Game too easy/ short/ lacks puzzles Thread
How did the first episode compare in terms of difficulty to Telltale's other games?
(More specifically, the last Sam & Max season)
(More specifically, the last Sam & Max season)
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You won't have to think a single time during the whole episode. And actually, all the "puzzles" (we can't even call them "puzzles") can be solved within the same time they're introduced, and in the same area too.
Actually, it's slightly harder than 303. Which is still very easy.
I know Telltale is reaching for "wider audience" here, and everything more complicated than a toaster has to be taken out of the game.
But common, there was potential for some great puzzles here, something to take your time with.
Heres a great idea, how about you could see every newspaper clipping, something like the Libary in Monkey Island II. And then using all the clues you find the right article, and you have to enter the numbers in the dolorean yourself. Instead of mindless clicking.
I hope this is not the direction taken with all games. That's what hints are for. Hell there was even a hint button next to the inventory, so why is it so easy?
So what says you, kind people?
It's way too easy and short. But it's also most likely it's just the introduction. And remember that the first episode is meant to be free, and the whole price of the game is counting that (25 dollars instead of 35).
It's a good game though. The story is cool (not mind blowing, so far... I mean there's not a single "great" adventure game that doesn't have anything as good/better, but the best is coming, without a doubt !). The spirit from the movie is there, though some stuff are kinda far fetched.
You should buy it. There's enough details to prove that Telltale will do everything they can to make those 5 episodes a great game. Episode 1 is just the start
If you don't care about BTTF, you can probably skip it.
Animations and graphics are good, voicework is great, music is excellent, and the story works pretty well so far. I just wish they were rigged around something with even an ounce of substance.
I'd like to note that the $25 pricetag includes all 5 episodes. So if episode 1 takes 2-3 hours, multiply that by 5 to get a "gameplay time" that accurately reflects the dollar-per-hour measurement.
At this point? If you have concerns, I'd say to wait it out a bit. See what people think about other episodes and see if Telltale has a mid-season sale. You could also wait until February to grab a free copy of Episode 1, and judge for yourself.
Yeah, it's short (I finished it in a few hours while taking my time). But $25 for all 5 episodes, plus Puzzle Agent? Not a bad Christmas Eve present, and if you're a BTTF fan, don't waste your time waiting till February. I also got the free episode 1, and was annoyed...but it's worth buying now to put the impatience aside.
Yeah, it's also easy. There are a few interesting puzzles but none of them are too difficult to figure out. I think if you're new to adventure games, it'll be a decent set of challenges that will get you accustomed to what you're in store for. It's also got a somewhat unofficial hint system in that Marty tends to straight up ask advice through dialogue if he's stumped, or 'feels' he needs advice. So you have the official hint system, and this more unofficial one to assist to in a more natural manner.
The story fits in well with BTTF, even if a few bits seem overly cartoony. While there were some rather fantastical elements to the movies, it was all based on reality for the most part. That is the only gripe I have.
It would be nice if they eventually included the hoverboard and driving the Delorean, but I feel like it'd be tough given the movement system. It's a bit awkward, so adding in support for those two might be weird.
I'm frustrated that I'll have to wait till Feb to get the next bit of the story, but I believe they are definitely off to a great start.
Wrong.
I bought it tonight and still got Puzzle Agent for free. It's still being offered.
Looks like I got lucky then. I've enjoyed both games, so Merry Christmas to me! Woo!
Telltale doesn't have the time, nor the budget, to make a game with tens of thousand of jokes that will only be found if you spend 17 hours searching through a pile of newspapers covering 150 years, then cover a million years of history because you want to see what happens if you type in "12-24-0000" in the DeLorean.
My thoughts exactly.
This is telltales easiest game to date.
Telltale, please make the episodes harder, a good difficulty would be the tomb of sammunmak, oh and handle death that way too so we can create paradoxes as well.
This is MUCH easier than 303.
im just wondering because the IPAD/PS3 ver got delayed till early JAN 2011
:rolleyes: just wondering lool
k thanks ^-^
The first half of 303 was auto-play, and the second part had so few objects to interact... you know, even less than BttF ep. 1...
i will... but the feeling "play it, you have to know how the story ends!!!" just wasnt there...
(or was it 303? i think it was....)
i really had a hard time with this episode
Many people on these boards are complaining that episode one was too easy. While I don't necessarily agree with them right now, I could see it being a problem if the difficulty remains the same by episode three.
Non-episodic adventure games usually get increasingly more difficult as the game goes on so that the user has a chance to adjust to the controls and interface and ease into the game.
Is this usually the case with Telltale games as well?
Regardless of what happens, I'm sure this will inevitably go down as the best Back to the Future game to date (if not of all time), but it would be a shame if many people will always look back on it wondering "what if the game had been more difficult?"
However, the episode before the finale is almost always the hardest (and most enjoyable) The finales themselves are always complex... but not necessarily as hard
I hope that answers your question a little, cause every game season really is a mixed bag
Edit: The best way to see for yourself is to simply play another telltale game season :P
I disagree. I only found that to be the case with Monkey Island.
However, I have a feeling that things will be different this time.
