The Walking Dead
Seeing as it seems like the obvious front runner for Telltale's new mystery project I thought we should start a thread about The Walking Dead. Just a place where people can share their thoughts on the comic books/TV series and whether or not people think it has the potential for a good game.
I live in Australia where the show hasn't aired yet so I haven't seen it but one of my friends has a copy so I'm probably going to end up watching it some time in the next couple of weeks. I have been interested in seeing it for some time now, largely for the big part Frank Darabont played in production. I've never read any of the comics.
I live in Australia where the show hasn't aired yet so I haven't seen it but one of my friends has a copy so I'm probably going to end up watching it some time in the next couple of weeks. I have been interested in seeing it for some time now, largely for the big part Frank Darabont played in production. I've never read any of the comics.
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Anyways, if telltale does make it (finger's crossed) i'm wondering how much humor they'll inject into the game.
Am I a horrible person for finding that to be fricking hilarious.
I kind of think they might make Michael Rooker's character into that character and scrap what the books did.
Well it's the most likely, given the clues. Mostly because nobody can think of anything else it could possibly be. I mean we won't know for sure until February 17th but I haven't heard any likely alternatives.
Why not Inception? Yes, it also says "TV" but maybe it's a misfired foreshadowing by someone who doesn't know about Inception?
I'll take anything but Walking Dead, really. Say it's a game about Friends and I'll buy it.
I think if it were Inception I think the media would have mentioned it was based off a recent film that was a box-office smash but it's a good thought and there is a game being made by an unknown publisher.
I mean you can say you don't want it to be The Walking Dead but that doesn't mean it's not still the most likely choice given the facts. I still haven't watched it yet so I have no idea if it'd make a good game or not.
That's a shame.
I haven't seen any of The Walking Dead.. but I'm already convinced its better than JP so I won't complain
No, I don't particularly 'hate' JP, I'm just not interested. Only game of TT I won't own so far.
The reason I don't want it to be The Walking Dead IS because I don't want to raise the amount of TTG games I wouldn't like to own one more.
Without going back to the games that made them great, like Sam & Max and Monkey Island, yes.
Last time I checked ToMI has been their most successful game thus far and it was the early success of Sam & Max seasons 1 and 2 brought them into the limelight. Not to mention that their biggest disappointment, sales-wise, was the licenced game Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures. So moving away form traditional adventure games forever hardly seems like a worrying issue.
Fan's of adventure games like games like MI and S&M and at the end of the day Telltale make their money off Adventure game fans. We are their niche.
Anyway, back on point I just watched the first episode of The Walking Dead with some of my friends and quite enjoyed it. It was very slow at points but never painfully so and there were most of the standard eye-rolling zombie movie cliches but the characters were interesting and there were some moments of great humor. I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the season.
I had seen the first episode of the show before, and I thought it was pretty good. It was well acted, the writing was okay, and the human drama was really intense and believable. I just read the first issue of the comic from that link. Man, compared to the show, that was really terrible. There was none of the detail, emotion, or character development that the show had. It felt like a rough skeleton of a plot, like the artist was just rushing to get through the story as quickly as possible without stopping to develop and flesh anything out. The writing in the show was alright, but the dialogue in the comic was really bad. It almost felt like placeholder dialogue, like he was going to go back and rewrite it later.
Well thankfully Telltale don't have a department that exclusively churn out Star Wars games at an unsustainable rate :rolleyes: The history of LucasArts is well documented. I can't see Telltale going down that path because aside from a couple of poker games and a puzzle game, they exclusively make adventure games and the most profitable kinds of adventure games are the the quirky fun ones like Monkey Island. I can't see them up and abandoning their market, a market that has been very good to them, by completely changing the kind of games they make.
Edit: It's also worth pointing out that several Telltale employees used to work at the LusasArts Adventure Game department and were spurned by that whole experience so they have the benefit of hindsight.
It's not like the adventure genre hadn't at one time "treated LucasArts well", it's not like they stopped being profitable. Other things became MORE profitable. If a new audience for action blockbuster games is far larger and more profitable than the one you're in, then you can be sure you'll be tossed out like last month's leftovers.
You can't see a company wanting to make more money? Give it time. Like a few more companies, even after massive amounts of staff leave the building. Over time, you'll learn that it's not something that is impossible. Hell, it's not even a possibility, it's a law of the fucking universe.
I see what you are saying and your point is well made but I still disagree. First off Telltale doesn't have a lucrative licence like Star Wars just sitting in it's back pocket like LucasArts did. Every game they licence they will owe a share of the profits to the rightful owners, thus diminishing their returns. Second off even the licence games they make, like Back to the Future and Wallice & Gromit, are designed just like the classic adventure games (with the exception of being episodic). They are still fun and quirky adventures in the same vein and structure as the LucasArts classics. I'm also willing to bet that future games, like Jurassic Park, will be as well, though admittedly they have to experiment to try and ad an element of danger, but at the end of the day it will still be an adventure game.
