... Maybe when I can post on a computer I'll edit this with a quote of what I wrote on Mixnmojo about the subject. (Which feels weird after saying I couldn't think of anything to add, but eh. It's an important topic. Maybe it'll shock some life back into the discussion ... )
Pooyan!!!!! I remember this game when I owned it on the Tandy Color Computer 3! Still have it actually! Though it's on a 5.25" disk and my disk drive doesn't really work anymore.
This is the version I played and my favourite, however.
That really wasn't necessary. Can we cut it out with this analogy thing? It's choking out whatever conversation is left on this topic.
Oh excuse me for joining in on a joke... :rolleyes:
Like I said I agree with light_rises and firmly believe that while I do love what TT have achieved. Their gameplay, or lack thereof, does need to be addressed.
That really wasn't necessary. Can we cut it out with this analogy thing? It's choking out whatever conversation is left on this topic.
What do you want to discuss? That people outside this forum who are interested in these kind of games sometimes also have a brain, some taste and come to similar conclusions?
EVERYTHING needs to be addressed. TTG need to seriously consider whether they're outgrowing the business/production model that made them successful in the first place, before it strangles them.
What is it about mixnmojo that they are so generous everytime it comes to TT? Sometimes it's almost spooky, as if they would have played another version of a game. If there exist special mixnmojo-versions, i want those too! Even if they dare to write something critical, it still sounds so friendly and noncritical.
EVERYTHING needs to be addressed. TTG need to seriously consider whether they're outgrowing the business/production model that made them successful in the first place, before it strangles them.
This is a perfect way of describing Telltale's current situation.
Growth and development of the company has, from what I've gathered, been pretty massive in the past few years. With this growth has come greater episodes and games that are a little further up the 'epic'-scale, with each new game/season being something even more impressive than the last. However, with each season there seemed to be a decreasing amount of actual polish and refinement; this came in the form of bugs. Each game produced more bugs than its predecessor - this was a sign of the cracks showing in Telltale's schedule; I think this was an initial sign that Telltale were overloading and overworking themselves. However, the overall end product was something of general quality.
This is not something that can be said for 'Back to the Future'. For the first time we are seeing cracks appear in other forms than bugs and glitches; these cracks and faults are appearing in different aspects of the game - gameplay (the worst offender), puzzle design, atmosphere and even writing at times. It's the first time I've seen Telltale fail in the creative areas of a game, as opposed to just technical problems. 'BttF' is arguably TTG's biggest and most demanding undertaking yet, and it's evident that they're trying to make something great here, but they're unable to do so, and are only achieving mediocrity. The format and schedule of distribution simply can't facilitate Telltale's goals in this instance; what they're trying to achieve is being held back by the restrictions put in place by the work schedule (or 'production model') that they've created.
For sure, the monthly episodic releases were great back when Telltale were making fun, charming little adventures that could be easily self-contained. But if they want to pursue greater, more ambitious projects such as 'BttF', then they have to abandon their production schedule or allow their final products to suffer.
Teltale plays it safe, LucasArts will go skydiving and rock climbing sometimes but takes precautions, and Sierra scales Mount Everest.
That's an amusing choice of analogy, RD. I remember an account of...Ken Williams himself, I believe...about a group whitewater rafting trip that employees of both Sierra and then-Lucasfilm Games went on together. If the companies could get along, why can't the fans?
Goes to show how appropriate the name "Sierra" indeed was. And all three company names actually. LucasArts made some great works of art....not really a big stretch or realisation I guess. And Telltale merely "tells tales" from franchises that people already know.
What is it about mixnmojo that they are so generous everytime it comes to TT? Sometimes it's almost spooky, as if they would have played another version of a game. If there exist special mixnmojo-versions, i want those too! Even if they dare to write something critical, it still sounds so friendly and noncritical.
Well, we're a fan site. Specifically of lucasarts-related thing, with particular fondness for the Good Old Days. It's a niche that manages to be pretty specific and pretty vague at the same time, but essentially, we very much want to like the games we talk about. We have a lot of goodwill towards the developers and it's probably no coincidence that more than one has ended up working at TTG.
