Dear Telltales in regard to King's Quest
Dear Telltales,
I am excited for the upcoming King's Quest game you are making. You have done a wonderful job with Back to the Future, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, and with Tales of Monkey Island. I have been most impressed so far. However, I only hope that I am just as impressed with King's Quest. I have on request. Please DON'T make the new King's Quest game like KQ7. I beg you not to make it overly silly (somewhat silly, like the previous six is great, though), or like a bad Saturday morning cartoon. And if you put Rosella in it, have her be a strong female lead, and not a little brat like in 7. I hope that this new KQ game you are all working on will be just as good as four through six, or at least as good as one through three. I would mention for you not to make it like MOE, or 8 as it's also known, but I don't have any fear that you guys will go that route. Therefore, I'm begging you not to make it like 7. I hope to see a great KQ game, similar to what we got in tone in the original 1 through 6. Thanks for all the good work you do, and I hope you take this letter into consideration.
I am excited for the upcoming King's Quest game you are making. You have done a wonderful job with Back to the Future, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, and with Tales of Monkey Island. I have been most impressed so far. However, I only hope that I am just as impressed with King's Quest. I have on request. Please DON'T make the new King's Quest game like KQ7. I beg you not to make it overly silly (somewhat silly, like the previous six is great, though), or like a bad Saturday morning cartoon. And if you put Rosella in it, have her be a strong female lead, and not a little brat like in 7. I hope that this new KQ game you are all working on will be just as good as four through six, or at least as good as one through three. I would mention for you not to make it like MOE, or 8 as it's also known, but I don't have any fear that you guys will go that route. Therefore, I'm begging you not to make it like 7. I hope to see a great KQ game, similar to what we got in tone in the original 1 through 6. Thanks for all the good work you do, and I hope you take this letter into consideration.
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Hey now! I loved Back to the Future. I thought it was an incredible gaming experience. I loved the story-line and enjoyed the gameplay. But, back to King's Quest.
I love the old Sierra adventure games, but those "eat the pie and you're fucked" moments probably wouldn't sit well with a modern audience. I'm definitely not saying Telltale should tone the game down to the point it's impossible to fail, but going in the opposite direction and copying the old games' difficulty as closely as possible wouldn't be much better.
RAnthony, you took the words out of my mouth. I couldn't stand how in the old King's Quest games you could forget something or misuse something and then be screwed much later on. That really did suck. Those moments should be left out. I do, like you, think they should keep death in it, though.
I don't see why it's a "strange" opinion just because it's different to yours. I absolutely loved BTTF. It's the only Telltale game I've played all the way through (I briefly played the first episode of Tales of MI, Sam & Max Save the World, and Strong Bad, but none of them hooked me like BTTF did).
I agree with some of the other posters here -- deaths in KQ are funny and great. Unwinnable scenarios always sucked. I would definitely go with the KQ7 approach: no unwinnable scenarios, and death always unwinds you to the point just before you screwed up (so you can try things without having to remember to save every four seconds). The Adventure Gamers interview suggests that that is what Telltale are planning:
King's Quest 7 was awful! Especially compared to the previous games such as 4 through 6. The Back to the Future game at least had a wonderful story-line and characters I could care about. And personally, as someone who love puzzles, I thought Back to the Future had great puzzles. They were logical and creative.
Bt
I thought BTTF's puzzles were boring, often disconnected with the larger themes and progression of the story, and worst of all they were way too simplistic, as the gameworlds were small with limited interactivity. Having already played five Telltale game series, I didn't find the BTTF puzzles creative in any way.
I did not think KQ7 was awful, it at least had large gameworlds you had to explore and think about before solving. I agree, though, that it was nowhere near as enjoyable for me as the first six KQ games.
This really gets at my apprehension about Telltale making a KQ game, the focus on "correcting" what they see as frustrations rather than on capturing the unique KQ gameplay experience for those who truly enjoyed it. Frustration all too often? If KQ had so much frustration how the hell did it find development funding for seven sequels? Obviously, some gamers were loving the series as it was, and TTG would do well to note that dumbed-down casual games can also alienate players. I'm not hopeful on that score, though, since they have clearly alienated some of the original TTG fanbase and have never acknowledged it or reached out to those fans in any way. I find it odd that a company that holds itself up as fan-oriented would be so cavalier about letting these bridges burn.
I personally think that the large gameworlds don't amount to squat if they are modeled after a Saturday morning cartoon for little girls. Maybe I should start a separate topic for the BTTF game.