Worrying about the negative feedback from these new licenses.
Ever since the big press announcement, I've been reading nothing but negative reaction on some of the gaming sites I go to. This is mostly from people who have never followed TTG or even played adventure games in general. They are looking at the trailer for Jurassic Park and calling it crap, that the game won't be that good, and that the property is even lifeless now. This trailer is usually coupled with the announcement of the Fables and Walking Dead game, and several different gaming sites I've jumped around have a community that is wanting something different than an adventure game for these licenses.
Coming from an objective view point, I think the main problem is the licenses themselves. Back to the Future wasn't a bad game, but a lot of fans of that series that I've seen review about the game have never played an adventure game at all. I watched so many Let's Play videos after discovering this and saw that, yeah, they don't understand the mechanics of a point-and-click game where you explore and figure out puzzles.
After watching the developer demo of Jurassic Park, I feel (objectively) that while the adventure game mechanics have been changed to help with those that have never played one in their life, the other half of those mechanics during the action moments may be seen as the actual game while the puzzles will be seen as annoying. It's similar to a review I read of Epic Mickey where they said the quest mechanics of the game killed any fun they had playing each of the levels.
Just to close this properly, I want to state that I am very excited for these properties to be released from a company that has grown quite a lot since I first found them all those years ago. You guys deserve to make more games because you make great games. I just hope people new to any of the adventure game mechanics will give the other aspect of the game a chance instead of throwing it in the trash saying "All you do 90% of the time is walk! The game sucks!"
Coming from an objective view point, I think the main problem is the licenses themselves. Back to the Future wasn't a bad game, but a lot of fans of that series that I've seen review about the game have never played an adventure game at all. I watched so many Let's Play videos after discovering this and saw that, yeah, they don't understand the mechanics of a point-and-click game where you explore and figure out puzzles.
After watching the developer demo of Jurassic Park, I feel (objectively) that while the adventure game mechanics have been changed to help with those that have never played one in their life, the other half of those mechanics during the action moments may be seen as the actual game while the puzzles will be seen as annoying. It's similar to a review I read of Epic Mickey where they said the quest mechanics of the game killed any fun they had playing each of the levels.
Just to close this properly, I want to state that I am very excited for these properties to be released from a company that has grown quite a lot since I first found them all those years ago. You guys deserve to make more games because you make great games. I just hope people new to any of the adventure game mechanics will give the other aspect of the game a chance instead of throwing it in the trash saying "All you do 90% of the time is walk! The game sucks!"
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Most writers at gaming news outlets can't see past the little bubble they live in that they call gaming. Anything outside of their experience is bad and doomed to failure, even when it succeeds. By and large if they don't like it, they can't imagine why anyone else would.
I guess it's not that different than the media for most entertainment, but it still makes me want to *facepalm* on a regular basis, about so many things.
In short, don't worry about the whining of mainstream gamers. (Bear in mind these are the same people that can't fathom how Wii Fit sells so many copies.) TTG can make niche games and still be wildly successful.
My point is they don't understand true gaming, and only want a game where they can "frag n00bs" online and talk about how awesome the graphics are so they can upload videos to youtube of them playing the game on full graphics and posting smug comments about how everyone else sucks because they have a slower computer.
Also, I predict "Will The Walking Dead be like Left 4 Dead?" will become the new "Will Back to the Future be like Grand Theft Auto?"
I get where people thought of that for BTTF, for the freeroam timetravel, but how would the walking dead do that.
That would be for people who have never read the walking dead or played the telltale games.
I know the Fables fans I know are excited at the idea of the comic book becoming an adventure game, so I'm not really worried about that license.
If a person thinks an adventure game is bad for the mere reason that it is an adventure game then to hell with them. There are people in the world who like adventure games, deal with it. They can go play the latest Call of Duty game or whatever and everyone's happy.
The biggest problem I foresee is quality control. These Back to the Future episodes seem pretty sloppy compared to earlier games, how much worse is it going to be when they are working on more projects simultaneously?
The property was pretty lifeless before Telltale picked it up. I mean there hasn't been a JP game in like what, eight years? And there hasn't been a movie in even longer. If anything Telltale have given the property life.
I'm sure TTG has grown since picking up the Universal licenses. I mean, just look at Sam & Max. Each of the seasons got better than the last in almost every area! Plus, they've been hiring since Monkey Island (or at least that Job Listing has been up since before then and has yet to be taken down).
I'm sure they are able to pull off developing five titles at once and still pump out quality work with high quality story. While I wish they could go back to the "One game a year" model, I know that can't happen. They aren't Pixar in the sense that TTG produces AAA money makers that are a guarenteed profit-bringer. But, again, that doesn't mean that they can't put out quality work.
