I mean, after Freelance Police was canceled (for all intents and purposes, a true classic-style adventure game), Telltale announced they were bringing it BACK!
Telltale pretty much did bring the Freelance Police idea back (if not that game's story, due to legal reasons). Freelance Police was to be very much like Telltale's Sam & Max seasons: six individual cases with an over-arching plot to connect them all (the Freelance Police team even pitched the idea to have additional episodic cases available through the Freelance Police menu).
All four released Sam & Max games have been great in my opinion. The episodic formula has really allowed Telltale to be creative with the story and puzzles (the finale of Reality 2.0 is a good example of this). Telltale's puzzles were never as difficult as most of LucasArts' games from the 90's, true. But they were creative (and in my opinion, that matters more. A difficult puzzle can be over-done. I'd take Reality 2.0's car color puzzle (which I personally did find challenging, and once I realized the solution, quite clever) any day over Grim Fandango's sign-post puzzle for example).
Even The Walking Dead had some creative puzzles. I liked the car battery puzzle in episode 4 for example (it did make me stop and think a bit, and the solution was clever and fit within the game's world [and I liked that it was a multi-part puzzle, since you had to talk to a character to get an object to use on an object to get an object]).
Yes. I mentioned that. My point was, it was to be a traditional adventure, not the toned down one that Telltale released. At least that was the impression many of us got.
Neither. I think you've made a good point back there.
I've absolutely no anger towards you, but I do have some anger towards the direction of this conversation.
As you yourself have said, Telltale should be open to criticism. But look at this thread and you see that people just lose themselves in defining the adventure genre instead of actually delivering valid personal criticism of the Walking Dead game. They're trying to define adventure game just to press their personal standards on their favorite video game company.
Some people in here are now in the process of defining "adventure", and I've read about 300 pages of those heated attempts in German forums already. Just wait until they recognize on page 217 that they'll have to define "puzzles" as well, that'll be the huge step forward!
I insist that this gets you nowhere, and this is the only frustration that I have here.
Those who didn't like TWD will have to think about WHY they did not. "It wasn't an adventure game" and "there weren't many puzzles" is not an answer to that question. I can just plead once more that such definitions do not help.
"I generally felt a loss of control/immersion/interactivity because the game mostly ran along at its own pace", THAT I considered one of many answers, one that could be elaborated on in quite some detail.
Yes, it is, absolutely. And there is integrity in that philosophy in TWD. Back to the Future, to me, felt like an adventure game that was cut every time it could have felt too problematic for the player. And you really, really saw those wounds. TWD was complete, a whole game, an executed concept from start to finish. So I can criticize the conscious design decisions.
I don't think they do. I really, really don't think they do. Sure it gets frustrating when the third major game in a row isn't something you can connect with. But that doesn't mean they never listen to their fans.
They would make awful games. You just KNOW I'm right. Firstly, when we get down to details, there's greatly differing opinions even among the "old school adventure society". That's why I am a bit afraid of adventure game kickstarters. Thousands of people who know nothing about game design start thinking that if only they put their thumb in the soup ("we're the publisher!"), all will be for the better, and the designers think that they might possibly "owe" it to that financially supportive community to listen to their "ideas".
You can never say until that perfection is reached, and chances are it's only a momentary perfection. The same can be said about "real goals". Whether they're good or bad to strive after can only be determined after reaching them. If the conversational system of TWD was complex enough to actually suggest real choices and influence over characters (and if the characters did not have the tendency to suddenly die, making all those previous conversations worthless), who knows what a satisfying experience that could be? As I said, the goal could be defined as "psychological puzzle".
Video games are art. OF COURSE you only ever chose a "direction" and hope for the best about where it leads. There is no other way. Good design choices are always only classified in retrospect.
That's the box you're thinking in. Strike "adventure" out of these sentences, and you might get some answers for yourself. Including the factual incorrectness of the second sentence.
Because you're thinking in a box. And I know for a fact you can abandon that.
My main point there was that there are so many different ways that every single thought regarding this can go that at the end of the day I can't settle on anything. I've probably changed my opinion or contradicted myself a million times in this thread alone trying to keep up with everyone else or trying not to be the bad guy. It's very easy for me to be the bad guy. I was expecting it continually, so that's why I threw up my brain all over as a response to your post.
But I think TWD is a great concept for a game. I don't want to play it due to collateral. I hold firm to the obtuse puzzles of old, because I don't think many of them are that obtuse. I mean, really, we're jumping down Sam and Max Hit The Road and MI2's throats now? Sierra had some unfair puzzles, but now LucasArts isn't safe either? I've never played a LA game I thought had unfair puzzles, not even The Dig. I could always figure out a way to work them.
I love the idea of a game that is played according to your personal feelings and emotions, led around by real-world style choices. The more in-depth they get, the better that system will be.
The majority of my annoyance is at all these people who think the old way of things is bad. I'll probably go to my grave following that old way of design, or I'll branch out in a puzzle-centric direction. I'm more interested in puzzle freedom than story freedom as a designer. That's something nobody seems to be looking at.
