Not because I've read the comics yet, as I haven't, because I haven't had time (I have tons of comics sitting around that I've had no time to read, like Batman: Knightfall)
I was about to chastise you on this matter, but considering the comic you considered important was Knightfall...I can definitely let it slide.
I'd probably be annoyed that the pre-order bonus was changed from a free episode to $5 off if I hadn't just finished purchasing the entire Telltale library. Now it seems like a good bonus. That said, I probably won't pre-order for a while if at all. Maybe once I've seen more on the game and if Citizen Brown doesn't totally turn me off on the idea.
I'd probably be annoyed that the pre-order bonus was changed from a free episode to $5 off if I hadn't just finished purchasing the entire Telltale library. Now it seems like a good bonus. That said, I probably won't pre-order for a while if at all. Maybe once I've seen more on the game and if Citizen Brown doesn't totally turn me off on the idea.
This made me think of this XKCD, just replace Windows 7 with Citizen Brown and Vista with Episodes 1 and 2:
I don't recall anyone complaining about the quality of gameplay in The Devil's Playhouse other then the first episode's excessive future vision and TSMB's 3 puzzles solved the same way.
I guess I wasn't loud enough! I was definitely already complaining back then. Don't get me wrong, I liked a bunch of things about Devil's Playhouse, and I really liked the idea of psychic powers to change the gameplay. But it was a step further down the "this is a movie not a game" road and I was annoyed with that. At least a movie you can just watch. But with TT games lately the movie stops every so often and you're told "please click there" before you can see the next part of the movie, and that's just annoying.
At this point, I'm thinking telltale could go back to being a good company if only they were honest about making movies/webisodes and didn't pretend to be a game company.
I think its a touch premature if you consider abandoning TTG because they did something that wasn't to your tastes, but each to their own.
At what point does it stop being premature, though? I liked Sam&Max 1 and 2, I liked Wallace and Gromit, and Tales was bearable (still not "play a second time" material, but not too bad). Devil's Playhouse I didn't even finish because it bore me so much. How long are you supposed to buy things you dislike until you call quits? If it was a restaurant, would you order everything on the menu before deciding it's gone bad?
I'm predicting that Jurassic Park won't be half bad. Just a feeling
I predict the same. As in, it won't be half bad, it will be 100% bad.
I'm still on the forums because I like people here. I only go into General Chat these days, and don't log in as often, and I might just drift away at some point, but it's hard to leave when there are so many people here I actually like.
I remember joining the forums just for Telltale Tuesdays. Of course, we don't have that anymore. We don't have as much involvement from the company on the forums, we don't have as many tough puzzles in our games. Am I worried about a decline? No. I've played most of their games in the year I've been here and loved every single one. I loved The Devil's Playhouse and its movie-like feel; it never felt like it had too many cutscenes to me. The only game I've been wary about was Back to the Future, but I'm still enjoying it. I joined during what seemed to be the end of the good period older forum members are talking about. It just depresses me to see people complain (or whatever you want to call it) about a company they used to respect, one which I still do.
I predict the same. As in, it won't be half bad, it will be 100% bad.
I'm still on the forums because I like people here. I only go into General Chat these days, and don't log in as often, and I might just drift away at some point, but it's hard to leave when there are so many people here I actually like.
Well....I actually quite liked S&M season 3 in part because of the more cinematic feel.
However after seeing the trailer, I have a feeling you may be right about Jurassic Park.
Time was Telltale had a great thing going where everything they touched was golden.
Back to the Future is ok. It has its moments and you can see some of what Telltale great. But that's at least partly because BttF fits stylistically with what Telltale is very, very good at doing -- episodic, comedic gaming with in-jokes and lots of satire.
Jurassic Park.....not so much. Trailer makes it clear the JP is intended to be Telltale's 'Look! We can do serious thrillers too, we're just not a comedy studio!' showpiece in the portfolio. Yeah, I know Telltale does some of Ubisoft's CSI titles, but they have the show's writers to give them scripts to work from.
Hate to say it, I've been a huge fan of Telltale since Bone, but there just wasn't anything in that trailer to assuage fears (on a side note, I really hope Bay Area Sound had nothing to do with that or that that was a very early clip with sound production in preliminary stages).
