From The Gallows End Screens -- Your Opinions
Alyssa_TTG
Former Telltale Staff
Hey, friends of the Walking Dead Game...
Now that the finale's been out for a few weeks, and we've had a chance to see reviews/streams and hear the fans' take on the season, I wanted to get some feedback on something specific: the ending screens. Specifically, not just the choice recap (though you're welcome to opine on those as well), but the family/relationship screens, the "polaroid" snapshots of characters you interacted with, and the Your Clementine Became... screen.
How well did they reflect your season story/your Clementine?
Did you share any of the screens (or the content of the end screens) with friends/communities like this one?
Do you have any suggestions for improving the end-of-season summary in the future?
Thanks for your feedback!
Alyssa
Comments
They didn't show up after I was finished with the episode (and I played it on release day). They still don't show up now after selecting "Your Choices" on "Extras" - so I can't really say anything about it.
Hmmm... do you have choices listed for every episode in Your Choices, and are all the choices there for each episode? I've heard from our support that if an episode's choices are missing it might not appear.
I actually loved the relationship/family screens. It reminded me of the one from Season One. I hope you guys can keep that for next season!
How about also displaying your relationship with other characters? Like if you chose to be a jerk to Tripp throughout the whole season, it would say "Your relationship with Tripp was: HOSTILE". You know, kinda to give some love to side characters.
I've seen people posting those "Your Clem became..." screens on forums such as this one to compare their end results and see/compare what choices in previous episodes had resulted in them getting that tailored recap. I don't really have any super specific thoughts right now, but in general, we as fans do like seeing screens like that.
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Choices are listed for every episode in "Your Choices". Choices exist for every episode, but the character relationships, the 'polaroid' family character relationships and the "Your Clementine Became..." don't show up.
I liked them. They gave you an idea of what kind of person you portrayed Javi as and it was a nice callback to your past work.
I'm really sorry to hear that. If you don't mind, could you report this to our support forums so they could try to debug (and also get a sense for how prevalent this issue might be?) I know I've seen it mentioned before here and on Reddit, but I'm not sure that enough people know about what they're not getting to file tickets about it.
Even though they won't show up for me, I've seen some posted online and I think it's really cool.
I hope you can do it for the next game!
Seeing my relationship with everyone was pretty cool, I expected most of what I got but seeing other people's results and comparing them was interesting. I enjoyed seeing what happened to everyone again, even if we were missing people such as Max and Lonnie. The "Your Clementine Became" screen was alright but it'll be way cooler if those personalities do somehow change her in future seasons. I think Until Dawn has a really good choices and impacts screen, it shows you that because you chose a certain path it led characters to do certain actions differently that led them to a different conclusion. .
I've been looking up and down to see if there are any ambiguities like Kenny's "was lost to the herd" thing in Season 1 but I think everyone that died is pretty dead. Stuff like that would be pretty cool though it's pretty clear that there isn't anything like that so options regarding revisiting characters are open.
Very, very cool and interesting to see. More stuff like this would be welcome. Although I don't exactly felt much for this Season's characters, I can't help but feel like this would've been an amazing thing to have in S2, since I felt really passionate about my choices then. I think the My Clementine Became screen should've definitely been a must-have in Season 2 (since in Season 2 we were actually directly shaping our Clementine... which was way less in ANF).
About the accuracy of the My Clementine screen... It was fine, I guess? I got Sympathetic Sharpshooter, though I don't really understand why. I was only playing it pragmatic. Joining TNF, not wasting medicine on AJ (since a professional has just told us it wouldn't help I don't see why anyone would!) and not pissing off David by spitting on him. I believe A Realist in the Chaos (which is apparently achieved by doing all I did, but also spitting on David) would've been more accurate. Nevertheless, there was this part of the description which I think hit the bullseye. Something about Clementine handling the fallout from David's anger with her "stealing" the meds with grace - that felt pretty accurate.