I like Telltale's old games.
I respect their decisions. I'm glad they're happy.
I don't agree with their design philosophy...it's not for me.
I accept that it's valid and works for them.
I like The Walking Dead. I hate zombie stories. I hate that theme. This is a personal bias.
I hate having people go on and on about how shitty obtuse puzzles are.
About the only Lucasarts game I dislike the design of is The Last Crusade. I think the best designed ones in terms of mechanics are Fate of Atlantis, LOOM, The Dig, and Monkey Island 1.
I think a lot of Sierra games are well made: The Colonel's Bequest, The Dagger of Amon-Ra, Gabriel Knight, the first three LSL games (the third most flawed), KQ 3, 4, and 6 (they're really not the worst of the bunch), Police Quest, and Quest For Glory everything. I haven't finished the Space Quest series. Hated SQ 1 so much I didn't want to go on.
I love the following Telltale games: Bone, Sam and Max 1, 2, and 3, Tales (my favorite), Strong Bad (second favorite), Wallace and Gromit, Poker Night, and I respect The Walking Dead. I'm in the minority, but I bet I'd love Jurassic Park too.
Back to the Future can suck my dick. That's one game. ONE GAME. I don't think I'm writing off the whole company based on one game kthnxbai. And I can still say I enjoyed Episode 1 of BTTF to an extent, so I can narrow that down to four episodes if I really want to suck Telltale's dick. I really don't, though.
My main gripe with TWD is that it gives people ammo against the games I love. And you know what, maybe I do like bad games. I dunno. It wasn't considered that way in the 00's when I first got internet.
However, I can write the company off based various company-wide tactics and actions that, while it makes a good company, put me off. That's me. I have certain self-righteous ideals. I don't want a company to act like a company and do things that help that company. I don't want to see safe tactics. I'm a nutcase, because that's an impossible thing to ask but it rubs me the wrong way. Like using Gravatar on the new forum to avoid legal responsibility. Ewwwwwww. It makes perfect SENSE. But ewwww. I don't care, ewwwwww. EWWWWWWWWWWW.
Someone is going to come along and nitpick this post and then I'll change everything I said all over again. Ech.
Like using Gravatar on the new forum to avoid legal responsibility. Ewwwwwww. It makes perfect SENSE. But ewwww. I don't care, ewwwwww. EWWWWWWWWWWW.
I figured they were using it out of convenience and that they would implement the ability to allow you to be able to upload your own pictures later. Seems sortive silly for legal reasons, though I've been wrong before.
Yes. I mentioned that. My point was, it was to be a traditional adventure, not the toned down one that Telltale released. At least that was the impression many of us got.
Yeah, the new games are definitely in need of an update, amirite?
I feel like Sam & Max Season 3, Back to the Future, Walking Dead, Jurassic Park, and Puzzle Agent have all been relatively different. Looking back, there's also Strong Bad, and Wallace & Gromit, which don't have much in common either. Sam & Max S1, 2, 3, and Monkey Island are the closest related, but they're also the games which draw a direct line back to another game studio's design herative. We also put out Poker Night which is a ridiculous outlier, and have a couple prototype projects which never got released but are also pretty different from each other. The common thread for me is that all the games focus on story and character, and most all of them are built off of the spine of the adventure game genre, even if they don't use all the limbs (new analogy). Fables will have a lot in common with The Walking Dead but it will also have much that is different.
I would like more people to do this, or want this. The best thing ever would be if more people made adventure games, and if more people in general tried their hand at making games.
Meanwhile...
I find it frustrating that there are two separate conversations in this thread which seem to not be talking to each other. One of them is "Why has Telltale abandoned the golden classic adventure genre?" and the other is "Why is Telltale making the same game over and over, regardless of what the game is?" My problem with both of these is that I think Walking Dead was very deliberately designed starting with the hallmarks of the adventure genre, but then the question was asked "what is right for The Walking Dead?" When you read the Walking Dead comics, characters don't sit around stumped solving puzzles all the time, so why would we make a Walking Dead game that was nothing but mind bending puzzles? That, to me, is just as preposterous as making a Walking Dead game that is nothing but running down corridors shooting an infinite supply of AI-driven zombies, but if we did that, adventure game fans would leap from the woodwork, from behind every inanimate object to cry "The Walking Dead isn't just a stupid action story! It has drama and stories and mysteries! People don't just shoot all the time!" So why don't they jump out of the woodwork and proclaim it weird and wrong when a story and world which previously had no wild and weird puzzles suddenly has them when it turns into an adventure game?
This probably sounds insane, but the two games Sean and I looked at the most at the outset of making The Walking Dead were Monkey Island 2 and Full Throttle. Not for puzzle structure or anything like that -- the puzzle structure of LucasArts games have been examined and cribbed to death by every adventure game developer in the last 15 years, to obviously mixed results -- but for how the interactions in those games make you feel.
Monkey Island 1 and 2 are amazing at making you feel empowered as Guybrush simply by choosing what to say and watching it bounce off people. Nobody ever listens to a word you say, but it still feels great to say whatever you want, and at the end of the day you still get done what you want to get done anyway.
