Feedback for New Telltale Games Going Forward
Hi Everyone,
The idea behind this Discussion is to share and collect a variety of ideas that could hopefully be adopted and used by New Telltale Games in the future, ranging from the Forums, Games, Social Media and other stuff.
What I'll try to do is list ideas under headings, just so it's all organized.
Just a disclaimer, I understand that with the pandemic, the ability to implement each of these is stunted, and other factors also play into it like potential cost, time and etcetera. The purpose of this Discussion is for me to share my own ideas, as well as collecting ideas of other members that can share their own or better flesh out ideas presented.
I really can't stress it enough, but I hope I don't come across as rude, entitled or ungrateful or anything of the sort with this post, I just mean to be constructive and share what I think would be good in a polite manner, if it doesn't come across that way, I apologize.
Forums
Update the Forums: I believe there was plans for a Forum update around late 2019, but it didn't work as intended so the implementation was put on hold.
Implement a search bar: It can be very hard finding a specific thread, so I think having a search bar to easily find stuff could be good. Of course, people could have bookmarked a Discussion to have it be easy to access, but a search bar would still be neat.
Blog posts: I guess I should clarify, I think having individual staff come in and sharing their thoughts on anything, like their writing style, favourite film, would be cool. To me, I think Telltale should embrace being an indie, but in saying that, my idea of an indie is one that isn't corporate in behaviour, I like to think an indie would behave in a more natural way, with a sense of humor. I don't know how else to explain it, but Telltale used to have this quirky nature in what was posted through past blogs.
Social Media
Create a TikTok Account: TikTok has a large number of users that visit it daily for bite sized videos. Sharing some goofy stuff from Telltale games, or even during a workday, could serve as an introduction for TikTok users to Telltale games, and what the workplace is like.
Create an official Discord Server: Discord has really grown into being a hub for players, especially over the past year, I think utilizing a modern application like Discord would be good for combining both members of the Forums, and followers of Telltale on other platforms into a grand hub where each can interact and talk about Telltale.
Games
Porting Classic Telltale titles: It would be awesome to see Telltale's classic games like Tales of Monkey Island or Puzzle Agent make an appearance on Xbox, PlayStation and the Nintendo Switch, it would allow more players to get into the Telltale ecosystem. I know of several Telltale Communities, one I am an Admin for on Xbox, with thousands of members that are dedicated to the Telltale brand, so providing content that exists on PC and Mobile, and extends beyond PC and Mobile, would allow a Community to grow on these platforms.
Developer Commentary: The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series released in September 2019 with Developer Commentary for Episodes in the Series to explain the development process. I believe Old Telltale did it for Sam & Max back in the day, so getting an insight into the thought process behind creative decisions would be awesome.
Miscellaneous
Podcast: I think having a Telltale Games podcast would provide excellent insight into the staff at Telltale, as well as talking about some topics within game development. The best example I can give is Coffee with Butterscotch, it is a podcast by an indie developer known Butterscotch Shenanigans, with the podcast consisting of three brothers who came together to create the studio. It gives listeners a goofy insight into what indie game development is like, and I think with a company with Telltale's stature, albeit still an indie studio, could be a good leader in that space of video game podcasts. It doesn't have to be exclusively about the ongoings at Telltale, it could even be a discussion about what games staff has been playing, what they've been watching or reading, just essentially a platform to allow Developers to be themselves and talk about their interests.
Collaboration with Podcasts: I understand that we are still in the process of seeing Telltale rise from the ashes, it's not something you can just do overnight. I think appearing on podcasts could be a good platform to voice New Telltale's intentions going forward, there has been interviews that showcase what the game plan is for the future, but audible words do tend to be more impactful than transcripts from an outlet.
Going back to August 2019, I remember Jamie did a video interview with GameDaily that really voiced what New Telltale was all about, and that interview stuck with me, as hearing something audibly tends to resonate with us more. That's not to say transcript interviews don't have a place, they're great, but hearing a voice to associate with the words being said, it just clicks.