Again, I feel like the decisions I made in S2 should weight way more on Clementine. I truly felt those were the really decisive and defining choices to who she was going to become - lying to Walter or not, watching Kenny kill Carver or not, saving Sarah or not, asking to leave with Bonnie and Mike, the ending, letting the family in or not... The list goes on - those truly felt like decisions that really weighted on Clem. While the Clem ANF choices also say a lot about her, they felt way less defining and morally questioning for Clementine. Those truly just seemed like a test about how she deals with groups.
I believe I would've shared my end screens with the community had PSN Europe release not been delayed. I ended up just watching a playthrough and surfing the forums before I got to see my own end screens.
I enjoyed the season recap screens. It encompasses everything we did and gave me some surprising results as I was aiming for a different outcome with some characters (which is something I like, the whole concept of your intents of your actions being perceived differently by someone else's perspective). One thing I think would be great is if you guys did a mini recap at the end of each episode. The pace of some episodes throughout the franchise can be so quick, you don't remember what you did. Sometimes for me, I'll get caught up with errands or things to do around the house that I don't finish the episode in one sitting (which is perfectly fine to me). A mini-recap that shows what your current relationships are like along with the choice recap would be awesome to see. See how your relationships are going or what you have collected, given, or destroyed throughout the season would help reinforce what you've been doing. Players can use that information in their game play to try to further or change the direction of their relationships. It could be a simple screen like the choice screen. Then the final recap at the end of the season can go into much more detail like you had at the end of this season.
But that's just me...
I thought the end screens were really interesting and the relationships/Clementine screens were pretty accurate.
One way I could see them improved for future Telltale games is to show all possible end screen summaries and what percentage of players got each one.
Apologies for the relatively long post I'm about to make, but I think you guys deserve something a bit more specific than "it was cool, I liked it!"... which is how I do feel, by the way.
Like others have said, I enjoyed seeing stats like these come back again. They were a neat touch in the first season, as well as The Wolf Among us. And the style they were done in, with the polaroid pictures definitely felt like a good stylistic/aesthetic choice, given TWD is a post-apocalyptic story and all.
As for the main three polaroids-- David, Kate, and Gabe-- I ended up with Heartfelt for David, Distant with Kate, and Caring for Gabe. Now Kate and Gabe were both on the money in terms of how I played it. No complaints/concerns there. The stats for David, on the other hand, are slightly broken... it seems that the game always thinks you distanced yourself from David in his time of need (which I assume is the choice of standing on the ledge with him), no matter what you do. As a result, that means the best relationship status you can get would be Heartfelt (again, from what I've been able to see). Now I sided with David on all the major moments listed there (accepting his hand, sticking to his plan, standing with him), so if that stat was working, I would have gotten whatever the best relationship with David is considered, I guess... Brotherly, I believe it was?
So to sum up the first three polaroids-- accurate to how I played, besides David's. However, I do feel these could have been a bit more in-depth, which I'll go into detail about a little bit lower in my post.
The rest of the polaroids for all the other characters are most recaps of what you did, like the ones back in TWD S1 did. So no real complaints or concerns with these ones. I do like how you made some of them a bit more personalized in this, in terms of how they're worded. Making the stats a bit less formal in how they're worded actually helps them feel a bit more organic than the previous iterations seen in TWD S1 and TWAU.
As for the "Your Clementine became..." screen, mine ended up becoming A Trusting Fighter. And honestly? It was scarily accurate to how I played her. Even the way the end stats were worded, talking about her loyalty to the people she considers friends and showing grace in difficult situations came really close to the way I played Clementine, as well as how I personally felt about most situations she found herself in. Obviously, I can't speak for everybody, since there's multiple different outcomes, but I'd consider the one I got a success-- accurate to how I played her, summed up her character nicely. I also liked the more in-depth breakdown in comparison to the David/Kate/Gabe screens, which brings me to one suggestion/criticism...