Full Throttle is a great study in using adventure game mechanics to let you play a protagonist who is stoic, thoughtful, powerful, and yet despite his abilities is under the thumb of the world the entire time.
Monkey Island 2 also has one of my favorite structural lessons: The Four Map Pieces. Not the actual obtaining of them -- nothing new needs to be said about that structure, which is amazing but now familiar to all adventure designers -- but what happens when you complete it. You spend all of the middle of Monkey 2 getting these map pieces that will take you where you need to go, deliver them to the cartographer and HOLY SHIT HE'S KIDNAPPED. On the errand you're running for Wally, you find a mysterious crate and climb inside because you're curious... taking you to LeChuck's fortress... taking you to Dinky Island, where you wanted to go all along, but your journey there was way more fun for it.
Walking Dead takes a ton of lessons we tried to learn straight from the classics, but applies them in a way that is different than the norm. I'm very proud of that. Would Walking Dead be a better game if it had adventure game mind bending logic puzzles all over it? To me, no, that would just be doing more of the same again and again. Right now we're in what is I guess the difficult place of the rest of the world calling Walking Dead an adventure game, while adventure fans decry it as anything but. So it goes!
I'm all for different game philosophies being represented, but am disappointed to see how some want to say, in a self-serving way, that dumbing down puzzles or reducing opportunity for exploration is "evolution" of the genre. As others mentioned, it falsely implies that adventure games need to be perfected or improved by removing these fundamental and much-loved qualities. In the same way, I am disappointed to see people who should know better try to portray challenging adventure game puzzles as old-fashioned. Feels almost insulting to hear that from supposed adventure game fans, especially after all the effort and campaigns and indie adventure projects over the years which helped, at least in part, keep alive the adventure fan community to be able to reach this point today where we have several high-profile adventures successfully being launched.
I forget who it was, but someone from Telltale described another designer's (who wasn't with Telltale) work on a new classic-style adventure game and expressed disappointment over the fact that this other designer supposedly wasn't trying something new. Now, I thought those comments were ironic, considering Telltale isn't exactly known for creating original series. Far from it, in fact. Besides, it would be like saying of a great novelist, "Sigh, he is writing a novel again? People were reading those things in the 90's. Why doesn't he try something new like me?"
I love this response. This is exactly what I wanted to hear.
What you're saying is that TTG isn't about revolutionizing, improving or modernizing the adventure game genre. What TTG is about is making a game, whose roots start by being connected to adventure games, that fits the involved franchise. Plain and simple. And, for example, TTG thought a heavily action-oriented game with a cinematic feel is what would fit for Jurassic Park. It wasn't about moving away from adventure games.
The question I have is: What about King's Quest?
Are you saying that the question will be asked "What is best for King's Quest (as a franchise)?" when (or if) TTG actually gets around to making it?
I'm...disappointed to see how some want to say, in a self-serving way, that dumbing down puzzles or reducing opportunity for exploration is "evolution" of the genre. As others mentioned, it falsely implies that adventure games need to be perfected or improved by removing these fundamental and much-loved qualities. In the same way, I am disappointed to see people who should know better try to portray challenging adventure game puzzles as old-fashioned. Feels almost insulting to hear that from supposed adventure game fans, especially after all the effort and campaigns and indie adventure projects over the years which helped, at least in part, keep alive the adventure fan community to be able to reach this point today where we have several high-profile adventures successfully being launched.
What you're saying is that TTG isn't about revolutionizing, improving or modernizing the adventure game genre.
The problem is that he's the ONLY ONE who speaks for Telltale that has ever said anything of the sort, and it's buried here in this niche forum where no one but us nerds will ever read it. Any high profile, public statements from Telltale have always been more of the kind that MtnPeak is decrying above. Telltale needs to get its fucking messaging straight.
I really liked Walking Dead by the way. Wouldn't really consider it a true adventure game, but it had enough interesting stuff going for it that it was still a great experience, overall. Its real triumph is the writing, particularly the believable characters and emotionally powerful situations.
EXACTLY THIS. Great post.
The problem is that he's the ONLY ONE who speaks for Telltale that has ever said anything of the sort, and it's buried here in this niche forum where no one but us nerds will ever read it. Any high profile, public statements from Telltale have always been more of the kind that MtnPeak is decrying above. Telltale needs to get its fucking messaging straight.
I really liked Walking Dead by the way. Wouldn't really consider it a true adventure game, but it had enough interesting stuff going for it that it was still a great experience, overall. Its real triumph is the writing, particularly the believable characters and emotionally powerful situations.
I'm just speaking for myself as a designer at Telltale; I can't speak to the official company's direction. To my knowledge, though, it's to do right by story- and character-driven games the best we can.
Thanks for playing Walking Dead. The parts you liked are the parts we put our time and life into, so I'm glad you enjoyed them!
