can pause the game by hitting alt button (or ctrl, I don't remember)
Hey, do not confuse this thread with "pro and cons" one ! here, we want to improve the gme by adding stuffs, it's not about complaining, or saying "I want it longer" everyone want a game to be longe,r but it's not a solution to make it longer, it's better to give examples
Static camera in small areas (Sam and Maxs office)
Large looking locations with big vistas