Game too easy/ short/ lacks puzzles Thread

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  • edited January 2011
    markeres wrote: »
    Again, I have to bring up this article, because it explains why Telltale has made the choices they've made, and addresses almost all of your complaints.

    In short, Telltale makes adventure games for mothers-in-law, not adventure games for adventure gamers. If you can accept that fact, you can enjoy their games on that level. If you can't... well, you can't.

    So let me get this right. Monkey Island, the Sam and Max games, the CSI games, and even Texas Hold em were made for mothers-in-law's and not adventure gamers, lol. Sorry but I dont buy that for a second and if Telltale has decided recently that the mother-in-law market is the one that they are going to cater too now....well that is a good thing to know cause I now know that BTTF was my last purchase. Thanks for the heads up. That really puts everything in a whole new perspective and I have better things to do then give my time and money to a company catering to mother-in-laws. Later Telltale!
  • edited January 2011
    doggans wrote: »

    I said I MAY not be one, merely because I don't know what your standards of being "hardcore" are. I grew up on adventure games, I play adventure games more than any other genre of game, but I haven't played every adventure game ever made.

    When someone states "I may not be a hardcore adventure gamer, but......" the proper way to read that sentence is that your stating your not a hardcore adventure gamer. Not sure where you were taught English but I cant be held accountable for the mistakes you make with the English language. All I have to go off of is what you write. I am not a psychic and dont read minds.
    I admire your openness to civil discourse. :)

    Sorry, just call em like I see em. You post basically called out my post when in fact everything you said had really nothing to do with what I said. Again I just call em like I see em.
  • edited January 2011
    So let me get this right. Monkey Island, the Sam and Max games, the CSI games, and even Texas Hold em were made for mothers-in-law's and not adventure gamers, lol. Sorry but I dont buy that for a second and if Telltale has decided recently that the mother-in-law market is the one that they are going to cater too now....well that is a good thing to know cause I now know that BTTF was my last purchase. Thanks for the heads up. That really puts everything in a whole new perspective and I have better things to do then give my time and money to a company catering to mother-in-laws. Later Telltale!

    I don't know a mother-in-law that would be interested in a BTTF game anyway. Or in Sam & Max. "Hey mom, want to play a game about a psychotic rabbit and a dog detective?"
  • edited January 2011
    You post basically called out my post when in fact everything you said had really nothing to do with what I said.

    Your original post said:
    First of all most hardcore adventure gamers are not saying "Well the first episode was easy, but all in all it was a nice experience". Not even close. I know I didn't say anything close to that.

    You make a blanket statement about what adventure gamers are saying, and all you use to back it up is what YOU are saying. So I rebutted it with what *I*, a fellow adventure gamer, was saying. It has just as much merit as your post.
  • edited January 2011
    doggans wrote: »
    Your original post said:


    You make a blanket statement about what adventure gamers are saying, and all you use to back it up is what YOU are saying. So I rebutted it with what *I*, a fellow adventure gamer, was saying. It has just as much merit as your post.

    When you pick and choose what to quote from someone's post you run the risk of taking it completely out of context which you have so clearly done in this case. I stated

    "First of all most hardcore adventure gamers are not saying "Well the first episode was easy, but all in all it was a nice experience". Not even close. I know I didn't say anything close to that. Most of the posts I have seen from adventure gamers goes more like this "This games was WAY WAY WAY too easy and ultimately it ruined the first episode. Extremely disappointing".

    You see I follow up that "blanket" statement with the explanation that "most of the posts I have seen aren't saying any such thing". If I had said that by itself then you would be correct but it wasn't by itself. I further explained exactly what I was talking about and I was referring to the majority of posts on this website by hardcore adventure games. Completely different than what your trying to suggest I was saying.

    You rebutted it with a post that had absolutely nothing to do with my post. Again a complete waste of time. Nothing you say at this point is gong to change that.
  • edited January 2011
    You see I follow up that "blanket" statement with the explanation that "most of the posts I have seen aren't saying any such thing".