Jake, are you allowed to make any comments about King's Quest? A lot of us on here are curious about whether the project is still in development. I know that our questions about it have sort of gotten buried among the other arguments going on in this thread, and so maybe you didn't see them. Or maybe you don't know anything about the status of the project and literally don't have anything to say about it. But it would be nice to hear something, anything, about it if you're able.
I'm all for different game philosophies being represented, but am disappointed to see how some want to say, in a self-serving way, that dumbing down puzzles or reducing opportunity for exploration is "evolution" of the genre. As others mentioned, it falsely implies that adventure games need to be perfected or improved by removing these fundamental and much-loved qualities.
I think "evolution" implies change moving towards a new entity, rather than trumpeting "improvement" per se. Kangaroos and koalas evolved from a common marsupial ancestor, but it would be a bit odd to argue that one is necessarily "better" than the other - they just fill different ecological niches. It's possible for features of 1990s adventures to be adapted into games aimed at a slightly different audience, which co-exist with games built around the difficult puzzles and exploration that may define the adventure game genre for others. To paraphrase Jake's analogy, there's room for many branches on the tree.
We also put out Poker Night which is a ridiculous outlier, and have a couple prototype projects which never got released but are also pretty different from each other.
Well now I'm curious. Are you allowed to say anything about these unreleased games?
I think "evolution" implies change moving towards a new entity, rather than trumpeting "improvement" per se. Kangaroos and koalas evolved from a common marsupial ancestor, but it would be a bit odd to argue that one is necessarily "better" than the other - they just fill different ecological niches. It's possible for features of 1990s adventures to be adapted into games aimed at a slightly different audience, which co-exist with games built around the difficult puzzles and exploration that may define the adventure game genre for others. To paraphrase Jake's analogy, there's room for many branches on the tree.
While the word "evolution" certain does imply change toward a new entity, that's very much ignoring the other aspect of its definition, which is the idea of survival of the fittest, which further implies that the "ancestor," in this case the "outdated and archaic" puzzle and exploration heavy adventure game, isn't fit to survive in the new-fangled world of "cinematic adventures." So yes, every time the term "evolution" is used, it is at least indirectly implying the weakness of the progenitor.
Well now I'm curious. Are you allowed to say anything about these unreleased games?
Thanks for the informative post, by the way.
No, sorry. There are always weird side things cooking around the place. Some of them end up in games and some don't, but because some stuff will inevitably ship somewhere else, we tend to not talk about them. (Some of the timer based stuff in WD came from a totally separate prototype from 2009-2010 for a totally different game, for instance.)
No, sorry. There are always weird side things cooking around the place. Some of them end up in games and some don't, but because some stuff will inevitably ship somewhere else, we tend to not talk about them. (Some of the timer based stuff in WD came from a totally separate prototype from 2009-2010 for a totally different game, for instance.)
Daww. Knew it was a bit of a long shot. I think if/when that stuff is safe to reveal, though, there should be a big "Adventures Through The Cutting Room Floor" blog post. Or something.
Jake, are you allowed to make any comments about King's Quest?
I guess the answer is No, or he or Puzzlebox would have said something by now. At least we can hope that if Jake's design principles hold up, King's Quest will be a true adventure game, if it gets made.
I must say I liked The walking dead the story but gameplay wise (puzzles) it felt abit like playing those old school FMV games where you just have to click once in a while and you get next cut scene.
On a semi-related note, the fact that The Walking Dead has now completely overshadowed everything else Telltale's done is...upsetting, to be polite.
I don't think it's upsetting. It's understandable. A recent series on TV and comics and a great story. Plus they still know how to create something the fans of the source material will like.
Understandable but worrying.
On a semi-related note, the fact that The Walking Dead has now completely overshadowed everything else Telltale's done is...upsetting, to be polite.
It's their greatest success yet.
That's it, really.
TWD overshadows previous games in pretty much the same way ToMI did. But Telltale "is" not TWD now. That's also pretty evident from the new site's design, which soothed my worries in that respect. Sam & Max is still getting equal room, it's not as if TWD took everything previously done and killed it.
Some people who came here for TWD look at the back catalog and just don't get it. That is understandable to a degree. But it is only their opinion that Telltale is TWD and TWD alone. I've encountered the opinion that Telltale had become "100 times more popular" with TWD. That's bullshit.
The maximum of visitors this forum had was about 1,700 during S&M Season 3; this record was broken with TWD (now: 2,526 visitors). So I guess we could assume Telltale gained 50% more popularity. Which is impressive, but hardly "overshadowing".
I'm not a fan of the Action or Horror genres of story-telling, so I've deliberately avoided Jurassic Park and TWD. I will play TWD one day because I am intrigued about the decision-based story that was partly inspired by Heavy Rain. I am, however, a fan of Fantasy novels and old-school Adventure games, so I have high hopes that Fables and King's Quest (when they finally get released) will bring me back here on a regular basis. How soon, Telltale?
Just going to say this but i think we all seen what happened the first time we seen TTG go far away from Gameplay and mainly focus on story. That would be JP The Game
Just going to say this but i think we all seen what happened the first time we seen TTG go far away from Gameplay and mainly focus on story. That would be JP The Game
Although I personally liked it, Telltale's likely not going to do a game like that again. It wasn't just the longtime fans that criticized that game, but the press as well. Telltale's learned from that and moved on.