Documentaries: The best example I can use here is Double Fine Productions, just taking a look at their YouTube, they've got behind the scenes videos, updates on Psychonauts 2 and interviews with members of the Dev Team. Just a day or two ago, they uploaded a Let's Play of Psychonauts. Telltale did a documentary for The Walking Dead: Season One back in 2013 that was just brilliant to watch, and they did a series of Twitch Livestreams of The Walking Dead leading up to the launch of The Walking Dead: A New Frontier, so seeing how the developers interact and react to producing and seeing their work in motion on a camera would be fun.
Newsletters: Perhaps sharing some deals on different platforms, or sending out surveys for those who are Telltale members to fill in so to gain an idea on constructive suggestions shared by the Community could be of benefit.
I just want to say, I apologise if any of this sounds ridiculous, and if I appear completely oblivious to the logistics behind each of the ideas above in terms of costs and time, I'm still doing my best to learn more about the industry on a daily basis. I hope I came across as respectful, as I sincerely have a great deal of respect for game developers not just at Telltale, but in the industry as a whole. Game development is by no means easy. Getting a game to come together and actually play is a miracle in itself, and personally, my experience with games has been life-changing, especially with Telltale Games, so I will forever appreciate the magic, love and care that is put into games by Developers.
Comments
Maybe change the title to 'Feedback' instead of suggestions?
I thought this was another licensed IP suggestion thread for TTG.
The site does have a search bar, but it's not very good (it only searches word-by-word)
https://community.telltale.com/search
Going forward I do hope we get some more behind-the-scenes teases or tweets about the process. The Players Space series was a great way to get insight from some of the devs themselves, but too bad that series left at the same time as the host did.
More insight into the work behind the games would be great, if only to show people how the New Telltale's work environment is better than the old one.
I'll make that title change now, my bad, and thanks for pointing out the search feature
Yeah..Still waiting for that forum update lmao
Well i think there were already talks of creating an official Telltale Discord server but that didn't work out/happened i do think it's a good idea though maybe this time it could work.
I know what you mean and i agree some of the staff used to do that before it would be nice to see that again i think it's also important to communicate with your fans on the forums not just Twitter.
Agreed on the Podcasts i think we had them before but then they stopped would be nice if they came back but that would probably take some time.
Overall i think they're doing pretty good i imagine they're saving a lot of these ideas for later when they have more to show maybe. Right now they're probably focusing all their efforts on Wolf 2 and making sure it's good.
Since we actually will get gameplay innovation for Wolf 2 I wish Telltale would show more gameplay in trailers. Many trailers from old Telltale were only showing clips of the story, which didnt engage player to actually play the game instead of only watching on Youtube or seeing their friend play it. Old Telltale was actually bad at building up hype.
I feel like the main purpose of the forum update when it comes is going to be removing all the no longer owned Telltale games. So RIP to a lot of stuff. Blog post coming back would be pretty cool as Telltale was sorta doing them near the end, and podcast stuff or something like the Batman Unmasked series they were doing would be cool and I really liked when they had more of that going on, but obviously a lot of that stuff cant really exist yet.
I'd also really like behind the scenes stuff and I hope they do something like a behind the scenes doc of Wolf 2 when it releases because Wolf 2 really has one of the craziest dev stories even now. Behind the scenes and documentaries in bonuses have been becoming a bit more normal lately, so I hope they do some similar behind the scenes stuff.
In terms of suggestions I'd have to agree with Box Tv, a lot of Telltale trailers are basically just movie trailers as one of the biggest flaws TTGs had is that there isn't a real incentive to play it yourself. As a game, it really needs to evolve and be less linear, so either much more free flowing gameplay or make it abundantly clear that choices will have a much larger impact than before, and the trailers and news need to really highlight that. Best case is both of those happen.
All those legacy threads... all that great content...
(my fantastic guardians simp thread...)