Bottom line, I don't think it's much of a surprise that people are speculating as to whether Telltale may have its first real critical flop on its hands with JP.
It's not like this isn't the trend everywhere. The biggest consumer is the wide middle, not the hardcore niche. That's across the board. Not many people are begging for days when they had to play Castlevania from start to finish without the comfort of save states. I myself could care less if I don't ever see a Rubber Ducky - Clamp - Bandana puzzle like the one from the Longest Journey ever again.
That's true, I suppose. I know I definitely feel neglected by Nintendo right now, have for most of the Wii's life. I feel like they throw me a bone every once in a while but generally don't care about me, favoring the goddamn "casual gamer".
It's not like this isn't the trend everywhere. The biggest consumer is the wide middle, not the hardcore niche. That's across the board. Not many people are begging for days when they had to play Castlevania from start to finish without the comfort of save states. I myself could care less if I don't ever see a Rubber Ducky - Clamp - Bandana puzzle like the one from the Longest Journey ever again.
But, you see, that's part of what made Telltale stand out a couple or so years back: they were really good at putting out adventure games that struck a satisfying balance between accessibility and difficulty. They were the best at what they did because few others could compete -- in large part due to the very trend you indicate.
Stood out to who though? What if profit margins were barely where they needed to be?
I'm just saying I fully expect Telltale to branch out. I liked Heavy Rain so I'm looking forward to Jurassic Park. These high profile licenses can bring in money and be more accessible to a wider audience with less background in adventuring. Then you can have more hardcore licenses that focus more on adventure. Or at least, that's how I perceive their business strategy. If I'm totally wrong and they screw up their fanbase, well, it's adios. That's understandable.
At the same time, there's plenty of other companies making great adventure games, so we need to remember to support them too :P
I don't have the enthusiasm to find a quote at the moment, but wasn't TellTale's focus from day #1 to tell interesting and engaging stories?
If I recall right, the sentiment at the time was that point and click style adventure games were what suited the current IPs, but that didn't make them an adventure game company.
Personally, I'm not feeling as engrossed by Back To The Future as I'd hoped, but I think what they've done seems to fit well with the movies' settings and pacing, so I count that as being positive. It's also been bittersweet to see some of the changes to Sam & Max - again, I feel that the developments in season 3 fit the IP really well (and it's fascinating to see experimentation with new styles of puzzles and interactivity - I thought Sam's interrupting options in They Stole Max's Brain were particularly interesting), so I can't complain, but there are some gameplay elements from the first two seasons that I felt would make good setpieces that seem to have been discarded along the way (I miss some of the mini-games, in particular driving the Desoto).
Don't get me wrong. I long for more traditional adventure games, but I think maybe it's a little unfair to get the angries/disrespects on for a company who've never claimed to be devoted to adventure gaming specifically.
I totally agree with whomever said earlier that it feels as though we're being treated more as customers than fans and that it would be great to see more dev activity on the forums here.
Fingers crossed that the announcements will have a good spread of stuff so that we all have something to be excited about. If not, I guess I'll be happy playing S&M and Tales until the next bunch of games are announced.
Okay, let's rephrase the argument. We'll throw out the "adventure" part entirely. They're a game company, first and foremost. Whatever their mission statement is, it's subordinate to the fact that they're a company whose purpose is to make games. When you take out the game part, all you're left with is machinima, and we're not far off from that right now. That's the main problem most of us have right now, regardless of the adventure game argument.
I totally agree with whomever said earlier that it feels as though we're being treated more as customers than fans and that it would be great to see more dev activity on the forums here.
In many ways, I think this is what I've been missing the most. Telltale making headway on this alone would probably go a long way for me.
Jurassic Park is the Telltale game that I've been the second most excited for (the first being Monkey Island). I'm a huge JP fan, it's actually the reason I started coming back to these forums (that and I missed y'all so much).
I know BttF hasn't been well-received by some of us old vets but it hasn't tempered my excitement for a Telltale-made Jurassic Park game one bit. Telltale and Jurassic Park, I couldn't ask for much more than that
I have faith it will be more of a challenge than BttF. If it's too easy the point will be missed entirely.
Maybe. I always got the impression that "whatever happens to best suit the IP" was their target though (I never really played Bone, any of the CSI games, or Wallace and Grommit, so I can't speak for those).