Now, if it were up to me, we'd be a LOT harsher on TT lately. I was talking to another mojo-guy about it only the other day. But the thing is, we're all different people with different approaches (my current approach seems to be to disappear for several months, but check me out next month for the review of BTTF ep 3, and possibly a podcast, though scheduling is hard) and we all have varying levels of tolerance for such things. I think if you look at the latest review of BTTF2, there's a good chunk of well-thought-out criticism in with the praise.
Well, i don't frequent mixnmojo on a regular basis but i really like and appreciate the site due to the wonderful The DIG museum - whoever did this, tell him/them/her my greetings :O) -, hosting certain nice tools and the overall comfy mood on there. Secondly i'm playing computer games since the very beginning and especially have a very strong relationship to adventure games, so i do like those games a lot but i'm also a friend of truth and clear words, it's better in the longrun, especially for emotional persons.
Anyway the last times i read something on mixnmojo i got the impression that the reviews or sentiments always were a little bit beyond tolerance and more sounded if someone wanted to try to get a job at TT or write something nice for a friend there because if you have a more solid understanding of these types of games and especially if you're a fan of the LucasArts classics, then you somehow should have known better. You can always try to see things from different points of views and pick out positive aspects this way but if something goes wrong and doesn't feel right, at least i feel the desire to say so as well. I lately missed an, let's say more well founded individual objectivity there.
I think you have to differ on a individual level as well. Whilst this somehow seems to be the company's direction, a company also exists of individuals.
My hope is that those who are making adventures not only for a job but also because they love them have some sort of influence on the decision process as well, in smaller good companies this can be the case. I hope that they recognise these shortcomings and stand up. As they are making these games, they should notice it firstly and if they don't, well there is the forum to read. And if they can't alter something for the better then they might leave the company and build their own adventure startup. Worst case scenario: they simply can't do any better or don't want to.
TT's digital distribution channel for sure is one of their biggest achievements and beside of the sometimes still annoying DRM it's very well done but with all those digital distribution channels like the AppStore, iTunes, Steam ..., playing games online, this should much more doable than many years before. Actually i really don't understand how antiquated germany companies are operating here.
Anyway i really hope that with the upcoming diversity, we'll also see adventure games returning. If not, i'll vote with my money and hope that others do this as well.
Sure that article is right. TT are cashing in on nostalgia, but discussing won't do anything.
Then what will? We're fans, we give feedback on a company's products, and if that company listens to its fans, then perhaps changes can be made; it increases the chances of changes being made and it gives companies such as TTG an idea of where they're going wrong and how they can improve.
TT is a business, which exists to make money. As long as it works they don't care whether their games are quality or not.
Actually, I think Telltale sort of do care; they seem to have cared in the past, so I assume they'll continue to care.
If you have a problem with TT, stop buying their games until the company pulls it's head in.
What, be complacent and simply wait for Telltale to stop one day and collectively think that there may be something wrong with their games and production schedule? Yeah, that's loads better than actually giving feedback on the problems that we're experiencing. Why on earth should we be giving our input? You're right, we should just sit back, wait and hope that things change out of the blue.
If there's one company that has a record of listening to it's fans it's Telltale.
Look at Sam and Max season 1, they took the criticism on the second episode to heart and by the time the fourth came they had incorporated a lot of the feedback into it.
Same goes with Tales of Monkey island!
(Although they never did place that guy stuck between buildings in Sam and Max Season 3, although they said they would...)
If there's one company that has a record of listening to it's fans it's Telltale.
Look at Sam and Max season 1, they took the criticism on the second episode to heart and by the time the fourth came they had incorporated a lot of the feedback into it.
Same goes with Tales of Monkey island!
(Although they never did place that guy stuck between buildings in Sam and Max Season 3, although they said they would...)
There was a pre-order thread in which you could ask the developers questions.
I asked them if there would be more funny side-gags, like in the comics there were things that I only noticed in my fifth read-through, like a man who's stuck between buildings. In short I asked if a guy who was stuck between buildings would be in the game. To which Chuck replied, "Well, now there has to be."
Of course I'm not up to my fifth playthrough though, so maybe I missed him.