    Saying "most of the posts" are saying something without pointing to specific examples IS a blanket statement.
    I further explained exactly what I was talking about and I was referring to the majority of posts on this website by hardcore adventure games.

    Again, using vague, unverifiable terms. I haven't been counting meticulously, but I say I've seen at least as many positive posts on this site from self-proclaimed adventure gamers as negative. You say the opposite. Unless we count everybody's posts, it's hard to say who's right.
    You rebutted it with a post that had absolutely nothing to do with my post.

    I've explained why I don't think that's true, and I still don't think that my attempt to offer a differing viewpoint was "a waste of time", as you so politely put it.

    However, at this point, I'm pretty sure any further discussion from me on this subject WOULD be a waste of my time.
  • edited January 2011
    doggans wrote: »
    Saying "most of the posts" are saying something without pointing to specific examples IS a blanket statement.

    Oh so now your changing your tune and claiming you were referring to "most of the posts" and not the "most hardcore adventure gamers" that you quoted in your last post. how convenient. I could care less if you think its a blanket statement. Its a 100% correct statement, blanket or no blanket, lol.
    Again, using vague, unverifiable terms. I haven't been counting meticulously, but I say I've seen at least as many positive posts on this site from self-proclaimed adventure gamers as negative. You say the opposite. Unless we count everybody's posts, it's hard to say who's right.

    Nothing I have said has been vague. If your having trouble comprehending my posts then that is certainly no fault of mine. They are perfectly clear in regards to what they are saying. Most of the posts from hardcore adventure gamers have not been the "we really enjoyed it" type of posts. If you disagree then you obviously haven't read the forum or you have a bad memory.
    I've explained why I don't think that's true, and I still don't think that my attempt to offer a differing viewpoint was "a waste of time", as you so politely put it.

    And I have explained that your opinion is inconsequential to what I was talking about as I wasn't talking about people like yourself. If you are now considering yourself a hardcore adventure gamer than you shouldn't have stated that you weren't one to begin with. Either way, as I already stated, I cant be held responsible for your mistakes in regards to writing your posts. Not sure how many more ways I can say this.
    However, at this point, I'm pretty sure any further discussion from me on this subject WOULD be a waste of my time.

    Its been a waste of time from the initial post.
  • edited January 2011
    redfish wrote: »
    I don't know a mother-in-law that would be interested in a BTTF game anyway. Or in Sam & Max. "Hey mom, want to play a game about a psychotic rabbit and a dog detective?"

    I misunderstood this post initially. Yes I agree 100%. Sam & Max is not your typical mother-in-law fare. Same for Monkey Island and same for the rest of their library.
  • edited January 2011
    I misunderstood this post initially. Yes I agree 100%. Sam & Max is not your typical mother-in-law fare. Same for Monkey Island and same for the rest of their library.
    I think you're thinking too literally on the "mother-in-law" part. The point is, Telltale now seems to be making games for people on a "typical mother-in-law's" level of gaming, but who might be interested in the properties. So, a game for people who like "Sam and Max", but might not play video/adventure games all that much (though, to me, it seems like those two demographics would have a pretty big overlap). Or, more relevant to this case, "Back to the Future" fans who hardly ever, if at all, play video/adventure games. ToMI obviously is a game made for adventure gamers, as the Monkey Island series has only ever existed as adventure games.

    If you're trying to make a game with the intention of appealing to absolutely everybody, including people who never play video games, inevitably the gameplay will be watered down.
  • edited January 2011
    markeres wrote: »
    I think you're thinking too literally on the "mother-in-law" part. The point is, Telltale now seems to be making games for people on a "typical mother-in-law's" level of gaming, but who might be interested in the properties. So, a game for people who like "Sam and Max", but might not play video/adventure games all that much (though, to me, it seems like those two demographics would have a pretty big overlap). Or, more relevant to this case, "Back to the Future" fans who hardly ever, if at all, play video/adventure games. ToMI obviously is a game made for adventure gamers, as the Monkey Island series has only ever existed as adventure games.