If you plan on doing these in the future, I'd suggest having more choices/statistic show up per character, or at the very least, elaborate a bit more on the ones that are there. It seems that you mostly limit it to three or four per character. Fair enough, that makes sense... you wouldn't want to clutter up the entire screen with everything you did for this character and that character. But for the major ones in particular, like David/Kate/Gabe, I feel those relationships, being among the most integral to the story overall, deserve a few more slots regarding what you did in support of/against them. I could understand the more limited selection for the rest of the characters, but the ones you could consider the big players of the series should be given just a bit more spotlight, if you ask me.
So yeah, I'd consider the end-of-season summary to be an interesting and welcomed feature. If anything, in a game like TWD, which prides itself on characters and the player's connections/relationships with these characters, having something like this just makes sense. Not to mention that having a screen that breaks down what you did helps give the player a sense of agency, even if ever so slightly. Having those relationships broken down, put into words... it helps put things in perspective, make it seem like these relationships truly meant something, in some way, big or small. It's one gripe I had with the second season of the game, personally-- the lack of stats regarding the characters made the ending feel slightly more hollow to me. Like something was missing (which it was, technically).
I'm in full support of continuing to do summaries like this at the end of a season/series. But like I said, I think they'd benefit all the more from going a bit more in-depth, namely for the most important ones of the bunch. As well as ensuring they all function properly (like mentioned, David's third statistic seems to be broken). These are being treated as important, so they deserve to be listed accurately for respective players... no offense. It's hard to word that without it sounding a bit more rude than I intended, but I think you understand the gist of what I am trying to say. If you want those relationships to feel as authentic and immersive as they can be, you need to ensure that they're reflected properly in the game, even if only through a few lines of text at the end.
Point being-- these are a neat addition to the series. There's some real promise, especially if you push the boundaries a bit more. I'd make sure that if you do continue this, and not only in TWD, to keep them personalized to the specific series. Like I said, these are a neat addition, don't let it become too homogenized. Keep them fresh by changing how they're displayed, how things are worded, the art assets... so on and so forth. You keep iterating on these, and they could go a long way. And yeah, they've got a few kinks to be worked out, but what doesn't in this world? You guys just focus on working those out, and my stats screen will be quite positive.
I got mixed feelings with Kate despite feeling very strongly for her. It seems it is because i didn't kiss her in episode 1, which I would have if inhad known the extent of their relationship at the time. I hope mixed feelings doesn't mean she wasn't sure about me because that definitely wasn't the case.
Also a lot of people feel like they should have been given a brotherly relationship with David instead of heartfelt, myself included.
The screens were really cool though and I'd like to see them in the future as well.
I loved it! It's seriously awesome when you guys do stuff like this. One thing I wish you added was a quick summary of how you played your Javier. Something similar to what we got with Batman. I played Javi as an absolute sweetheart and it would've been nice if the game recognized that. I have to give you guys props for the Clementine screen though. I really liked that and how it explained Clementine's actions in episode 5. For me it said that she went after David and Gabe because despite her issues with David she was determined to be the better person and try to save them. I loved that because that's exactly how I imagine my Clementine to be. Always compassionate and do the right thing no matter what. I mean for me back in season 2 she even pleaded for Carver's life.
I was dysfunctional with David, I was really nice to him up until he broke that lady's arm, other than that I was nice all season. And that 1 time I wasn't with him made us dysfunctional? Also, what happened to Max's card at the end, appearantly it was originally there, but you decided to scrap it for some reason.
Actually distancing yourself from him in a time of need is when he broke Rufus' wife's arm, if you don't say thank you, then your distanced.
They were nice but all in all, they were just recaps of your relationships with characters and how you played as Clementine and Javier, nothing that spectacular in my opinion. Although perhaps the lack of variety in them speaks volumes of how much our choices really shaped characters as they aren't always spot on either.
Cool, but how come there was no screen showing "Your Javier", seeing as he's the main character?
i really liked the idea of it, but i would've loved to see a screen of a "your javier became" since he was the protagonist this season. it would've been interesting to see what the different outcomes would've been due to how you played and what choices you made. other than that, i would like to know what exactly "distancing yourself from david" is, because i was on his side for all of the season and i'm confused as to what exact moment was. but i loved everything else!