I haven't played the series that people seem to be complaining about the most (BttF), but to me TTG has improved pretty consistently as they've gone along. I think Sam & Max S2 was a *lot* better than S1, and though ToMI wasn't perfect, it got a lot better in later episodes.
That said, I can't disagree with anything in the OP. I do wish Telltale would start taking some risks in game design. Going as they are, they will probably keep their current audience, but they won't broaden it. I hope that is their objective with the upcoming KQ games.
Actually, I don't think BttF represents a marked decline in any one area. All the problems of it are problems TTG has always had, but this time they're all at once.
While I do agree with most of the complaints against BTTF, I don't see it as the harbinger of doom that most people here seem to believe it to be. BTTF was clearly an attempt at a hyper-casual adventure game marketed not only at people who don't normally play adventure games, but at people who don't generally play video games at all. And I believe that this is because BTTF is such a widely-loved film that they tailored it to families and nongamers, and didn't want anybody quitting the game because they couldn't figure something out... and so the result was that there is very little in the game that you have to work to figure out. I also think that their desire to make the puzzles in the game resemble the sort of predicaments that Marty would get into in the movies, and to make the solutions resemble the things that Marty would do in those situations, resulted in puzzles that would abnormally straightforward.
I think that this was a flawed approach, and I think that even if there was some logic behind the theory, they executed it in an underwhelming manner. But I don't believe at all that this is the new standard, or that this is really where their "increasingly easy puzzles" slope was headed. I think this is a detour downward in puzzle difficulty because this particular license called for what was basically a child-friendly approach.
Now, for instance, King's Quest. Do I think that's going to make Rather Dashing happy? No, I expect he'll hate it. But is it going to be another barely-interactive "game" like BTTF? I strongly doubt it. Telltale knows that people have certain expectations about what a King's Quest game entails, and they also know that anybody who has even heard of King's Quest has infinitely more gaming experience than the average BTTF fan off the street. The audience is different so the game will be different.
I guess what I'm saying is that while the difficulty may continue to creep in the direction it was going from ToMI to The Devil's Playhouse, I expect that BTTF will be viewed as an outlier when we look back at the pattern after the next few games.
Then do so. The first episode is free and does an excellent job of communicating why it's terrible far better than I ever could.
I don't really feel the need to play something I know I'm not going to enjoy. Suffice to say I agree with most of the points made in the thread, even if I've enjoyed most of the Telltale-made games I've played.
Actually, I don't think BttF represents a marked decline in any one area. All the problems of it are problems TTG has always had, but this time they're all at once.
I disagree as with BTTF TT content never lacked a adventure experience to such a degree, this definitely was a new low. According to the tips/puzzles, TT never targeted such a unexperienced/dumb audience. The music never was this uninspired. Until BTTF they had a taste for style and all fit together rather nicely. Before BTTF they also did 4 (5 with Puzzle Agent) point&click series.
A few of us were talking about this on Skype a few days ago, and someone said that Telltale was trying to be something they weren't. I said that they were trying to be Popcap. (I was corrected by someone who said that wasn't right, that Popcap's games were harder than BttF.) I just now realized the significance of my comment, having just remembered that Facebook game.
And at the time, I had just dismissed the Facebook game. I refuse to get a Facebook and couldn't play it anyway, and I figured it was just to drum up hype. And I would've been right, but I didn't realize at the time just who it was targeting. And while they may have tried to sell the game to us (and to a large extend succeeded, given that we're all here bitching about it), this makes it all the more clear to me that from day one, this game was never for us.
Which would've been fine, there's nothing wrong with branching out to a new audience, except for two things. First, given the reaction that most of us who had played a Telltale game before had to episode one, I think it's safe to say that they didn't even begin to make it clear to us that this game was not for us, that it would be so much easier, or even easier at all, unless you count the gradual difficulty decline before the sudden drop. Second, they seem to have either underestimated the audience that the game is targeted at or they're targeting an audience even more casual than that, in which case the audience they're after isn't interested anyway.