    If you're trying to make a game with the intention of appealing to absolutely everybody, including people who never play video games, inevitably the gameplay will be watered down.

    Yea but I think the people who would be interested in playing the games would also be interested in all the work done in figuring them out. People interested in sci-fi or pirates tend to be nerdier and like puzzles.

    Its like how Firaxis thinks they have to market Civilization to people who aren't interested in history or strategy.

    One of the flaws of that mother-in-law experiment I think was assuming the mother-in-law cared enough about the game to devote her interest to it.

    I think games are better when you market them towards the audience that likes them. Of course you can always think about how to make a game with a broader audience, but thats a different issue.
  • edited January 2011
    redfish wrote: »
    One of the best adventure games is Loom, which is really pretty easy, but its nicely done.

    Worth noting that Loom too had a level of difficulty selection option for the user. If I remember right, there were two (or three?) levels, the first one showing the notes and the hard one having you play by ear, forcing you to figure out the notes being played on your own (for an extra animation that was showing in the end, IIRC).
  • edited January 2011
    Well agree to disagree in regards to Bioware but the fact that you feel this way and are not at all happy about it just backs up what I am saying. Its simply not a good idea.
    But their sales went to the roof catering to numb-with FPS fans who dislike RPG's.
    So much they now actively seem to murder their RPG game (Dragon Age) to please them :(.

    So; sad me, happy them. It might be the same here, who knows.
  • edited January 2011
    JPhilipp wrote: »
    Worth noting that Loom too had a level of difficulty selection option for the user. If I remember right, there were two (or three?) levels, the first one showing the notes and the hard one having you play by ear, forcing you to figure out the notes being played on your own (for an extra animation that was showing in the end, IIRC).

    Yeah, but that was more to accommodate people's different musical skill levels. It didn't affect the difficulty of the actual puzzle solutions.
  • edited January 2011
    Many new customers thought BttF game would be like GTA. Thing is, gaming is like buying a PC, or getting the best ISP, etc, you do your research into the company first to see their history.
    But, I agree, previous BttF games have been (crap) action based, so this is why Ep1 is pig easy (IMO), to cater for these people.
    However, when we recommend new people play other TT games, most are harder than this Ep1, so that could've confused them even more.
  • edited January 2011
    markeres wrote: »
    I think you're thinking too literally on the "mother-in-law" part. The point is, Telltale now seems to be making games for people on a "typical mother-in-law's" level of gaming, but who might be interested in the properties. So, a game for people who like "Sam and Max", but might not play video/adventure games all that much (though, to me, it seems like those two demographics would have a pretty big overlap). Or, more relevant to this case, "Back to the Future" fans who hardly ever, if at all, play video/adventure games. ToMI obviously is a game made for adventure gamers, as the Monkey Island series has only ever existed as adventure games.

    If you're trying to make a game with the intention of appealing to absolutely everybody, including people who never play video games, inevitably the gameplay will be watered down.

    I am well aware of what they have attempted to do here. Its about as obvious as it can get. They attempted to make a game that appealed to more people instead of making the best game possible, one aimed at adventure gamers. As I have stated previously its a problem we are seeing all around the industry but one I didn't think we would see from a studio like Telltale as adventure games cater to a very specific kind of gamer and there isn't a lot of room for leeway in regards to what you can do to an adventure game to make it more appealing to more people. I was obviously wrong as Telltale has done just that and the results are extremely disappointing.

    What Telltale has basically done is practically take this game right out of the adventure game genre as all of the things that make a great adventure game are really missing from this game. Regardless of how you want to word it, catering to mother-in-laws, catering to newbies, catering to non-gamers, the end result is the same. A game that is vastly weaker than it should have been.