I am, however, a fan of Fantasy novels and old-school Adventure games, so I have high hopes that Fables and King's Quest (when they finally get released) will bring me back here on a regular basis. How soon, Telltale?
Like Darth Marsden wrote, Fables will probably play like TWD. I think Dan Connors mentioned as much in an interview, but I don't remember where I read it.
Have you heard anything about KQ? That's what I'm most interested in.
I'm more interested in anything Sam-and-Max-related myself. It surprises me that there's nothing new about it, other than the 25th anniversary sale last year...
I'm more interested in anything Sam-and-Max-related myself. It surprises me that there's nothing new about it, other than the 25th anniversary sale last year...
25th anniversary is OVER. Telltale wanted to do something for it, Dan even said so explicitly in "his" thread. But they didn't. I won't search for the easy answers, but I do find that very disappointing. There was a sale... but even that was mostly a Steam sale. :rolleyes:
Fables will probably play like TWD. I think Dan Connors mentioned as much in an interview, but I don't remember where I read it.
He didn't, at least not THAT explicitly. What he said was that several of the now established TWD mechanics will return. I think he talks about "choices", now with a much clearer good/reasonable/human, bad/brute/animalistic division. Whether the rest of the mechanics will return (the QTEs, the action scenes, the pacing, the time limit on conversations, the minigames etc.) is unclear as of now.
Just going to say this but i think we all seen what happened the first time we seen TTG go far away from Gameplay and mainly focus on story. That would be JP The Game
THAT is overly simplistic and untrue to boot. What we see here is the search for a new kind of gameplay. It is clear how Jurassic Park tried to tie interactivity to its game - I would assume the number of pressed buttons per episode to be 15 times as much as the odd TWD one; and you and I may not have enjoyed this experience. But to characterise JP as the "ultimate story driven non-game" just to have an example for the lowest end of the scale, that's just unhelpful.
25th anniversary is OVER. Telltale wanted to do something for it, Dan even said so explicitly in "his" thread. But they didn't. I won't search for the easy answers, but I do find that very disappointing. There was a sale... but even that was mostly a Steam sale. :rolleyes:
On to the 30th!
Even then the blog post about it was fulled with people crying about ''When is the next TWD episode out'' ''I WANT IT NOW :mad:'' Very disappointing blog post
25th anniversary is OVER. Telltale wanted to do something for it, Dan even said so explicitly in "his" thread. But they didn't. I won't search for the easy answers, but I do find that very disappointing. There was a sale... but even that was mostly a Steam sale. :rolleyes:
I wouldn't say Telltale didn't do anything, they did have an art/story contest and a sale (for every system that Telltale's Sam and Max games are on). They did quite a lot for their anniversary.
The sale wasn't just on Steam, but also on consoles and iOS. And to be fair, there was also a sale on Telltale's Sam & Max games at GOG.com during Sam & Max's anniversary year.
Even then the blog post about it was fulled with people crying about ''When is the next TWD episode out'' ''I WANT IT NOW :mad:'' Very disappointing blog post
That's not exactly Telltale's fault. That's one of the main reasons why they disabled any future comments.
It was nice to see Telltale acknowledging Sam & Max's anniversary on their main blog. The contest was a nice thing for fans (and it was good that it wasn't just for pictures and artwork, but for stories too, so it was open to everyone). It was nice to see an art contest again (I missed those).
And the sales were nice for getting new people into the series (and for fans to pick up the games on other systems). I thought Telltale handled Sam & Max's 25th just fine. Telltale could have just ignored the 25th anniversary completely. Now, that would have been disappointing.
I know its not TTG's fault but it still does not mean it sorta ruined the tone. We don't exactly go into TWD blog posts and start saying ''WE WANT TALES OF MONKEY ISLAND 2 & SAM & MAX SEASON 4'' There was even a person who went in and said ''Don't care where is TWD Ep 4?!'' Another one was ''Don't give a shit about Sam & Max, give us episode 3 for the EU PSN NOW!'' and the same person who wrote the first comment i mentioned wrote ''No one cares about a stupid animated dog and rabbit. Everyone cares about The Walking Dead because of its intense drama and The Walking Dead is what TellTale is making a lot of money from.'' Now that was the most stupid and rude comment in the whole blog post in my opinion. I was happy that some people like Vainamoinen, Nintendo Boy1, Gman5852, & der_ketzer, went in and defended the Sam & Max games in the blog post.
I think the best comment is from Vainamoinen where he says something that relates to Sam & Max and shows his disappointment in the people posting about TWD in a S&M post. The comment was ''You don't crack me up little buddies''.
Anyway i think moderators should be able to go into the blogs and delete comments like people did in that S&M post .
I know its not TTG's fault but it still does not mean it sorta ruined the tone. We don't exactly go into TWD blog posts and start saying ''WE WANT TALES OF MONKEY ISLAND 2 & SAM & MAX SEASON 4'' There was even a person who went in and said ''Don't care where TWD Ep 3?!