So I guess that other than treading old ground, my point in this post is that before I felt bad that the game was so insultingly easy, and this seems to be Telltale's mission statement now. Now that I've considered the pre-release marketing and the way it was marketed to us, I feel as though I've been lied to. I know that Telltale never actually spoke any falsities to us, but something about the way things happened feels decidedly dishonest just the same.
I actually felt that 'Back to the Future' had more problems than just being easy, though; I just found it so incredibly bland. It had no charm, none of it had any charisma, and everything felt forced. This is nothing that I've found in a TTG game before, and I don't know why it's the case this time around. I thought that I could pin this down to the schedule structure as well, but writing (which gives games like these most of their charm) is something completed early on in the piece; it's something that I assume wouldn't need to be rushed like everything else. Yet, it's still boring and tedious to listen to.
I'm thinking that the reason for this may be the fact that the humour of 'BttF' simply doesn't suit Telltale's style of humour, or they're also dumbing down the humour for a wider audience. If the latter is the case, then I would be quite annoyed, because that would be 'selling out' and compromising the actual quality of your product - something that developing adventure games should not be about.
I think Telltale did a fantastic job with ToMI. Sure, it referenced it's previous games but most Monkey Island games do. They stayed away from expected things like insult sword fighting and twisted the characters a bit. I think the mistook the values of self-reference for nostalgia, which would be easy to do after 9 years.
I know BttF isn't complete but it's clear that this game has a completely different target audience. While changing a target audience seems risky, going to the causal market seems, in a way, "playing it safe". Right now, between Facebook, the Wii, and the iPhone, jumping into the causal market feels like a safe move.The Facebook game with the easiness of the episodes, combined with the popularity of the franchise, show the game had to reach more people. Sadly it seems the target audience had shifted, and wasn't broadened.
I think reaching out to new gamers is great. I love that more people play games. But I don't want a decline in quality/difficulty to reach them.
I feel it seems like they're playing it safe with their recent release(s) but I also think what they have planned in the near future is completely opposite from safe, other than Puzzle Agent 2 (as it's probably the safest option they've gone for). There's a lot of unknowns regarding the new games that are coming and they've got a lot of different fans to please in each case, some who are more vocal than others. Taking on something like King's Quest isn't playing it safe to me. Sam & Max season 4 would be playing it safe. So while BttF hasn't met the general approval of the more vocal posters (but I bet it's still classed as a success) I still think the future is promising.
Comments
Um.
... Maybe when I can post on a computer I'll edit this with a quote of what I wrote on Mixnmojo about the subject. (Which feels weird after saying I couldn't think of anything to add, but eh. It's an important topic. Maybe it'll shock some life back into the discussion ... )
Pooyan!!!!! I remember this game when I owned it on the Tandy Color Computer 3! Still have it actually! Though it's on a 5.25" disk and my disk drive doesn't really work anymore.
This is the version I played and my favourite, however.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8ELbfAeADs
Oh excuse me for joining in on a joke... :rolleyes:
Like I said I agree with light_rises and firmly believe that while I do love what TT have achieved. Their gameplay, or lack thereof, does need to be addressed.
What do you want to discuss? That people outside this forum who are interested in these kind of games sometimes also have a brain, some taste and come to similar conclusions?
What is it about mixnmojo that they are so generous everytime it comes to TT? Sometimes it's almost spooky, as if they would have played another version of a game. If there exist special mixnmojo-versions, i want those too! Even if they dare to write something critical, it still sounds so friendly and noncritical.
This is a perfect way of describing Telltale's current situation.
Growth and development of the company has, from what I've gathered, been pretty massive in the past few years. With this growth has come greater episodes and games that are a little further up the 'epic'-scale, with each new game/season being something even more impressive than the last. However, with each season there seemed to be a decreasing amount of actual polish and refinement; this came in the form of bugs. Each game produced more bugs than its predecessor - this was a sign of the cracks showing in Telltale's schedule; I think this was an initial sign that Telltale were overloading and overworking themselves. However, the overall end product was something of general quality.