    The only power consumers really have is the choices we make in regards to where we spend our money. If this is the route that Telltale games is now going to take with their games, catering to newbies or mother-in-laws or non-gamers, then I can guarantee you BTTF was my last purchase from this company regardless of what IP's they get in the future. If Telltale goes back to making adventure games for people that love adventure games, I will be the first one to open my wallet back up and support such endeavors. Until then my wallet stays closed as I refuse to put my support behind this kind of decision making. They know who their key audience is and they know what that audience wants. I can only hope that more and more adventure gamers decide to do the same thing as maybe then we will get exactly what we want and again that is adventure games made for people that love adventure games, not adventure games made for people that have almost no interest or history with the genre. We really are better off just letting the genre die if these are the kinds of games we can be expecting from here on out. Basically this was just one monster step backwards in regards to Telltale and their ability to make great adventure games.
  • edited January 2011
    Seeing as they were lampshading this well back in Sam & Max 106 (Max parrots the whole convo after playing the C.O.P.S. arcade game), I'm certain they're very much aware of the difficulty concerns.
  • edited January 2011
    I too was a little concerned about that mother-in-law article. I mean, it's all well and good as an experiment to see how a non-gamer gets on with a particular game; but really, some people just don't get games and no amount of dumbing down will help them. If the results of that experiment were taken literally and Telltale really are trying to make a game that anyone's mother-in-law, aunt or grandma could play ... then firstly, they're failing, because the controls are just too difficult for anyone who isn't already an FPS player; and secondly, they are attempting to achieve something that's totally pointless and probably impossible - getting non-gamers to play games!
  • edited January 2011
    If this is the route that Telltale games is now going to take with their games, catering to newbies or mother-in-laws or non-gamers, then I can guarantee you BTTF was my last purchase from this company regardless of what IP's they get in the future. If Telltale goes back to making adventure games for people that love adventure games, I will be the first one to open my wallet back up and support such endeavors. Until then my wallet stays closed as I refuse to put my support behind this kind of decision making.

    +1! Excellent points. This isn't the kind of adventure game I want to support.
  • edited January 2011
    serializer wrote: »
    I too was a little concerned about that mother-in-law article. I mean, it's all well and good as an experiment to see how a non-gamer gets on with a particular game; but really, some people just don't get games and no amount of dumbing down will help them. If the results of that experiment were taken literally and Telltale really are trying to make a game that anyone's mother-in-law, aunt or grandma could play ... then firstly, they're failing, because the controls are just too difficult for anyone who isn't already an FPS player; and secondly, they are attempting to achieve something that's totally pointless and probably impossible - getting non-gamers to play games!

    Everybody starts somewhere, I didn't get born with 20 years of adventure game experience and 5+ seasons worth of knowing Telltale. But of course you're either going to make it very easy for me, or very hard for someone just starting out. When ever I've gotten stuck it's been some sort of oversight issue like having missed an item not the logic puzzles. For the most part though they've managed to keep me distracted from the fact that I wasn't really being challenged because I was chuckling too much from the crazy antics and zany comments of Sam & Max, ToMI and so on.

    BttF doesn't really have much of that though and when the game is ridiculously easy on top... yeah, for the first time I wish there was a "Normal/Hard" setting. Something that would have given you an "open" midgame at least, you were guided down a very narrow corridor and everything appeared in a just-in-time fashion.
  • edited January 2011
    Kjella wrote: »
    Everybody starts somewhere, I didn't get born with 20 years of adventure game experience and 5+ seasons worth of knowing Telltale.

    Totally - but in general people are only "beginners" for as long as it takes to play their first game. Most people will play through their first game with help from a friend if they can't work it out themselves. There's no need to actually target games at the total beginner, I'm sure anyone can see that would result in an entire games industry built out of games nobody wants to play. In the "mother-in-law" example, he was discovering that a total beginner with no help whatsoever will have basically no idea what's going on. Wow, news flash. But games used to come with these things called "instruction manuals" that were designed for just these kinds of people, since any experienced gamer will rarely have to read the manual.

