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Would you play standalone Monkey Island episodes?

CierganCiergan
edited August 2011 in Tales of Monkey Island
I think after the big overarching plot that happened over MI2+Curse+Escape+ToMI, it's time to have a breather and go for stories that can stand by themselves. That is, release episodes that aren't connected to a longer season.

Pros:

- It allows Telltale to give us more Monkey Island. Just sprinkle an episode here and there between and during bigger projects, but such an approach could add up to more content than we would get otherwise.
- We could get to see more interesting locales that could be fleshed out better than they would be in a feature-length story.
- More in-jokes for Guybrush. Better opportunities for smaller advances in character development.
- More standalone episodes means more opportunities for the writers to take risks and go somewhere interesting. After five games, the Guybrush+Elaine+LeChuck triad that pushes the plot is starting to look too much like Nintendo's triangle of Link+Zelda+Ganondorf. One could even experiment with different protagonists in the odd episode or two. It can also get writers out of the trap that plagued the Pirates feature films: the need for a longer plot that can make no sense.

Comments

  • StarEyeStarEye
    edited June 2011
    It's Monkey Island. I'd probably play anything.
  • priznaprizna
    edited June 2011
    StarEye wrote: »
    It's Monkey Island. I'd probably play anything.

    Same, if it MI ill play it.
  • Alex IDVAlex IDV
    edited June 2011
    I'd rather have just a few high quality MI games.

    Yeah, I think that if they would make MI episodes every now and then, the quality wouldn't be as high as in, say Tales and Curse.

    Quality > Quantity

    EDIT: That being said, if they did release new, smaller MI games (which I don't think they should), I would play them, as long as they are at least decent. But I want longer adventures.
  • MermaidMermaid
    edited June 2011
    Alex IDV wrote: »
    I'd rather have just a few high quality MI games.

    Me too.
  • KrohnKrohn
    edited August 2011
    Single Episodes could be fun.

    Heck MI 1 wasn't longer than one episode.

    As long as we get good stories and puzzles (and the humor is true to the series) I don't even care if most of the graphic just get recycled from ToMI to reduce the workload.

    And really I rather play one good episode every 2 years than getting 5 mediocre episodes instead. (And no ToMI wasn't mediocre, I was referring to a hypothetical future sequel)
  • tbm1986tbm1986
    edited August 2011
    I would like both big LA-style MI games (if LA got back to adventure games ever, they could do this, with advise from/maybe even hiring a TT writer/director) and Telltale-sized episodes, but I think Telltale has to be a lot more flexible with its episode model than it is currently. The introductory puzzle, two main puzzles, boss fight sequence is really too predictable now and doesn't allow much for creative writing.

    That said, any adventure game with the MI title on it I will buy, no question.
  • IrishmileIrishmile
    edited August 2011
    I would definitely... but I would rather a large world to play in with the big epic story and great new characters.
  • GuineaGuinea
    edited August 2011
    I liked Monkey Island more when it was a huge and epic experience and had some continuity behind it, so I'm not a fan of the idea, and I disagree with the following arguments pro this:
    - It allows Telltale to give us more Monkey Island. Just sprinkle an episode here and there between and during bigger projects, but such an approach could add up to more content than we would get otherwise.
    Quality over quantity. Monkey Island is good, but it's not the name and the setting that makes it good, but the effort and innovation that went into the first 3 parts and partly into Escape and Tales, although compared to even Escape, Tales felt kind of empty to me.
    - We could get to see more interesting locales that could be fleshed out better than they would be in a feature-length story.
    - More in-jokes for Guybrush. Better opportunities for smaller advances in character development.
    - More standalone episodes means more opportunities for the writers to take risks and go somewhere interesting.
    I don't see how less time and shorter experiences amounts to more fleshed out locations. If anything, a huge and epic game can evolve a character and location over time.
    Also I think that "taking risks" is not necessarily easier with smaller games. It's more of an excuse for developers to back pedal after finding out that "the majority" doesn't like their hint at change. And so often I have seen great ideas having been hated by fans at first and after a while understood and loved. Prominent examples would be the ending of MI2 and the cellshading style in Zelda Wind Waker.

    What I want to get when I read/play/watch a story in any medium is the writer's thoughts and ideas, and not what they thought that I might want, because they won't get it right anyway.

    And it's not a risk if you can introduce people step by step and have a chance to pull back every hour of gameplay.
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