Not a Season One Review (AKA: And Another Thing)
I spent a lot of time and effort thinking about what I was going to write for my post Season One review. Finally, I've come to the conclusion that nothing I would say hasn't already been said by others and myself on this forum throughout the entirety of this year. With. that being said, there's only one thing I can add that I feel actually matters.
Telltale's goal with this series was to create an adventure game that embodied the thematic presentation and story complexity of the Game of Thrones TV show. I can attest that they successfully suceeded in that aspect. The end.
Oh, and another thing...
I have a linging concern about the direction that Telltale Games is heading with their games in general. I feel as if the developers are sacrificing story complexity and depth of character for the sake of mimicking actual TV shows. If you guys are serious about stylizing your games as interactive shows then I suggest you incorporate some beneficial elements of actual shows such as slower pacing (build up) and character building episodes.
In my opinion, S2 of TWD and S1 of GOT felt rushed and I believe the reason lies in the scarcity of hub areas and build up. Story points progress so fast that us players don't have time to enjoy the world and characters outside of a plot context. Just my two cents.
Comments
It'd wouldn't be good for me, seeing as I buy every TT game and I'm short on cash, but I feel pacing problems could be helped with more episodes per season, as long as the story they have in mind calls for it (episodes are longer than typical episodes though, so maybe other things could be tweaked so the most is made during an episode's length from a story perspective). But yeah, I feel they do definitely want to capture the feel of tv shows. Also, I think this is a reason they have multiple projects on the go. Or rather, the goal is to get it so there's not much downtime between seasons/episodes. You get one episode or season, then there's something else to follow immediately. If they can keep up the pace they've had with MC, or at least not stray too far from it, I'd say they're well on their way.
More episodes per season may become a necessity for future series.
Yeah, like I said, it could help but it wouldn't be as helpful for me, personally, because the titles would cost more. But as I also said, it just really depends on how many episodes they feel the season needs to tell the story. We've already seen that they can make longer seasons if they want to, with GoT having 6 episodes (no complaints please about it not being enough or something.
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Anyhow, point being and why I said what I did, we have at a low estimate, roughly 90 minutes per episode, correct? Maybe add or subtract 10 - 15 minutes, for the usual episode. So, 5 x 90 = 450. Some of that time is spent walking around also, but I'd wager it's still more story per episode than you'd find in a typical 40 - 43 minute episode on the TV. I could certainly be wrong about that, however.
Anyhow, typical season length for a tv show? Not the network ones like CSI, but for shows like TWD/GoT (which have variable run-times). Actually, I don't think TWD has variable run-times, but HBO stuff definitely does. But I'll still take the low estimate of 42 minutes per episode. Typical GoT season is 10 episodes. 10 x 42 = 420 (you should add to this number, I reckon, as I think episodes can approach an hour). TWD = 16 episodes? So, 16 x 42 = 672 minutes, a rather large difference between TTG's seasons and that. So, tv seasons generally run between 420 - 672 minutes.
Of course, there are a few problems with this. If they cut out even more gameplay elements, you can bet people will complain. They already do, so having episodes without walking around and such probably isn't a good idea. Certainly as far as the internet's sanity is concerned anyway (not that it'll ever be sane). They would likely need to have a quicker release schedule as well, akin to Minecraft's current schedule, I reckon. I'm not sure how viable that is, as I'm guessing part of the reason they have a quick schedule is because of the graphics, but also due to the game's non-serious story. I don't mean that as a knock on the game and I do enjoy it, but I reckon a lot more thought needs to go into something like TWD and GoT. That's not to say no thought goes into MC either. I'm probably not explaining well here, but hopefully TT's writers know what I mean. You know, MC is just designed to be fun? Anyhow, I also imagine they have a lot more freedom with MC versus other properties, because they're working within established settings and need to run things by whoever owns the rights more often.
Just my two pennies, for what they're worth.