So.. is Telltale planning a "hard" adventure series soon?
Don't get me wrong, I love all Telltale's products and will continue to support them, but I'm somewhat tired of playing these games on autopilot. From time to time something resembling a "challenging" puzzle appears (the dimensional puzzle in Sam&Max s.3.ep.4 was truly fun, although I got irritated when Sam started solving it for me because I simply wanted to see all the scenarios), but I cannot remember getting stumped even once in the last Sam&Max season, even on hints set on zero. It could be that I homed in on Telltale's wavelength so well that I can subconsciously filter out all the important clues in the dialogue trees and whatnot but.. it just seems soo easy. Like an interactive cartoon, not a brain burner.
So.. is Telltale planning on releasing a product that will be geared towards more demanding point-and-clickers? Something on the level of the 2nd chapter of MI2, for example? It would be refreshing to go to sleep with a headache because I'm irreversibly stuck, instead of munching on beer & pretzels while I storm through yet another episode...
So.. is Telltale planning on releasing a product that will be geared towards more demanding point-and-clickers? Something on the level of the 2nd chapter of MI2, for example? It would be refreshing to go to sleep with a headache because I'm irreversibly stuck, instead of munching on beer & pretzels while I storm through yet another episode...
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
And hopefully Back to the Future.
I read that as "Fantasia" as in the Disney Musical movie, and I instantly thought that it would be hard due to the note matching.
That said, Jurassic Park is supposed to be a departure from Telltale's usual style, so that might be what you're looking for.
(P.S.: Telltale, if you ever try making things Sierra-style, treat death like in The Tomb of Sammun-Mak, where it takes you back to where you were with no true repercussions. Also, no unwinnable situations ever.)
That was not a puzzle. That was pure trial and error and one of the worst puzzles they ever made.
If by "trial-and-error" you mean "systematic experimentation," and by "one of the worst puzzles they ever made" you mean "a completely logical and straightforward if slightly tedious puzzle," then yes.
You never read the scroll or whatever it was did you?
Heh.
No I meant worst piece of crap puzzle I ever had to solve in a game after 2001. I did.
So what was the problem? Why did you have to solve it through trial-and-error?
Apparently that might not even be as much an "adventure game" as we know them to do...
because a) I had no fun after the second try until I solved it
b) I fealt it was a very very very cheap way to stretch the playtime. They should do 20 of those in one episode and it will be 10 hours long.
Nope, it was a good puzzle, one of the best in the entire season. Three options per dial is really not too much in terms of trial-and-error, and figuring out which dial affects what was a hoot, especially since that particular sequence definitely held most laugh-out-loud moments in the entire episode. In fact, I figured out the solution fairly early on but I tested out all the wrong options on purpose, just to torture poor Sam a bit more and see other reactions from him.
I guess that other people enjoy their obvious puzzles (Satan left his microphone, ooh, and the camera even zoomed on it, oh, and gee, one of the three items I have in my inventory is kinda microphone shaped and it was spelled out to me three seconds ago that giant Max is attracted to it... hmmm.. what oh what should I do?) but personally I prefer stopping, gathering my thoughts and figuring stuff out instead of simply playing on auto-pilot.
I told that in my first post. Something on the level of Chapter 2 in MI2, which took me the course of the week to solve. In those times it was not unheard of to be stuck on the game for hours, if not days, so it's kinda funny that today with the Internet and hints/solutions only a click away we have games that are laughably easy compared to the old ones.
I know that todays gamers are a bit more casual and usually find difficult puzzles borderline insulting, but I thought it would be nice if at least one product from Telltale line was geared towards us old-schoolers who do not mind getting stumped and frustrated over a game and enjoy a fair challenge.
Edit: Oh, btw, I always thought Sierras adventures were crap. I didn't really mind the killing (I learned quite early that with Sierra there's no such thing as keeping too many saved games), but realizing in Chapter 7 that you cannot progress since you forgot to pick up something in Chapter 2 or chose the wrong dialogue option in Chapter 4 was inexcusable. There is a difference between "challenging" and "sloppily designed and completely unfair", something which Sierra never learned..
(After 3 hours of trying everything on everything, I finally picked up the Idol)
Those moments are usually the best ones.
She wasn't, you were.
Different strokes. I *hate* getting stuck for hours in an adventure game, because it's not like you have alternatives to pass the time in-game (random battles, mini-games, character customization, etc)--you just pass the same scenery and hear the same damn dialogue and music loop ad nauseum.
Well I guess the point is you shouldn't really need the alternatives since the adventure game is there to engage your brain and challenge you. If you need "alternatives", why not turn the game off and play some flash games instead?
One thing I do not understand is why gamers of today get so easily frustrated, so each and every game has to be designed in such a way not to accidentally anger or bore the player too much. OMG, the player didn't progress further in the last two minutes, quick, throw a hint his way or entertain him with a joke or a mini-game! Phew, that was a close one...