Sam & Max and Tales of Monkey Island could afford to be a bit more difficult than Back to the Future, because the target audience for those games is mostly made up of adventure gamers who grew up on LucasArts and Sierra's point-and-click games.
However, with Back to the Future, Telltale has a chance to reach a much bigger audience, a lot of which probably never played a point-and-click adventure game before and the last thing they want to do is antagonize that audience by making a game that will not let them in.
Telltale's games have never been the most difficult, but if you search the Telltale forums, you will find out that even their easier games from other series provide some challenge to players who are new to the point-and-click adventure world.
I predict that the difficulty will increase gradually over the course of the season, possibly reaching a TOMI level (but probably - hopefully? - not a Sam & Max Hit the Road level) by the last episode.
I actually believe that the reason that Telltale is not going to make the free episode available before February is that they want the people who might decide to give up after one episode because it's too easy, to check out the forums (maybe to post negative comments about the lack of difficulty of the game
It's all speculation at this time, but that's what I'm really hoping for.
As for this:
you might want to try a free episode, say this one, which might give you a better idea of the usual difficulty of Telltale's games.
During the BTTF preorder specials, I ordered almost every game Telltale has for 80% off, so I'll definitely get around to their other games soon. I've played Sam & Max Hit the Road, so probably playing through a Telltale season of that would give me the best indication.
im still waiting for PS3 ver and i heard from alot of people its way to easy =P
From http://grumpygamer.com/2152210
The point is that I'm loving BTTFTG like a movie, but not as a game.
Edit: haha, just read to the end of this thread
First of all, I'm a long time adventure game player and finished many of the classic Lucasfilm games, and I am definitely appreciating how TellTale is making these games much more casual these days. I think that's great… I *want* to play through a game in just some days and I don't want it to be as incredibly hard as some of the very old adventure games were (like the ones before the original Monkey Island in the 1980s). I did enjoy the level of difficulty of Monkey Island tales 1. Ideally, you get stuck a couple of times, but you will then find a solution after a lot of thinking. TellTale gives some of the sweetest products to gamers these days -- fresh adventures!
[Spoilers ahead!]
However, with Back to the Future 1, I found it was often just a matter of using whatever you just acquired with whatever new object or person was already around. For instance, if you find a rocket, then the bike is already standing there. The inventory is very limited, there's little to no red herrings, inventory items cannot be combined. Even if you're completely lost it usually is just a matter of clicking through the three combinations or so which you end up having. Limited maps -- for instance, just being able to crawl on a driving car -- create even less room for creative puzzle solving. I do enjoy easier parts and limited maps in such a game, by the way, it can be a great relief to have a little bit of an easier part to deal with. But if it's all too easy, then it feels more like you're just watching a movie, required to click here and there, without much "heureka, that's what I should try!" moments.
Often, the most straightforward click was already good enough for the game to progress (sometimes, to the point of feeling like a bug: for instance, I couldn't even use the tape recorder with the metal pipe in the soup room to create the clanking sound, yet when I then clicked the pipe directly, Marty took out that same tape recorder, at least I think it was that, and clanked on the pipe!). Some theoretically cool puzzles, e.g. make the dog find someone by giving them a shoe, were almost ruined because *the shoe was that very single item you just picked up anyway and the dog was already standing there*. You almost automatically use the two together without as much as 5 seconds of thinking. Thus this theoretically good puzzle was almost "thrown away" by the game. (And the dog puzzle was then repeated with other objects, getting even less challenging.) Giving the shoe to the dog should be at the end of a thought process done by the player -- "OK, I have rooms X and Y and Z and items 1 and 2 and 3 and characters A, B and C, what makes sense to do now? think, think, think!" -- but not delivered to you on a silver plate.
As it is, it was all over too quickly and didn't have enough depth. I didn't really get stuck once. I didn't really feel like I had to really "get to know" a certain environment, room, set of tools, or character, to be able to solve a puzzle; I didn't have to prove myself worthy to be able to win. Things where I did make a mental note later weren't needed after all (e.g. the number of times to hit on the pipe, not to say that this would have made a well puzzle in anyway -- just as a minor example). I didn't feel like I did anything truly superbly creative, and often that was because whatever I did was pretty much the only choice in that situation anyway given so few items and characters, so even if it was smart it was more a smart plot in the game (e.g. record the voice to get grandpa to come downstairs), but not smart puzzle solving.
What to do to create a great level of difficulty? I suppose that's the toughest question to answer, as both making it too easy or making it too hard might put off players on either end. Perhaps there's still room for a great invention here, an approach that scales with the player by dynamically adjusting puzzles based on how many minutes players play without achieving "solved something" points. Lacking this, I guess a good hint system as well as an option to play through an easier version of the game, could allow for making the game a bit easier for those who want it yet allow for other gamers to play a more satisfyingly challenging adventure. Perhaps then the higher-difficulty players could have more items to play around with, longer solution combo requirements, more open maps, a way to combine items, and generally less thinking "done for them" (the puzzles should still make sense, of course, and not just be plain confusing and odd to be tough; the game should be *smarter* when playing it at high difficulty). I wish TellTale good luck in figuring this out for future games and hope they're listening to feedback.
Just to add, I still enjoyed the game, and think TellTale is doing very good jobs here with their work, and I will buy the next episode. It was still a fun game.