That's an old discussion (that has been discussed over and over again on these forums and is well over and done now). And it's a moot point now that the blog comments are disabled.
That's an old discussion (that has been discussed over and over again on these forums and is well over and done now). And it's a moot point now that the blog comments are disabled.
Just saying but i did add more into my post . Even then you mention that the comments are now disabled. So because of people who can't stop crying about TWD that others have to pay for it because people did these kind of things. Also didn't they start complaining they wanted Ep 4 already and Ep 3 was only out for a week?
Comments
All four released Sam & Max games have been great in my opinion. The episodic formula has really allowed Telltale to be creative with the story and puzzles (the finale of Reality 2.0 is a good example of this). Telltale's puzzles were never as difficult as most of LucasArts' games from the 90's, true. But they were creative (and in my opinion, that matters more. A difficult puzzle can be over-done. I'd take Reality 2.0's car color puzzle (which I personally did find challenging, and once I realized the solution, quite clever) any day over Grim Fandango's sign-post puzzle for example).
Even The Walking Dead had some creative puzzles. I liked the car battery puzzle in episode 4 for example (it did make me stop and think a bit, and the solution was clever and fit within the game's world [and I liked that it was a multi-part puzzle, since you had to talk to a character to get an object to use on an object to get an object]).
My main point there was that there are so many different ways that every single thought regarding this can go that at the end of the day I can't settle on anything. I've probably changed my opinion or contradicted myself a million times in this thread alone trying to keep up with everyone else or trying not to be the bad guy. It's very easy for me to be the bad guy. I was expecting it continually, so that's why I threw up my brain all over as a response to your post.
But I think TWD is a great concept for a game. I don't want to play it due to collateral. I hold firm to the obtuse puzzles of old, because I don't think many of them are that obtuse. I mean, really, we're jumping down Sam and Max Hit The Road and MI2's throats now? Sierra had some unfair puzzles, but now LucasArts isn't safe either? I've never played a LA game I thought had unfair puzzles, not even The Dig. I could always figure out a way to work them.
I love the idea of a game that is played according to your personal feelings and emotions, led around by real-world style choices. The more in-depth they get, the better that system will be.
The majority of my annoyance is at all these people who think the old way of things is bad. I'll probably go to my grave following that old way of design, or I'll branch out in a puzzle-centric direction. I'm more interested in puzzle freedom than story freedom as a designer. That's something nobody seems to be looking at.
I like Telltale's old games.
I respect their decisions. I'm glad they're happy.
I don't agree with their design philosophy...it's not for me.
I accept that it's valid and works for them.
I like The Walking Dead. I hate zombie stories. I hate that theme. This is a personal bias.
I hate having people go on and on about how shitty obtuse puzzles are.
About the only Lucasarts game I dislike the design of is The Last Crusade. I think the best designed ones in terms of mechanics are Fate of Atlantis, LOOM, The Dig, and Monkey Island 1.
I think a lot of Sierra games are well made: The Colonel's Bequest, The Dagger of Amon-Ra, Gabriel Knight, the first three LSL games (the third most flawed), KQ 3, 4, and 6 (they're really not the worst of the bunch), Police Quest, and Quest For Glory everything. I haven't finished the Space Quest series. Hated SQ 1 so much I didn't want to go on.
I love the following Telltale games: Bone, Sam and Max 1, 2, and 3, Tales (my favorite), Strong Bad (second favorite), Wallace and Gromit, Poker Night, and I respect The Walking Dead. I'm in the minority, but I bet I'd love Jurassic Park too.
Back to the Future can suck my dick. That's one game. ONE GAME. I don't think I'm writing off the whole company based on one game kthnxbai. And I can still say I enjoyed Episode 1 of BTTF to an extent, so I can narrow that down to four episodes if I really want to suck Telltale's dick. I really don't, though.
My main gripe with TWD is that it gives people ammo against the games I love. And you know what, maybe I do like bad games. I dunno. It wasn't considered that way in the 00's when I first got internet.
However, I can write the company off based various company-wide tactics and actions that, while it makes a good company, put me off. That's me. I have certain self-righteous ideals. I don't want a company to act like a company and do things that help that company. I don't want to see safe tactics. I'm a nutcase, because that's an impossible thing to ask but it rubs me the wrong way. Like using Gravatar on the new forum to avoid legal responsibility. Ewwwwwww. It makes perfect SENSE. But ewwww. I don't care, ewwwwww. EWWWWWWWWWWW.
Someone is going to come along and nitpick this post and then I'll change everything I said all over again. Ech.
I figured they were using it out of convenience and that they would implement the ability to allow you to be able to upload your own pictures later. Seems sortive silly for legal reasons, though I've been wrong before.
Yeah, the new games are definitely in need of an update, amirite?
I would like more people to do this, or want this. The best thing ever would be if more people made adventure games, and if more people in general tried their hand at making games.
Meanwhile...