Who's to say that the less interactive, cinematic oriented, no-so-puzzling adventure game isn't some new hybrid genre that's just as legitimate as anything else?
I've read all your posts in this thread so far, and whilst I agree with most of what you're saying, I just can't draw the conclusion that Telltale have started making bad games. Games that aren't as good as prior ones perhaps, but there's been nothing that I've seen that I could really describe as Not Worth Having Been Done In The First Place™ (especially not BTTF).
I have faith it [Jurassic Park] will be more of a challenge than BttF. If it's too easy the point will be missed entirely.
I agree. The interviews and stuff I've read suggest they're in tune with what the IP needs, and that's promising. Back to The Future on the other hand is more of a playful romp, and the games feel that way too IMO.
I just can't draw the conclusion that Telltale have started making bad games. Games that aren't as good as prior ones perhaps, but there's been nothing that I've seen that I could really describe as Not Worth Having Been Done In The First Place™ (especially not BTTF).
I guess that's because nobody's provided evidence that they've started making bad games, or even necessarily argued that. The main argument is that there's less game in their "games", and whether or not the conclusion is that this is a bad thing is subjective and the main reason people are disagreeing.
And maybe you're right, maybe this "interactive machinima" thing could be a legitimate genre, but it's disappointing to get from a company you know is capable of doing full games, it's disappointing to get it at the price of a full-featured game, and even if it is legitimate, the argument doesn't really apply here because Back to the Future is presenting itself as and trying to be an actual game, it's just failing miserably at it because someone wanted to remove the challenge.
BttF tries to have puzzles, but the solutions just wave their hands up and down in ways that are painful. It's not that it's not a game, the problem is it just babies the player through the whole experience.
No, that's just an extra problem on top of it. It would be painfully easy anyway, but then it insults you on top of that by holding your hand and making damn sure you see the already obvious answer. Look game, it was already painfully obvious that I was going to need the bottle of chloroform, you didn't have to ZOOM IN ON IT.
I think this is one of those instances when people are arguing when in fact they completely agree with each other. Another problem is with many of the puzzles, namely the ones where you are stuck in one place, there are so few options that it's almost impossible not to stumble on the solution by accident just by clicking on everything. But we already have a thread for these discussions.
We do, but this thread mutated almost completely into "what are your gripes with Telltale?" long ago (and now I'm tempted to go back and figure out where the impetus for that was), and a big part of what most of us have a problem with is Back to the Future, what it should have been, and what it is.
I think fables lends itself to a bit more hardcore adventure. The back to the future games are a bit more linear (even though there is timetravel) They could have done day of the tentacle like switching between time periods but that's not really true to the stories.
Ron Gilbert (minded persons) for the rescue?
One thing i quite don't get is, why doesn't Ron Gilbert make new adventure games, maybe now at DoubleFine? Many times you can see him talking about what is wrong with other more adventure like games and often i do agree with him. So it seems that his ideas or his design philosophy is not this wrong and i would give him a chance to follow almost every business model from small steps up to bigger productions if he just would make an adventure game again. I wouldn't mind if it's online, episodic (but please in the right non corridor chunks), comes with simplistic but stylish flash graphics like DoubleFine's webcomics… but please make it a convincing adventure game at its core. Maybe it's time getting an account at DoubleFine.
A lack of innovation and very good adventure games for so many years.
Interesting adventure games the last years? TheDreamMachine and Machinarium. The rest doesn't proceed and instead seems to be stuck in a killerloop which produces uninspired 6-8 rated adventure games which means they come with better graphics, mocap and good sound&talkie but bad riddle design, boring dialogues, flat characters, stories which target a rather simple minded undemanding non adult audience. It's sad that especially germany is breeding so many of this superfluous games.
As for the news.
I can't watch all the material right now as i'm tethering with a really bad quality so…
What's Jurassic Park about? From the stills i saw, it looks like they worked a lot on the graphics, so it kind of looks like a shooter from the last generation. Will it be an adventure game, an interactive movie or a story shooter?
The Walking Dead, never read one of those, could be everything from great down to BTTF. Any information if this is closer to the zebras or astronauts targeted audience?
Fables, well, same question as above.
Why isn't there any kind of communication from TT these days?