Zeek, I think the quality control (or lack of) Timmeh2006 was referring to was not the about the story elements but regarding bugs and glitches. In that respect it is fair to say that Telltale's games have most definitely been getting progressively worse.
That's precisely what I am referring to.
It's too early to judge the story yet, but I think it's safe to say the presentation of it has been lacking in almost every respect. I never really had any bother with the Sam and Max games, and while the controls for Monkey Island drew some ire it never put me off. This game, though, interacting with it is just all around unpleasant.
I put up with it and got used to direct control for tomi because I love the game so much but couldn't be bothered to finish my free episode of bttf because I found trying to get marty to move across the screen fast enough to complete the latter stage of the lab puzzle just too damn frustrating.
I knew what to do but found the controls too unresponsive to complete the task in time.
I hate timed sequences anyway in adventure games but can usually master them eventually with proper point and click but found it just too slow and clunky with the way marty moves.
I'm won't be buying any of the new licences as I don't think that telltale are catering to an adventure game fan anymore.
What kind of bugs were in BTTF?
Episode 2 bug list
There's been plenty of bugs, glitches and generally sloppy presentation.
These new games don't say *anything* to me. Besides Puzzle Agent 2. And Jurrassic Park? I can hardly get interested in that.
Well, King's Quest does speak to me, but I wouldn't have chosen to put it in the hands of former LucasArts developers. I love ToMI. I love Sam & Max. However, those games are a totally different style from King's Quest, not to mention that Back to the Future is so easy a three-headed monkey could beat it.
King's Quest is hard. The puzzles are often baffling and the ease, frequency and suddenness by which you can die forces you to "save early and save often." But these things are part of the game experience. It's part of what makes you feel a sense of accomplishment. It's a good series, especially when you include the fan-made games from AGDI and IA. Telltale doesn't strike me as a team of hardcore King's Quest/Sierra Online fans, which is what is I fear is necessary to get the job done right.
When they are, they still aim for the mainstream audience. If you'll notice, the mainstream audience asks for help with the Back to the Future puzzles in the Help forum within the first hour of release. And even worse than THAT:
Even when they don't WANT to compromise the series, they will anyway to fulfill the home team strategy, that home team being a LucasArts successor, not a Sierra one.
I think the word that comes to mind is: mediocrity.
I want wonderful, compelling, entertaining, and necessarily difficult games.
I don't want Telltale to placate the masses at the expense of sacrificing the loyalty of hardcore fans.
I think Back to the Future has been extremely effective at one thing: demonstrating that no matter how much you try to simplify things to appeal to the lowest common denominator, at some point it becomes clear that a good portion of the audience you're targeting just won't get it and will become frustrated. Most of us are here because we've played adventure games in the past and enjoy that kind of game. The problem with using a license to draw in a larger audience and then dumbing the game down into what amounts to a tutorial on how to play adventure games is that you end up alienating your loyal customers, introducing a few people to the genre who take a liking to it without actually giving them an idea what a good adventure game is like, and confusing the hell out of anybody who wouldn't have been a fan of adventure games to begin with. At that point, you're better off just making it a completely different type of game entirely or appealing to your core audience instead.
Back to the Future would've sold on its license alone no matter what. It had the potential to be an incredible game. If it hadn't been dumbed down so much, the core audience would've been pleased, newcomers inclined to enjoy adventure games would've gotten a taste of what good puzzle design is like, and newcomers not inclined to enjoy adventure games would be right where they're at now, if maybe picking up the slack in whining from the core fans.
So I guess what I'm really trying to say is that I wonder what sort of fanbase Telltale is going to end up with when the dust settles, and how their loyal customer pool will compare to pre-BttF.
my friend , who is a very very casual gamer, was very excited to learn of a JP game- untill he read up on the kind of game TT makes. I tried explaining to him it could work, but he would have none of it- he had hoped for a more traditional game like experience (and to be honest, it would have been my preference as well). But whereas I am willing to be open, he seemed disinterested- and even more disheartened to learn TT were handling the walking dead game.
it made me wonder what the casual audience who love the movies but not so much adventure games think in general- anyone have any other experience like mine, positive or negative, with a more casual audience?
...
I make friends with pretentious people for some reason.
The extra distinction doesn't matter much, though. The hardcore non-adventure gamers will either end up in the same camp as the core adventure gamers (alienated by watered-down gameplay, as with Dashing's friend) or with the casual gamers (totally uninterested in adventure-style games, as with Adamantium's friend). The third outcome seems to be the one Telltale is looking for, the hardcore non-adventure and casual gamers that are drawn to the genre by simpler puzzles, but can the third category really outnumber the first?