I said thank you, but still got distanced.
I liked them. I hope it gets continued in later seasons.
The relationships section was very well done. It would have been good if more choices pertaining to the characters were included in the algorithm, but the existing way is still fine.
Regarding the "your Clementine" screen... I got trusting fighter and it mentioned that Clem went with Javi due to a sense of loyalty. Which is true for my Clem. When I originally started ANF with the story generator im pretty sure I picked something along the lines of valuing loyalty and I ended up with the "loyal to the end" screen. I understand on a logical level that various choices factored into who your clementine became (based on your S2 ending, accepting Ava's deal, injecting AJ, saying goodbye) but idk it kind of feels like just because I originally said my Clem was loyal, that I ended up with a similar outcome. As in my Clem hadn't changed at all in ANF from start to finish. I also felt that each of the Clementines was generic enough to work for all the players instead of being tailored very well to each playing style of her. My Clem could have easily been a committed caregiver, determined survivor, etc as well.
And I didn't really like the screen because it was just a bunch of words with no bearing on Clem - besides choosing how to respond to a dying Gabe / where to go In the end / whether to shoot David or point a gun, each of the Clementines was exactly the same. Her relationship with Javi was always the same and her interactions with others were as well. So it felt a bit pointless to me.
I sent an email to my season 2 save issue, basically they replied me to delete my save and replay the game !
I don't think they really try to debug stuff anymore, at least not on Ps4
I got 'Graceful Gunslinger'. I don't agree at all, I generally avoid conflict whenever I can and never had Clementine kill anyone in previous seasons (or this one). It's kind of ironic, considering her first human kill for me (that we know of) is Eli and that was an accident.
Pretty much everyone I know who played the game at least talked about it. I think it's a neat addition and could be made better wth some of the feedback given here.
I think displaying dialogue that you chose to say to someone would be cool. It would reflect how you felt about a character when you first met them and how you felt the last time you speak to them to represent how your relationship developed (if it all).
Something that bothered me is that the 42 Clementines were only words... they didn't actually act any different besides some line of dialog and how they acted around Gaby (for some reason I don't quite understand yet), and that if we're lucky. I couldn't see the ending screen at all, must be a bug or something.
It's just a little thing that adds so much. I'm so happy you guys included them in Episode 5. It helps rounded out the Season and sum everything you did up. It also helps you discuss stuff like this with your friends, such as being able to talk about how your relationship with all the different characters were. I was disappointed when they didn't show up in Season Two and they've now made a welcome return
One thing though is that my friend got "mixed emotions" with Kate despite the fact that everything under that title said that he stuck with her. Maybe it's a few other variables that changed it, but according to my friend, he still stuck by her at every turn.
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Whoops
Then I have no idea.
Great idea, I like it.
Thanks for the thoughtful feedback! It's much appreciated, and very helpful. Good ideas.
I'll see if I can find out what happened with Brotherlyness. I had seen reports of this before in passing, but this writeup is very helpful for us to track it down. Thank you.
Ooh, good one.
Great feedback, thanks
It worked ok...I liked Kate a lot. The best part was the flashback....not to beat a dead horse...but it is the quiet moments like that with Javier and his family that is the closest to real TWD. Kate was monstrously under developed....we are told she is the glue that held the family together...but you guys never showed it.
Tons of great feedback here -- thanks! (And feel free to keep it coming.) I'm glad this is resonating for people, I'm gutted about it not appearing for everyone, and I definitely think there are ways to level it up in the future to make it better.
I just want to thank you for communicating with us. I think you actually do want to right the ship as it were...and it gives me some hope for the future.
I really liked them and how Season 2 choices made some different scenes in this and how the choices from both seasons made your Clem who she is in your story and how we got Special Stats back. I hope to see it in different games.
Not so well.
Definitely
No. I just want a season to end with a great conclusion, not with a sequel baitings. I'm sorry if it hurts your feelings.