Dear customers, we're announcing these games. The game x we design for a adult audience which is experienced with adventure games. The game y we produce for an audience whom we like to introduce to these type of games. blahblah…
Everything would be clear right from the start. "Okay, this makes sense, i better avoid this game and wait for that one instead." But somehow it just doesn't happen.
Personally for me TT went from
Stage 1: Excitement, great someone does adventure games again and moreover there are well known designers on board. Oh please let it be good. Sam&Max returns! There it is again, this invisible production quality. Okay a bit too easy but i understand this as we're only just beginning.
Stage 2: Fun&Hope, whilst things have improved here and there i'm still missing an overall ramp up to very good games. Just in a few episodes there was this feeling again, the excitement playing a jewel which can make these type of games so much fun.
Stage 3: Confusion, what are they still waiting for? How many years do they still need to introduce players to adventure games? Why don't they care about important aspects in adventure games which are important to me? Why do we get this superfluous reiterations? Why all those bugs lately?
Stage 4: Cynicism, hey guess what, it can get even worse. Would i mind if they would turn into a company writing printer drivers? Nope, not anymore. Not until they change something about their communication skills and their portfolio. No reason to buy their content anymore, nor to suggest it to other people. And as we lack singing copy programs these days it's also no fun to pirate them.
Huh, apparently the entire thing stemmed from a comment by Rather Dashing 13 pages ago. Why am I not surprised? Of course, it's not like he said anything that half of us weren't thinking anyway.
There is off course also the thing that most of us are quite seasoned adventure games (I myself still find some puzzles hard even though Ive done a lot of adventure games) but I imagine that there might be some steep learning curves for the none initiated. They could make an insanely hard game that would satisfy a small bunch of us. But frustrate a big heap of players.
Balance is always hard in all games, balance hard vs. simple but also looks vs. interaction with environment, flow of the story vs. inserting another puzzle etc etc.
I do think they might be putting a bit much hay on their rake though, but somehow in these times you just don't survive if you release at least x amount of games a year. I bet they could have made tomi more like its predecessers but that would have took several years so again balance time vs. momentum.
I thought this was a thread about Telltales upcoming games. Not 'Discount Pessemism about the future of point and clicks'.
It was. Then several of us apparently felt the need to vent and were given an opening. Some of us more vocally than others. Like I said, it was probably bad timing for the announcement to happen the day after Get Tannen came out.
Also, a quarter to a third of the 13 derailed pages were just Comrade Pants deciding who would play all the forumites in a film. Not sure where the hell THAT one came from.
Okay, it was because of one of my posts, but how was I supposed to know it would create an opening for that?
Comments
EDIT: Trailer is up on actual Jurassic Park section of the site.
This made me think of this XKCD, just replace Windows 7 with Citizen Brown and Vista with Episodes 1 and 2:
I can't see why not
No! You are instead played by Jeff Goldblum.
I guess I wasn't loud enough! I was definitely already complaining back then. Don't get me wrong, I liked a bunch of things about Devil's Playhouse, and I really liked the idea of psychic powers to change the gameplay. But it was a step further down the "this is a movie not a game" road and I was annoyed with that. At least a movie you can just watch. But with TT games lately the movie stops every so often and you're told "please click there" before you can see the next part of the movie, and that's just annoying.
At this point, I'm thinking telltale could go back to being a good company if only they were honest about making movies/webisodes and didn't pretend to be a game company.
At what point does it stop being premature, though? I liked Sam&Max 1 and 2, I liked Wallace and Gromit, and Tales was bearable (still not "play a second time" material, but not too bad). Devil's Playhouse I didn't even finish because it bore me so much. How long are you supposed to buy things you dislike until you call quits? If it was a restaurant, would you order everything on the menu before deciding it's gone bad?
I predict the same. As in, it won't be half bad, it will be 100% bad.
I'm still on the forums because I like people here. I only go into General Chat these days, and don't log in as often, and I might just drift away at some point, but it's hard to leave when there are so many people here I actually like.
(Who's playing me?)
Well....I actually quite liked S&M season 3 in part because of the more cinematic feel.
However after seeing the trailer, I have a feeling you may be right about Jurassic Park.
Time was Telltale had a great thing going where everything they touched was golden.