    I think in conclusion, I just don't know what he was trying to prove with the mother-in-law experiment; the result seemed all too obvious to me.
  • edited January 2011
    The only power consumers really have is the choices we make in regards to where we spend our money. If this is the route that Telltale games is now going to take with their games, catering to newbies or mother-in-laws or non-gamers, then I can guarantee you BTTF was my last purchase from this company regardless of what IP's they get in the future. If Telltale goes back to making adventure games for people that love adventure games, I will be the first one to open my wallet back up and support such endeavors. Until then my wallet stays closed as I refuse to put my support behind this kind of decision making.

    This about sums it up.
    I am holding my judgment till i played the other episodes though.
  • edited February 2011
    How many people thought this was too easy? i mean all the sam and max games and especially TOMI is much harder than this. on a completely different level. Probably for people unfamiliar with point and click but still i hope the second episode will be a little more challenging
    Good game though. Well ploted out i really liked it
  • VainamoinenVainamoinen Moderator
    edited February 2011
    How many people thought this was too easy? i mean all the sam and max games and especially TOMI is much harder than this. on a completely different level. Probably for people unfamiliar with point and click but still i hope the second episode will be a little more challenging
    Good game though. Well ploted out i really liked it

    Finding like-minded people WITHOUT actually using the search engine in a forum AND posting the same thread twice: This is not exactly geared towards success. ;)
  • edited February 2011
    I guess this could apply to other Telltale games, and I know it's been touched on already in some other threads... but BttF is the first Telltale game I've played that really really made me wish that there was a higher difficulty. Mostly because I really wanted to replay it again right after I finished it. I played it again anyway, but still...

    Mega-Monkey mode on the old Monkey Island games made the game a lot harder, even if you had previously beaten it on the easier setting. The puzzles got a lot more complex and some of the "action sequences" were also more challenging.

    What do you guys think? I know that the BttF series will probably be pretty easy all the way through, and I honestly don't mind that much. I can understand that they are trying to make this game more approachable to adventure noobs, and whatnot. As a veteran gamer though, I would love to see some more advanced features like this for BttF and other Telltale games so that I can have an excuse to replay them.
  • edited February 2011
    I'm sure such a feature would make many members on these forums very happy, provided the harder difficulty setting was genuinely hard like the games of old, but it's a lot of extra work. We won't see it in BttF because the season has already begun but it's food for thought on future Telltale projects.

    Edit: I started typing my reply in one thread and ended up posting in another: neat!
  • edited February 2011
    Finding like-minded people WITHOUT actually using the search engine in a forum AND posting the same thread twice: This is not exactly geared towards success. ;)

    sorry man jut didnt even look for the thread i guess i just went ahead and posted. t wont happen again honest:rolleyes:
  • edited February 2011
    jaden551 wrote: »
    This is MUCH easier than 303.

    I haven't played BTTF yet, but I'm slightly puzzled (no pun intended) at the complaints about difficulty level on Devil's Playhouse. I beat the first 4 with hints completely off (haven't played 5 yet), but was still "stuck" a few times, and I found the puzzles to be pretty logical and just tough enough to be fun. What Telltale games do you guys consider hard? I also beat 201 and 202 in the last few days; with 202 I needed a hint for the very last puzzle. I would consider the puzzles in S3 to be slightly more difficult and enjoyable than what I've seen from S2.