LucasArts was an exception in the industry because they had licences like Star Wars and Indy sitting around that appeal far more to mainstream audiences. LucasArts is sinking its own ship though, the Star Wars licence is becoming stagnant, more and more gamers are realising that rushed crappy games like the Force Unleashed just isn't worth their time. If it wasn't for the mega hype surrounding their licences they'd probably already be under.
Last I checked, adventure games need to contain puzzles. In their last two games, they've done their best to deny and hide the existence of in-game puzzles. Back to the Future, their latest game, provides not one, not two, not three, but four sources of hints for a game that has very few points of possible interaction, a very small inventory, and a game design that prods you with the answer at every given opportunity no matter how much you try to shake it off. This is because they want to crack the "Grossman's Mother-In-Law" demographic, because once that person is drawn in, they most assuredly have everyone(as per the referenced article). Telltale chasing a non-adventure audience isn't speculation on my part, it's the current reality.
No, they aren't. The Force Unleashed broke sales records, and the sales for the second game were strong on both major console platforms for which it was released. It's nice to live in a world where good guys win, where poor judgement and lazy, slipshod efforts lead to financial failure. But this world, the one that we actually live in, is not that world.
If it wasn't for the Star Wars license, they might be under. And as far as Telltale's finances are concerned, if a certain license puts them well into the black regardless of effort put into it, I think that Telltale will do what everyone else in recorded human history has done and follow the money to more mainstream pastures.
BUT it has to be a shooter.... You honestly think that TTG would say no?
Now lets say THAT shooter puts them on the map as a company that makes great shooters.. and they make more money doing that than Sam & Max.... eventually they would say... "you know we make more money doing this why are we still making adventure games for a small group of gamers when we can make a bunch more making shooters?"
all that is an example but its pretty much what killed adventure games in the past.
This is true but you seem to think Telltale is going to find a licence that will allow them abandon the pursuit of quality. I personally don't see that happening for reasons I will outline below.
That you imply that the BttF doesn't contain puzzles is personal opinion. It contains puzzles just like the LucasArts games of old, they just aren't as challenging so you have decided to deem them invalid. I won't deny that they are much easier, because they are, but making games easier is an industry wide epidemic.
The simple truth is that all games are easier now than they were twenty years ago. Adventure games are not alone. Mario Galaxy is a cakewalk compared to the original Mario Bros. Your modern day shooter can't even be muttered in the same breath with Wolfenstein.
I personally have no problems with Telltale adding hint options to their games as long as they continue to keep the option to turn them off. Turning away potential costumers because their games are too hard doesn't serve anyone. Telltale just need to find that balance between satisfying the hardcore games without scaring away potential newcomers. How well they do at that will always be a matter of debate.
LucasArts survive because of the mega hype surrounding their licences. They are very lucky in this regard. If a game like The Force Unleashed didn't have a Star Wars Licence it would sell like garbage and I personally believe that future FU games sales will suffer as a result of the poor quality of their predecessors.
You are working under the assumption that Telltale will find a magical licence that will allow them to make money without putting any effort in. These licences are very rare and usually get gobbled up by the major publishers like EA and Activision. You can remain pessimistic if you like but I just don't see it happening. The Telltale dream licence was Monkey Island and I believe that is their best series to date, though that is just my personal opinion.
Edit:
I think that would be stupid business by both parties. A bad move from Universal to ask a niche adventure game developer to abandon all that they are good at to make a shooter and bad business on Telltales part to accept a game so outside their field of expertise.
While it is true that game companies aren't confined to one genre, Retro Studios is a fantastic example if a company that switched genres when they made Donkey Kong Country Returns, I just don't see it happening for Telltale. They've established themselves as a maker of adventure games and have created a very successful business model from it. Changing all that to make a kind of game they have no experience in would be incredibly risky for them.
I've watched the first three episodes of The Walking Dead and so far I'm quite enjoying it. There is a good mix of likable characters and fun to hate characters and humor is good.
It would be well suited to an adventure game format. A straight action game wouldn't make as much sense. Characters are discouraged to fire loud weapons like guns and are forced to use their brains more to escape predicaments (read: zombies). I don't know how the danger would be handled but I think it has a lot of potential to work as an adventure game (not that anything has been confirmed
Also: this!
Also, not reading the comic? For shame.
I don't really read many comics but after I finish the show I think I'll look into it
Also, I really think the comic should be read first because the show is adapted from it, and it gives you a far greater understanding of where the show comes from. You can go "Oh, I see what they did there. They moved this element up a few episodes". Or "oh, I see, they added those characters to this scenario. Actually, it probably works better on TV.", and "OH MY GOD WHERE DID THAT COME FROM" and "OH MY GOD WHERE DID THAT COME FROM IT IS AWESOME". Seriously, the show is a GREAT supplement to the comic book, and you don't have to read much of it to catch up to the show's run. I highly advise you to change priorities on this one.
Also, I'm not sure what might be different in Austraila, but I assume you get at least one of these.