Back to the Future is ok. It has its moments and you can see some of what Telltale great. But that's at least partly because BttF fits stylistically with what Telltale is very, very good at doing -- episodic, comedic gaming with in-jokes and lots of satire.
Jurassic Park.....not so much. Trailer makes it clear the JP is intended to be Telltale's 'Look! We can do serious thrillers too, we're just not a comedy studio!' showpiece in the portfolio. Yeah, I know Telltale does some of Ubisoft's CSI titles, but they have the show's writers to give them scripts to work from.
Hate to say it, I've been a huge fan of Telltale since Bone, but there just wasn't anything in that trailer to assuage fears (on a side note, I really hope Bay Area Sound had nothing to do with that or that that was a very early clip with sound production in preliminary stages).
Bottom line, I don't think it's much of a surprise that people are speculating as to whether Telltale may have its first real critical flop on its hands with JP.
Point given pal, point given.
+1
From a gameplay standpoint, I'm firmly in the "expect the worse, hope for the best" camp with Telltale these days.
But, you see, that's part of what made Telltale stand out a couple or so years back: they were really good at putting out adventure games that struck a satisfying balance between accessibility and difficulty. They were the best at what they did because few others could compete -- in large part due to the very trend you indicate.
I'm just saying I fully expect Telltale to branch out. I liked Heavy Rain so I'm looking forward to Jurassic Park. These high profile licenses can bring in money and be more accessible to a wider audience with less background in adventuring. Then you can have more hardcore licenses that focus more on adventure. Or at least, that's how I perceive their business strategy. If I'm totally wrong and they screw up their fanbase, well, it's adios. That's understandable.
At the same time, there's plenty of other companies making great adventure games, so we need to remember to support them too :P
If I recall right, the sentiment at the time was that point and click style adventure games were what suited the current IPs, but that didn't make them an adventure game company.
Personally, I'm not feeling as engrossed by Back To The Future as I'd hoped, but I think what they've done seems to fit well with the movies' settings and pacing, so I count that as being positive. It's also been bittersweet to see some of the changes to Sam & Max - again, I feel that the developments in season 3 fit the IP really well (and it's fascinating to see experimentation with new styles of puzzles and interactivity - I thought Sam's interrupting options in They Stole Max's Brain were particularly interesting), so I can't complain, but there are some gameplay elements from the first two seasons that I felt would make good setpieces that seem to have been discarded along the way (I miss some of the mini-games, in particular driving the Desoto).
Don't get me wrong. I long for more traditional adventure games, but I think maybe it's a little unfair to get the angries/disrespects on for a company who've never claimed to be devoted to adventure gaming specifically.
I totally agree with whomever said earlier that it feels as though we're being treated more as customers than fans and that it would be great to see more dev activity on the forums here.
Fingers crossed that the announcements will have a good spread of stuff so that we all have something to be excited about. If not, I guess I'll be happy playing S&M and Tales until the next bunch of games are announced.
In many ways, I think this is what I've been missing the most. Telltale making headway on this alone would probably go a long way for me.
I know BttF hasn't been well-received by some of us old vets but it hasn't tempered my excitement for a Telltale-made Jurassic Park game one bit. Telltale and Jurassic Park, I couldn't ask for much more than that
I have faith it will be more of a challenge than BttF. If it's too easy the point will be missed entirely.
Maybe. I always got the impression that "whatever happens to best suit the IP" was their target though (I never really played Bone, any of the CSI games, or Wallace and Grommit, so I can't speak for those).
Who's to say that the less interactive, cinematic oriented, no-so-puzzling adventure game isn't some new hybrid genre that's just as legitimate as anything else?
I've read all your posts in this thread so far, and whilst I agree with most of what you're saying, I just can't draw the conclusion that Telltale have started making bad games. Games that aren't as good as prior ones perhaps, but there's been nothing that I've seen that I could really describe as Not Worth Having Been Done In The First Place™ (especially not BTTF).
Same here. Some more transparent bug/issue tracking would be massively welcome as well.
I agree. The interviews and stuff I've read suggest they're in tune with what the IP needs, and that's promising. Back to The Future on the other hand is more of a playful romp, and the games feel that way too IMO.