People have often said that adventure genre has to evolve, but look what this "evolution" brought us - exponential rise of so-called "hidden object games" which are nothing else then "adventure games for dummies". I know there are people who find those dry brainless "find all items from this list in this poorly rendered location" chores relaxing and perhaps even fun, but all I see in those games is cookie-cutter soulless bastardizations of something that was once a really good genre.
Telltale so far hit a nice middle ground - their products resemble old-school adventure gamers very closely while still catering for todays "spoiled" casual and semi-casual audience (which is basically why in spite of existence of internet they do not only include an in-game hint system, they default it to the nearly maxed out setting). And they do a damn well job, it must be said. Still, I think it's kinda tiresome that in 2 hours gameplay you get 1h45min worth of dialogue and 15 minutes-worth of puzzles, most of which are so obvious even with the hint system turned off completely.
I'm not saying Telltale should suddenly switch gears and go old-school. They found their niche and they should stick with it. I'm only asking if it's possible that they consider creating one product/game that will try to cater to people who want something more challenging then an interactive cartoon with an occasional puzzle. I know BTTF won't be it (I am looking forward to it very much, but if anything it will be even lighter then current games since the franchise itself will draw new crowd of customers who would also probably prefer a "casual" approach), and Jurassic Park smells more of something action/adventury then anything else. I hoped that Puzzle Agent will turn out to be a throwback to the good old days of actual challenge, yet it turned out to be an interactive puzzle book (which I actually rather enjoyed, btw, even though the puzzles could hardly be more repetitive).
So.. Telltale.. at least one game which wouldn't be babysitting us through it the entire time? Please?
This.
I agree with you there. That's the one puzzle that I thought of the most after finishing 'Launch of the Screaming Narwhal' for the first time. It was probably because Telltale threw a few different gameplay elements in there for that puzzle. It was like having a completely different interface.
This brings me to my next point. Half of the reason why Telltale's games are easier than regular adventure games is due to the one-click interface. There's no different commands - it's simply 'click item' and the game does the rest for you. Usually, the only thing that mixes things up a bit are the aforementioned Desinge's Lab puzzle, as well as other obscure puzzles (face-off in 'Lair of the Leviathan' springs to mind), but any of the regular puzzles are just far too easy to solve. Heck, sometimes you can solve them accidentally. I'm not suggesting Telltale go back to the verb system, but something like the condensed 'coin interface' seen in Curse would do just fine.
Since the boards have been acting up, I'll have to give the shorter, less rude version of my response:
I'm saying that adventure games can easily get repetitive, and not including obscure/convoluted puzzles helps the devs ensure that everyone gets to see the story they worked so hard on to the end.
Furthermore, please do not make assumptions about my gameplay habits. I enjoy playing on harder settings as well; that doesn't mean I want everyone else to be inundated by difficulty/vague design. Devs should let the player feel smart for solving a puzzle, not lucky (or stupid, on the other hand, by having blatantly obvious & simple solutions). For the most part, TTG's struck a good balance.
You may have just answered your own question here.
I want to stress that videogames are an interactive medium. As a whole, they are meant to be experienced in a way that movies, books, and other passive media are not. When you start to feel like you're experiencing a narrative more than you're going through a gameplay experience, the game developers have DIRECTLY insulted you. They have spit on your face. They have farted in your general vicinity. You know why? Because the logic is that YOU ARE TOO DUMB to solve that puzzle. YOU ARE TOO DUMB play the game without hints. YOU ARE TOO DUMB to know that when you put hints to 0, you actually want characters to stop and say out loud "HEY MAYBE I SHOULD GO TO X, IT MIGHT HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH THIS Y IN MY POCKET". They are insulting YOU in a very direct, pointed, and derogatory way.
I found, when I was playing The Devil's Playhouse....I felt like I was playing against an older brother that had been instructed to let me win. The victory, the whole experience, is hollow. When you have one room, one item in your inventory, and a cutscene that clearly says "USE THIS WITH THAT", I wonder why they even had me do that at all. That's not interaction: that's tedium. When puzzle solutions are obvious before you're even told about the puzzle itself? That's just slap in the face.
Chuck Jordan, of Telltale fame, made an excellent blog entry lately that I'm going to quote here(emphasis in bold is mine):
I thought Chuck's blog about it was brilliant, although I regret he got his epiphany after leaving Telltale.
I never thought that TTG made the best adventures but i honestly thought&hoped that they were the rescue considering the people behind inthe beginning and that the first games from them delivered that technical brilliance i missed in many other adventures which were made after the golden era.
Their poker game had some nice humor and showed the potential, Bone was something i didn't get those days but which i appreciated much more afterwards and then *boom* there was another Sam&Max again. Now whilst i never was the biggest Sam&Max fan. The first season was packed with attributes i missed in adventures for so many years. It had a decent flow, it was technically very well done (at least on my PC), it wasn't too short. Sometimes it was a bit weird as well, annoying Soda Poppers, no inventory combinations, way to brave Sam&Max conversations and mostly not this challenging riddles and boring conversations but i still loved it for the potential TTG showed and a) hell it was point&click and b) we knew that they couldn't make it too hard for the first round.