I have an interesting one. One of my friends was trying to get his girlfriend into adventures games (something for her to do while he plays Counter-Strike lol). He wanted her to try Broken Sword, a fine choice to be sure, but I suggested that BttF might be a better game to introduce someone with no former experience to adventure games.
I pointed out that it was more player friendly than the old games and that if you got stuck you could get hints, to which she replied, "I don't want any hints!" This really made me think, Telltale are trying to open their audience up to more than just hardcore adventure game players but nobody wants to be babied, even casuals who have never even tried adventure games before in their life.
By making their new games too easy I believe Telltale are doing themselves a grave disservice, not just because it alienates older fans, but because by trying to make a game that can be played by everyone they are actually making a game that appeals to no one.
If Telltale continues down this path nobody wins. They will have lost their niche and players new and old will be turned off by their games.
I agree with this.
I dont think games that are Ninja Gaiden 2 style hard (IE for the sake of it and cheap with it) are what people want, but people also dont want to feel like something is dumbed down for them. I personally think part of the great things about games is that you feel like you are experiencing it all and working it out for yourself.
I mean how fun is it if there was hints telling you everything to do, where to go, and find every collectible in the game from the start? It would render it all pointless, and the discovery and doing it yourself. Guides and such are useful for people who are genuinely stuck and need help. But thats different from hand holding and providing solutions with no need for thought at all.
I also can see Dashing's point- I am open minded about these games, and would love to play them- but I cant honestly say adventure games would have been what I PERSONALLY wanted to see from JP and Walking Dead games. I am not insulting, Im really looking forward to seeing what TT can whip up (well assuming they are ever released on my console of choice the 360) but I can see why his friend lacks enthusiasm.
What's important is for Telltale to capture people like me: people who get so excited about one particular game that they end up buying almost every other completed game Telltale has while waiting in between episodes. I don't think BTTF is that kind of game which incites the sort of spark in people to want to buy up everything Telltale has. It should have been. It could have been, but it's not.
Fun fact: a group of camels is called a flock, or perhaps a caravan if you want to get all fancy.
Hey Dash, you kind of cherry-picked the worst from Sinaz's post. I actually feel a little sorry for whoever works on the KQ licence, since they'll have a pack of rabid nostalgia-crazed fans ready to tear them down for the smallest of faliings.
But yeah...
I don't like realistic gore or violent death and wouldn't buy a game where those are likely to be significant elements. I'm also not very good with the manual dexterity required to play 3D shooters. There's probably a sizeable section of the population who feels the same way.
Would it make sense to remove gore, death, and reflex-based gameplay from a 3D zombie shooter, to ensure it's accessible and appeals to the widest possible audience? You won't have much of a game left when those things are gone.
"I can't give you a sure-fire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time." - Herbert Bayard Swope
Hi.
Funnily enough, I actually considered this while writing that post, but I was too lazy to look it up, and herd is usually the safe bet with land mammals. I suppose pack is fairly common among land mammals as well, but a pack of camels is something else entirely...
But I think these snippets on their own are pretty damning for the project. I don't feel like focusing on the specific parts in which the poster admits that they are going to compromise and aim for a casual audience is wrong, and I don't feel like the included parts of the post were a minor mistake, slip of the tongue, or otherwise rendered irrelevant by context or other surrounding statements and actions. I think these portions of the original post indicate a deliberate, intentional direction for the project that should be at the very least very troubling for anyone that considers themselves King's Quest fans.
Hey! Great to seeya, Lozza!
But I think it's time to step up the game and make something new, also (but thats just an opinion) these games are made pretty fast (That feeling might have to do with bttf being so short :P ) so as an adventure game lover I like to see a new adventure with quite some character building and something of which we can say, "Look That's Telltale"
How much of Rocky's screen time is taken up by actual boxing? If you make a Rocky game, what should the core gameplay be? Courting Adrian, or boxing?
This discussion reminds me of the Fight Club game they made for PS2. Game's purely about fighting.
And was it any good? Nope. I'm not sure a Fight Club game could work anyway, but that's certainly not the way to go.
Same with a Rocky game. They could use the license to make a boxing game but it would neither be a good boxing game nor would it complement the film's story.
Taking the most obvious aspect of a movie and turning it into a game is where they always go wrong. That's why there's never been a decent Harry Potter - I'm not suggesting it should be an adventure game but the story should've been a key feature, above the waving of magic wands.
I think (and I hope I'm right) Telltale have found a way to tell a story while still maintaining the suspense of the films. It won't be perfect but I'm sure it'll be better than just throwing some dinosaurs at the player and expecting them to shoot them.
We'll know come April I guess.
http://www.mobygames.com/game/rocky