I guess that's because nobody's provided evidence that they've started making bad games, or even necessarily argued that. The main argument is that there's less game in their "games", and whether or not the conclusion is that this is a bad thing is subjective and the main reason people are disagreeing.
And maybe you're right, maybe this "interactive machinima" thing could be a legitimate genre, but it's disappointing to get from a company you know is capable of doing full games, it's disappointing to get it at the price of a full-featured game, and even if it is legitimate, the argument doesn't really apply here because Back to the Future is presenting itself as and trying to be an actual game, it's just failing miserably at it because someone wanted to remove the challenge.
Ron Gilbert (minded persons) for the rescue?
One thing i quite don't get is, why doesn't Ron Gilbert make new adventure games, maybe now at DoubleFine? Many times you can see him talking about what is wrong with other more adventure like games and often i do agree with him. So it seems that his ideas or his design philosophy is not this wrong and i would give him a chance to follow almost every business model from small steps up to bigger productions if he just would make an adventure game again. I wouldn't mind if it's online, episodic (but please in the right non corridor chunks), comes with simplistic but stylish flash graphics like DoubleFine's webcomics… but please make it a convincing adventure game at its core. Maybe it's time getting an account at DoubleFine.
A lack of innovation and very good adventure games for so many years.
Interesting adventure games the last years? TheDreamMachine and Machinarium. The rest doesn't proceed and instead seems to be stuck in a killerloop which produces uninspired 6-8 rated adventure games which means they come with better graphics, mocap and good sound&talkie but bad riddle design, boring dialogues, flat characters, stories which target a rather simple minded undemanding non adult audience. It's sad that especially germany is breeding so many of this superfluous games.
As for the news.
I can't watch all the material right now as i'm tethering with a really bad quality so…
What's Jurassic Park about? From the stills i saw, it looks like they worked a lot on the graphics, so it kind of looks like a shooter from the last generation. Will it be an adventure game, an interactive movie or a story shooter?
The Walking Dead, never read one of those, could be everything from great down to BTTF. Any information if this is closer to the zebras or astronauts targeted audience?
Fables, well, same question as above.
Why isn't there any kind of communication from TT these days?
Dear customers, we're announcing these games. The game x we design for a adult audience which is experienced with adventure games. The game y we produce for an audience whom we like to introduce to these type of games. blahblah…
Everything would be clear right from the start. "Okay, this makes sense, i better avoid this game and wait for that one instead." But somehow it just doesn't happen.
Personally for me TT went from
Stage 1: Excitement, great someone does adventure games again and moreover there are well known designers on board. Oh please let it be good. Sam&Max returns! There it is again, this invisible production quality. Okay a bit too easy but i understand this as we're only just beginning.
Stage 2: Fun&Hope, whilst things have improved here and there i'm still missing an overall ramp up to very good games. Just in a few episodes there was this feeling again, the excitement playing a jewel which can make these type of games so much fun.
Stage 3: Confusion, what are they still waiting for? How many years do they still need to introduce players to adventure games? Why don't they care about important aspects in adventure games which are important to me? Why do we get this superfluous reiterations? Why all those bugs lately?
Stage 4: Cynicism, hey guess what, it can get even worse. Would i mind if they would turn into a company writing printer drivers? Nope, not anymore. Not until they change something about their communication skills and their portfolio. No reason to buy their content anymore, nor to suggest it to other people. And as we lack singing copy programs these days it's also no fun to pirate them.
Balance is always hard in all games, balance hard vs. simple but also looks vs. interaction with environment, flow of the story vs. inserting another puzzle etc etc.
I do think they might be putting a bit much hay on their rake though, but somehow in these times you just don't survive if you release at least x amount of games a year. I bet they could have made tomi more like its predecessers but that would have took several years so again balance time vs. momentum.
It was. Then several of us apparently felt the need to vent and were given an opening. Some of us more vocally than others. Like I said, it was probably bad timing for the announcement to happen the day after Get Tannen came out.
Also, a quarter to a third of the 13 derailed pages were just Comrade Pants deciding who would play all the forumites in a film. Not sure where the hell THAT one came from.
Okay, it was because of one of my posts, but how was I supposed to know it would create an opening for that?
Jurassic Park
The living dead
Fables
that 3 down, 3? to go.
JP is one of the 5? I thought it was JP and 5 games.