I find it frustrating that there are two separate conversations in this thread which seem to not be talking to each other. One of them is "Why has Telltale abandoned the golden classic adventure genre?" and the other is "Why is Telltale making the same game over and over, regardless of what the game is?" My problem with both of these is that I think Walking Dead was very deliberately designed starting with the hallmarks of the adventure genre, but then the question was asked "what is right for The Walking Dead?" When you read the Walking Dead comics, characters don't sit around stumped solving puzzles all the time, so why would we make a Walking Dead game that was nothing but mind bending puzzles? That, to me, is just as preposterous as making a Walking Dead game that is nothing but running down corridors shooting an infinite supply of AI-driven zombies, but if we did that, adventure game fans would leap from the woodwork, from behind every inanimate object to cry "The Walking Dead isn't just a stupid action story! It has drama and stories and mysteries! People don't just shoot all the time!" So why don't they jump out of the woodwork and proclaim it weird and wrong when a story and world which previously had no wild and weird puzzles suddenly has them when it turns into an adventure game?
This probably sounds insane, but the two games Sean and I looked at the most at the outset of making The Walking Dead were Monkey Island 2 and Full Throttle. Not for puzzle structure or anything like that -- the puzzle structure of LucasArts games have been examined and cribbed to death by every adventure game developer in the last 15 years, to obviously mixed results -- but for how the interactions in those games make you feel.
Monkey Island 1 and 2 are amazing at making you feel empowered as Guybrush simply by choosing what to say and watching it bounce off people. Nobody ever listens to a word you say, but it still feels great to say whatever you want, and at the end of the day you still get done what you want to get done anyway.
Full Throttle is a great study in using adventure game mechanics to let you play a protagonist who is stoic, thoughtful, powerful, and yet despite his abilities is under the thumb of the world the entire time.
Monkey Island 2 also has one of my favorite structural lessons: The Four Map Pieces. Not the actual obtaining of them -- nothing new needs to be said about that structure, which is amazing but now familiar to all adventure designers -- but what happens when you complete it. You spend all of the middle of Monkey 2 getting these map pieces that will take you where you need to go, deliver them to the cartographer and HOLY SHIT HE'S KIDNAPPED. On the errand you're running for Wally, you find a mysterious crate and climb inside because you're curious... taking you to LeChuck's fortress... taking you to Dinky Island, where you wanted to go all along, but your journey there was way more fun for it.
Walking Dead takes a ton of lessons we tried to learn straight from the classics, but applies them in a way that is different than the norm. I'm very proud of that. Would Walking Dead be a better game if it had adventure game mind bending logic puzzles all over it? To me, no, that would just be doing more of the same again and again. Right now we're in what is I guess the difficult place of the rest of the world calling Walking Dead an adventure game, while adventure fans decry it as anything but. So it goes!
I forget who it was, but someone from Telltale described another designer's (who wasn't with Telltale) work on a new classic-style adventure game and expressed disappointment over the fact that this other designer supposedly wasn't trying something new. Now, I thought those comments were ironic, considering Telltale isn't exactly known for creating original series. Far from it, in fact. Besides, it would be like saying of a great novelist, "Sigh, he is writing a novel again? People were reading those things in the 90's. Why doesn't he try something new like me?"
What you're saying is that TTG isn't about revolutionizing, improving or modernizing the adventure game genre. What TTG is about is making a game, whose roots start by being connected to adventure games, that fits the involved franchise. Plain and simple. And, for example, TTG thought a heavily action-oriented game with a cinematic feel is what would fit for Jurassic Park. It wasn't about moving away from adventure games.
The question I have is: What about King's Quest?
Are you saying that the question will be asked "What is best for King's Quest (as a franchise)?" when (or if) TTG actually gets around to making it?
Is TTG going to make it?
EXACTLY THIS. Great post.
The problem is that he's the ONLY ONE who speaks for Telltale that has ever said anything of the sort, and it's buried here in this niche forum where no one but us nerds will ever read it. Any high profile, public statements from Telltale have always been more of the kind that MtnPeak is decrying above. Telltale needs to get its fucking messaging straight.
I really liked Walking Dead by the way. Wouldn't really consider it a true adventure game, but it had enough interesting stuff going for it that it was still a great experience, overall. Its real triumph is the writing, particularly the believable characters and emotionally powerful situations.
I'm just speaking for myself as a designer at Telltale; I can't speak to the official company's direction. To my knowledge, though, it's to do right by story- and character-driven games the best we can.
Thanks for playing Walking Dead. The parts you liked are the parts we put our time and life into, so I'm glad you enjoyed them!
I think "evolution" implies change moving towards a new entity, rather than trumpeting "improvement" per se. Kangaroos and koalas evolved from a common marsupial ancestor, but it would be a bit odd to argue that one is necessarily "better" than the other - they just fill different ecological niches. It's possible for features of 1990s adventures to be adapted into games aimed at a slightly different audience, which co-exist with games built around the difficult puzzles and exploration that may define the adventure game genre for others. To paraphrase Jake's analogy, there's room for many branches on the tree.
Well now I'm curious. Are you allowed to say anything about these unreleased games?