This is not something that can be said for 'Back to the Future'. For the first time we are seeing cracks appear in other forms than bugs and glitches; these cracks and faults are appearing in different aspects of the game - gameplay (the worst offender), puzzle design, atmosphere and even writing at times. It's the first time I've seen Telltale fail in the creative areas of a game, as opposed to just technical problems. 'BttF' is arguably TTG's biggest and most demanding undertaking yet, and it's evident that they're trying to make something great here, but they're unable to do so, and are only achieving mediocrity. The format and schedule of distribution simply can't facilitate Telltale's goals in this instance; what they're trying to achieve is being held back by the restrictions put in place by the work schedule (or 'production model') that they've created.
For sure, the monthly episodic releases were great back when Telltale were making fun, charming little adventures that could be easily self-contained. But if they want to pursue greater, more ambitious projects such as 'BttF', then they have to abandon their production schedule or allow their final products to suffer.
Either that, or you seem to have something against Ron Gilbert, and thus is overly sensitive to the credit he gets.
That's an amusing choice of analogy, RD. I remember an account of...Ken Williams himself, I believe...about a group whitewater rafting trip that employees of both Sierra and then-Lucasfilm Games went on together. If the companies could get along, why can't the fans?
Well, we're a fan site. Specifically of lucasarts-related thing, with particular fondness for the Good Old Days. It's a niche that manages to be pretty specific and pretty vague at the same time, but essentially, we very much want to like the games we talk about. We have a lot of goodwill towards the developers and it's probably no coincidence that more than one has ended up working at TTG.
Now, if it were up to me, we'd be a LOT harsher on TT lately. I was talking to another mojo-guy about it only the other day. But the thing is, we're all different people with different approaches (my current approach seems to be to disappear for several months, but check me out next month for the review of BTTF ep 3, and possibly a podcast, though scheduling is hard) and we all have varying levels of tolerance for such things. I think if you look at the latest review of BTTF2, there's a good chunk of well-thought-out criticism in with the praise.
Anyway the last times i read something on mixnmojo i got the impression that the reviews or sentiments always were a little bit beyond tolerance and more sounded if someone wanted to try to get a job at TT or write something nice for a friend there because if you have a more solid understanding of these types of games and especially if you're a fan of the LucasArts classics, then you somehow should have known better. You can always try to see things from different points of views and pick out positive aspects this way but if something goes wrong and doesn't feel right, at least i feel the desire to say so as well. I lately missed an, let's say more well founded individual objectivity there.
At the end of the day, they can release a mediocre game and all the fan boys will line up and scream
TT is a business, which exists to make money. As long as it works they don't care whether their games are quality or not.
If you have a problem with TT, stop buying their games until the company pulls it's head in.
My hope is that those who are making adventures not only for a job but also because they love them have some sort of influence on the decision process as well, in smaller good companies this can be the case. I hope that they recognise these shortcomings and stand up. As they are making these games, they should notice it firstly and if they don't, well there is the forum to read. And if they can't alter something for the better then they might leave the company and build their own adventure startup. Worst case scenario: they simply can't do any better or don't want to.
TT's digital distribution channel for sure is one of their biggest achievements and beside of the sometimes still annoying DRM it's very well done but with all those digital distribution channels like the AppStore, iTunes, Steam ..., playing games online, this should much more doable than many years before. Actually i really don't understand how antiquated germany companies are operating here.
Anyway i really hope that with the upcoming diversity, we'll also see adventure games returning. If not, i'll vote with my money and hope that others do this as well.
Then what will? We're fans, we give feedback on a company's products, and if that company listens to its fans, then perhaps changes can be made; it increases the chances of changes being made and it gives companies such as TTG an idea of where they're going wrong and how they can improve.
Actually, I think Telltale sort of do care; they seem to have cared in the past, so I assume they'll continue to care.
What, be complacent and simply wait for Telltale to stop one day and collectively think that there may be something wrong with their games and production schedule? Yeah, that's loads better than actually giving feedback on the problems that we're experiencing. Why on earth should we be giving our input? You're right, we should just sit back, wait and hope that things change out of the blue.
Look at Sam and Max season 1, they took the criticism on the second episode to heart and by the time the fourth came they had incorporated a lot of the feedback into it.
Same goes with Tales of Monkey island!