It simply felt like a solid and not cheap done adventure experience again. How i hated getting the games later than on GameTap those days but nevertheless i loved TTG for doing these kind of games again and was looking into a bright, niche or not, adventure games future. The forum also was a comfy place, Emily (tell her, i miss her) was still at TTG and dunno whilst obviously everything wasn't perfect those days as well, it felt just awesome.
But then through all those years something went wrong.
On the bright side they enhanced their marketing, they enhanced the technical aspects of the engine and ported the games to many new platforms (some worked better than others), they enlarged their distribution channels and they overall seem to do well and grew pretty fast but thy didn't enhance on the aspects i do really care about, there TTG stagnated and due to the reiterations it felt getting worse.
They killed point&click and tried to sell it to us for some stupid reasons. I remember quite some arrogant and technical wrong statements from them to this one. So far they haven't delivered the promised Mac ports for the older games. Whilst the graphics improved, music sometimes was the same, sometimes it got worse, the conversations depending on the episode, got better but still not on a level you would really care about. They for sure dared more with Sam&Max but many of the characters, feel so one dimensional.
TTG often operates on a black white level on teenager niveau. No shades of gray, decisions you might regret afterwards, characters you really care about, situations which trigger emotions you have deep inside of yourself, a really interesting story, complex unique and interesting riddles, inventory combinations, no improvements here.
Yes, Sam&Max 3 had a grain filter which your couldn't turn off but still the same boring uninspired situations you were used to from the games before, talk to boring i-don't-care-about-characters, do things for three times to get item X, … wow, what a disappointment! Although to be fair the psychic powers were a really good idea but they were only used in an interesting way in a few situations.
Hey, what does TTG stand for? TellTaleGames.
What about the story telling part? If the aspects like the story, like more unique riddles and more complex emotions would have evolved the same way like they have enlarged their platforms, then we would be in a adventures gamers heaven or hell, depending on your personal preferences.
I'm also very disappointed that we still don't get translations on a regular basis. How do you tell stories best? In some esperanto or in your local language you feel a lot more connected to?!
Really, typing these lines kind of upsets me considering all the stupid conversations i spent my time on the forum, talking about such basic obvious stuff. Therefore i'll also stop here. If TTG isn't a company which is after the masses and the short money and instead wants to deliver quality content for adventure gamers they have to change quite some aspects.
Enhance on aspects which are important for telling a story and playing an adventure games and whilst i'm at it i also would welcome point&click for computer platforms as well as translations of the subtitles. Care about the riddle designs, the story and the characters.
Otherwise i'm out of buying TTG games. I already went from, i couldn't wait for the release date to i don't care if i finish episodes i already bought anymore. And just to make this one sure, this isn't my fault, because inside of me there still is this chaotic curious child which loves very good games. But for continuing pumping out mediocre games, i'm sorry, i have better things to do with my time.
TTG should have stayed a smaller company, concentrating on quality adventure games for adventure gamers, also inventing unique content on their own. At least they also should have such products in their protfolio. I wouldn't mind paying double the price for a game i really like, instead of getting crap for a cheaper price.
I think it's sad if we've hit this point. Can't we all get along?
Certainly not. I'm talking about TTG fans in particular.
Challenging games are well and good, but I think there's a fine line between being challenging in a way that engages a player and being challenging in a 'Guide Dang It' sort of way, to take a term from TVTropes. The former is the type of challenge one really wants in a game, at least in my perspective. You want to be engaged in the experience, and there's definitely a certain satisfaction which comes with solving a puzzle for the first time with no help.
When a game is hard for the sake of being hard, that removes me personally from the experience. I want to be challenged, not forced to have to go look up the solution to your puzzle on GameFAQs or need to have my laptop available at all times so I know specifically what I need to do because your game functions on moon logic. This is the reason that I have so little experience with the Sierra adventure games, the ones that I have played I enjoyed the stories to, but I ended solving 90% the puzzles by just using everything on everything else.
My experience with TTGs has been mainly through Tales of Monkey Island and playing a friend's copy of the Sam & Max seasons (Minus 304 and 305) and while they may have tended towards the easy side of the spectrum at points, I found most of the puzzles were inventive and figuring out the solutions came pretty naturally if you were paying attention. So I don't really have a problem with TTG current difficulty. I can understand how some would want more difficulty and I wouldn't mind it kicked up a bit, but I really would hate to see the games become hard simply for the sake of being hard. Being tricky and inventive is one thing, being teeth-grindingly hard is another.
I wouldn't have much problem with hints going as far as giving you the actual solution if you ask for it if there was also a way to remove them entirely. The games offer a range of hint options, it's annoying that among these, "no hints" actually means "more hints than I want or need".