    I beat Monkey Island 2 on the old hard mode without help (again except for the final puzzle), and I've finished over 100 adventure games, so I'm no noob.
  • edited February 2011
    Alright so I just bought this game, turned the hints off, pop up text, everything. When I started a game I set goals to be off as well... and what do you know, the very first thing I see in game is a hint/goal telling me what to do. Wtf? I don't want ANY direction in this, seeing as it is terribly linear. Is there a way to get that stupid hint/goal box to gtf out?
  • edited February 2011
    It does that for like the first location or two. It''ll go away.
  • edited February 2011
    Overall episode 2 was better about annoying hint pop ups
  • edited February 2011
    Good to know. I kinda had high hopes for this game, but it looks like telltale didn't spend a lot of time making sure that it worked well. For example, after plugging in the guitar the "now select the amplifier to plug in the guitar" hint hasn't gone away. I'm sitting in the Delorean with a giant "now select the amplifier to plug in the guitar" in my face. Wow, you would think that a for a game based off a humongous movie franchise that it would at least be polished and work like it should. Way to go, telltale!
  • Sinaz20Sinaz20 Telltale Alumni
    edited February 2011
    Alright so I just bought this game, turned the hints off, pop up text, everything. When I started a game I set goals to be off as well... and what do you know, the very first thing I see in game is a hint/goal telling me what to do. Wtf? I don't want ANY direction in this, seeing as it is terribly linear. Is there a way to get that stupid hint/goal box to gtf out?

    In episode 1, the first couple scenes have what we considered "tutorial" hints to get non-adventure gamers into the right mindset. We didn't quite account for people not registering that these tutorial hints are a separate mechanic than the hint system.

    It looks like something we'll have to put brainspace towards in our next seasonal project.
  • edited February 2011
    Sinaz20 wrote: »
    In episode 1, the first couple scenes have what we considered "tutorial" hints to get non-adventure gamers into the right mindset. We didn't quite account for people not registering that these tutorial hints are a separate mechanic than the hint system.

    It looks like something we'll have to put brainspace towards in our next seasonal project.
    Seems like it'd be pretty easy to mark something as "TUTORIAL" material in the UI, wouldn't it? Or, in the dialog box asking if you don't want hints, a simple note that general instructional boxes will pop up during the tutorial.
  • edited February 2011
    who else thought so?
    Still way too easy. as easy as the first one
  • edited February 2011
    The ending was fairly predictable, but I did enjoy the use of montage. Effective builder of tension, even if it was a departure from the usual BTTF style of editing.
  • edited February 2011
    I loved it! I didn't think it was too easy, I had to use hints a few times.
  • edited February 2011
    I thought the ending was awesome. I liked how it was obvious right away that things were NOT back to normal, rather than Marty not noticing the changes until later.

    PS you should specify which episode ending you're referring to in the thread title, to avoid confusion.
  • edited February 2011
    I disliked it. The puzzle was easy, and the cinematic aspect of it existed only to re-establish things that were inexplicably unestablished between Episodes 1 and 2. Emmett becoming disheartened about science after being betrayed by Marty, Emmett dealing with Marty's betrayal emotionally, Emmett and Edna being together, that sort of thing. It was undone so that we didn't have to deal with the immediate consequences of those, because we only care about how it affects things 50 years in the future, I guess. And the way it was re-done was extremely sloppy. I would have believed Emmett would be completely crushed if his first real scientific project had been the result of a person raising and dashing his hopes, but now he's doing it because Edna's hot. The whole execution, story-wise, felt extremely weak and lacking in any weight or reality. The base idea is really good, but I found the execution to be really shallow.
  • edited February 2011
    I found it less that it was Edna being attractive that led Emmett astray, but more of the fact that she came around to his inventiveness and was actually willing to offer suggestions. Something Emmett hadn't had experience with.
  • JenniferJennifer Moderator
    edited February 2011
    I found it less that it was Edna being attractive that led Emmett astray, but more of the fact that she came around to his inventiveness and was actually willing to offer suggestions. Something Emmett hadn't had experience with.
    Yeah, I agree with this. Emmett's quick bond with Marty when he showed interest in his science, despite the fact that he lied about being a patent officer, shows that he was looking for friends with similar interests. When Edna said she was wrong about his inventions and showed that she had an interest in them at the end of the game, he was delighted to have a friend to share his interests with.
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