(Although they never did place that guy stuck between buildings in Sam and Max Season 3, although they said they would...)
Huh?
There was a pre-order thread in which you could ask the developers questions.
I asked them if there would be more funny side-gags, like in the comics there were things that I only noticed in my fifth read-through, like a man who's stuck between buildings. In short I asked if a guy who was stuck between buildings would be in the game. To which Chuck replied, "Well, now there has to be."
Of course I'm not up to my fifth playthrough though, so maybe I missed him.
That said, I can't disagree with anything in the OP. I do wish Telltale would start taking some risks in game design. Going as they are, they will probably keep their current audience, but they won't broaden it. I hope that is their objective with the upcoming KQ games.
I think that this was a flawed approach, and I think that even if there was some logic behind the theory, they executed it in an underwhelming manner. But I don't believe at all that this is the new standard, or that this is really where their "increasingly easy puzzles" slope was headed. I think this is a detour downward in puzzle difficulty because this particular license called for what was basically a child-friendly approach.
Now, for instance, King's Quest. Do I think that's going to make Rather Dashing happy? No, I expect he'll hate it. But is it going to be another barely-interactive "game" like BTTF? I strongly doubt it. Telltale knows that people have certain expectations about what a King's Quest game entails, and they also know that anybody who has even heard of King's Quest has infinitely more gaming experience than the average BTTF fan off the street. The audience is different so the game will be different.
I guess what I'm saying is that while the difficulty may continue to creep in the direction it was going from ToMI to The Devil's Playhouse, I expect that BTTF will be viewed as an outlier when we look back at the pattern after the next few games.
I don't really feel the need to play something I know I'm not going to enjoy. Suffice to say I agree with most of the points made in the thread, even if I've enjoyed most of the Telltale-made games I've played.
I disagree as with BTTF TT content never lacked a adventure experience to such a degree, this definitely was a new low. According to the tips/puzzles, TT never targeted such a unexperienced/dumb audience. The music never was this uninspired. Until BTTF they had a taste for style and all fit together rather nicely. Before BTTF they also did 4 (5 with Puzzle Agent) point&click series.
And at the time, I had just dismissed the Facebook game. I refuse to get a Facebook and couldn't play it anyway, and I figured it was just to drum up hype. And I would've been right, but I didn't realize at the time just who it was targeting. And while they may have tried to sell the game to us (and to a large extend succeeded, given that we're all here bitching about it), this makes it all the more clear to me that from day one, this game was never for us.
Which would've been fine, there's nothing wrong with branching out to a new audience, except for two things. First, given the reaction that most of us who had played a Telltale game before had to episode one, I think it's safe to say that they didn't even begin to make it clear to us that this game was not for us, that it would be so much easier, or even easier at all, unless you count the gradual difficulty decline before the sudden drop. Second, they seem to have either underestimated the audience that the game is targeted at or they're targeting an audience even more casual than that, in which case the audience they're after isn't interested anyway.
So I guess that other than treading old ground, my point in this post is that before I felt bad that the game was so insultingly easy, and this seems to be Telltale's mission statement now. Now that I've considered the pre-release marketing and the way it was marketed to us, I feel as though I've been lied to. I know that Telltale never actually spoke any falsities to us, but something about the way things happened feels decidedly dishonest just the same.
I'm thinking that the reason for this may be the fact that the humour of 'BttF' simply doesn't suit Telltale's style of humour, or they're also dumbing down the humour for a wider audience. If the latter is the case, then I would be quite annoyed, because that would be 'selling out' and compromising the actual quality of your product - something that developing adventure games should not be about.
I know BttF isn't complete but it's clear that this game has a completely different target audience. While changing a target audience seems risky, going to the causal market seems, in a way, "playing it safe". Right now, between Facebook, the Wii, and the iPhone, jumping into the causal market feels like a safe move.The Facebook game with the easiness of the episodes, combined with the popularity of the franchise, show the game had to reach more people. Sadly it seems the target audience had shifted, and wasn't broadened.
I think reaching out to new gamers is great. I love that more people play games. But I don't want a decline in quality/difficulty to reach them.
Already on it.