Thanks for the informative post, by the way.
While the word "evolution" certain does imply change toward a new entity, that's very much ignoring the other aspect of its definition, which is the idea of survival of the fittest, which further implies that the "ancestor," in this case the "outdated and archaic" puzzle and exploration heavy adventure game, isn't fit to survive in the new-fangled world of "cinematic adventures." So yes, every time the term "evolution" is used, it is at least indirectly implying the weakness of the progenitor.
No, sorry. There are always weird side things cooking around the place. Some of them end up in games and some don't, but because some stuff will inevitably ship somewhere else, we tend to not talk about them. (Some of the timer based stuff in WD came from a totally separate prototype from 2009-2010 for a totally different game, for instance.)
Daww. Knew it was a bit of a long shot. I think if/when that stuff is safe to reveal, though, there should be a big "Adventures Through The Cutting Room Floor" blog post. Or something.
I guess the answer is No, or he or Puzzlebox would have said something by now. At least we can hope that if Jake's design principles hold up, King's Quest will be a true adventure game, if it gets made.
Well even those games had some real brain-melters in them. But I could have done without some of those...
In fact, I'm still downloading the Daily Puzzles from Miracle Mask!
It wouldn't be Professor Layton without puzzles everywhere.
...I wonder if that Phoenix Wright crossover is getting localized.
If not, it would be an OBJECTION!
...Sorry, had to say it.
I don't think it's upsetting. It's understandable. A recent series on TV and comics and a great story. Plus they still know how to create something the fans of the source material will like.
Understandable but worrying.
It's their greatest success yet.
That's it, really.
TWD overshadows previous games in pretty much the same way ToMI did. But Telltale "is" not TWD now. That's also pretty evident from the new site's design, which soothed my worries in that respect. Sam & Max is still getting equal room, it's not as if TWD took everything previously done and killed it.
Some people who came here for TWD look at the back catalog and just don't get it. That is understandable to a degree. But it is only their opinion that Telltale is TWD and TWD alone. I've encountered the opinion that Telltale had become "100 times more popular" with TWD. That's bullshit.
The maximum of visitors this forum had was about 1,700 during S&M Season 3; this record was broken with TWD (now: 2,526 visitors). So I guess we could assume Telltale gained 50% more popularity. Which is impressive, but hardly "overshadowing".
I'm not against those genres in general, but those games don't interest me much for other reasons.
Like Darth Marsden wrote, Fables will probably play like TWD. I think Dan Connors mentioned as much in an interview, but I don't remember where I read it.
Sadly it doesn't look like we'll see King's Quest this year if at all. According to Eurogamer.net Telltale is releasing TWD season 2 this autumn.
Have you heard anything about KQ? That's what I'm most interested in.
I'm more interested in anything Sam-and-Max-related myself. It surprises me that there's nothing new about it, other than the 25th anniversary sale last year...
25th anniversary is OVER. Telltale wanted to do something for it, Dan even said so explicitly in "his" thread. But they didn't. I won't search for the easy answers, but I do find that very disappointing. There was a sale... but even that was mostly a Steam sale. :rolleyes:
On to the 30th!
He didn't, at least not THAT explicitly. What he said was that several of the now established TWD mechanics will return. I think he talks about "choices", now with a much clearer good/reasonable/human, bad/brute/animalistic division. Whether the rest of the mechanics will return (the QTEs, the action scenes, the pacing, the time limit on conversations, the minigames etc.) is unclear as of now.
THAT is overly simplistic and untrue to boot. What we see here is the search for a new kind of gameplay. It is clear how Jurassic Park tried to tie interactivity to its game - I would assume the number of pressed buttons per episode to be 15 times as much as the odd TWD one; and you and I may not have enjoyed this experience. But to characterise JP as the "ultimate story driven non-game" just to have an example for the lowest end of the scale, that's just unhelpful.
Even then the blog post about it was fulled with people crying about ''When is the next TWD episode out'' ''I WANT IT NOW :mad:'' Very disappointing blog post
The sale wasn't just on Steam, but also on consoles and iOS. And to be fair, there was also a sale on Telltale's Sam & Max games at GOG.com during Sam & Max's anniversary year.
That's not exactly Telltale's fault. That's one of the main reasons why they disabled any future comments.
It was nice to see Telltale acknowledging Sam & Max's anniversary on their main blog. The contest was a nice thing for fans (and it was good that it wasn't just for pictures and artwork, but for stories too, so it was open to everyone). It was nice to see an art contest again (I missed those).
And the sales were nice for getting new people into the series (and for fans to pick up the games on other systems). I thought Telltale handled Sam & Max's 25th just fine. Telltale could have just ignored the 25th anniversary completely. Now, that would have been disappointing.
I think the best comment is from Vainamoinen where he says something that relates to Sam & Max and shows his disappointment in the people posting about TWD in a S&M post. The comment was ''You don't crack me up little buddies''.
Anyway i think moderators should be able to go into the blogs and delete comments like people did in that S&M post
Just saying but i did add more into my post