I wish Telltale would make games I'm interested in again.
Until a few years ago, I had bought everything Telltale made. Sam&Max, TOMI, Homestar, Poker, Bone, Hector, etc.
But I didn't buy more than the first episode of Back to the Future.
I didn't buy Jurassic Park. I'm not buying the new Law&Order. I can't say for certain, but it seems very unlikely that I'll be buying The Walking Dead.
I'm assuming Telltale is making good money in their new market or they wouldn't continue to put out the Licensed Drama games. But I'd imagine there's a lot of people like me that want to give them my money, but aren't.
But I didn't buy more than the first episode of Back to the Future.
I didn't buy Jurassic Park. I'm not buying the new Law&Order. I can't say for certain, but it seems very unlikely that I'll be buying The Walking Dead.
I'm assuming Telltale is making good money in their new market or they wouldn't continue to put out the Licensed Drama games. But I'd imagine there's a lot of people like me that want to give them my money, but aren't.
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
It was LucasArts' last president who was open to licensing Monkey Island, but he left the company. The new president "is focused on building AAA titles internally" (based on the Lucasfilm movies) and isn't interested in licensing out their game properties.
Anyway, I sort of both agree and disagree with you, if that makes sense. On one hand, yes, I miss Telltale's older, more humor-driven games. A big reason why I stuck as a Telltale fan was because they could make me laugh, and so it's harder to get into these more dramatic games.
At the same time, though, while I prefer my adventure games funny, I'm willing to enjoy a more serious game too so long as it's done well. Emphasis on that last part. Telltale's downhill slide isn't because their games are shifting away from comedy, it's because their games haven't been very good. I'd rather have a dramatic adventure game with well thought-out puzzles and exploration than a Sam and Max Season 4 that plays like Jurassic Park.
Also, maybe it's just because the games are newer and thus their forums are more active, but I do see a whole lot more people in the BttF and JP forums (quite a few of them new accounts that apparently haven't played any other Telltale games) than the Sam and Max and Tales ones. I'm not sure just how many fans Telltale's "casual adventure" plan is bringing in, but I don't think the demand for more Sam and Max is as strong as we think.
They are doing a new King's Quest game, you know.
But you don't have to revive an old IP to make a traditional adventure game. You can, you know...make something new and original that happens to play like a traditional adventure game. That's what Double Fine is doing, although for some reason Telltale flat-out refuses to do anything that's not a licensed game.
Even then, though, just because you have to work within a particular license doesn't mean you need to compromise the gameplay. In the Back to the Future movies, Doc and Marty always had to think their way out of their problems. You think that would've lent itself great to an adventure game, yet somehow, it didn't. Meanwhile, Indiana Jones is all about action, with a lot more fighting than thinking. It fits the adventure game concept a hell of a lot less than BttF does, yet LucasArts was able to make two classic adventure games out of it.
Hell, even Jurassic Park had a decent point-and-click adventure on the Sega CD. I mean, I admire how Telltale always treats the licenses they use with respect, but that shouldn't come before making a good game. They wanted the Jurassic Park game to "be like Jurassic Park," so they made a movie.
You do if the movie studio makes requests of the production.
So King's Quest will be worth watching, as they may make it more adventure-game-like, considering the type of players it will attract. Also keep an eye out if they announce any more Hector-like releases, where someone else assumes most of the risk of whether it will be popular or not, and Telltale just touches it up a little and distributes it.
If Double Fine comes up with something truly groundbreaking, leading to a resurgence in interest in adventure games, maybe Telltale will get a little more brave and come up with something original. We'll see.
Prematurely bought all of BTTF. Regretted it. Haven't preordered anything from Telltale since, and probably wont til my faith has been restored.
Considering most of the people interested in the game have already pledged the $15 that lets them get the game for free (well, not for free, but you know what I mean), most likely.
Do yourself a favor and get one of the Sam and Max games instead.
I think Jonathan does not recognize the relative nature of the word "fun." Its connotation could be lighthearted, happy, simplistic... but it is different for each person, very much so. I consider challenging, serious games "fun". Others might not.
Personally, I am very much looking forward to The Walking Dead. I think the folks workin' on it are gonna give it everything they got, and I'm excited to see what they come up with. I can definitely relate with the quirky, cartoony feel of the TTG repertoire that is shifting in a more serious, dramatic direction, but if you were offered Fable and Walking Dead as IPs to work with, would you turn them down?
Oh. Hell. No. Thems be some stuff to WORK ON!
It may be a departure, but I think it will be a well-executed one, and we can always cross our fingers that the silly TTG style comes back too!
Personally i'm looking forward to games which treat me like a intelligent human being with some life experience, feelings and curiosity. This might be in a humorous adventure as well as in a serious one. Obviously you prefer some nice changes throughout the years but the category isn't as important as how it is done. Being a bigger fan of The DIG than of Monkey island, i have zero problems with more serious adventures which treat me like an mature adult and get me emotionally involved like for instance Quantic Dreams is able to.
But what is the mature level TTG will be able to offer? Will it really be for adults or will it just try to be adult like or for younger adults? I have my problems with too young designers trying to write mature stories because it involves life experience of the designers/writers or a lot of imagination/talent. Can a young normal to good talented writer for instance describe in a convincing way how it feels like loosing a child if he never had one on his own? The number of so called adult like games which don't feel like a bad joke actually is very small. And this is something Blow was talking about again, it's about how a game treats you and takes you serious and less about the type of game.
I also remember that Jake once wrote here on the forum that he prefers easy games. Now i don't know how relevant this rather old statement is for TWD but i definately had enough of easy games from TTG. Secondly, and this isn't TTG's fault, i'm not into the comics and the few episodes i once gave a try were rather horrible and boring.
I won't ditch the game until it's done and maybe it will be a good one again but i doubt it will be something i'm really after. So if you ask me, i'm into different licences or into something new, new IP done by TTG or someone they work together with and who is capable. But whatever it is, i want it to be more challenging (and challenge can be interpreted in a number of ways), on a high quality level (which i'm also willing to pay for) and treating me in a reasonable way and not dealing with me like a fool, like the last couple of games from TTG tried, that's a different audience i do not belong to.
Btw. your name rings some bells. You are this beautiful woman, who looked very familiar to someone famous here in germany, once working for TTG, right?
Well, here I'm more on Jonathan's side. Are horror games 'fun'? No, they're scary as shit, but they're engaging. In a sense that it sucks you in, you know. And when somebody says that a game is fun, that person usually means that the game is engaging.
But you might say, 'well, you understand when I say fun that I do mean engaging because you said so yourself', and, yeah, that may be true... But... and now I'm starting to forget where I was going with that... basically, I think that because of the very confusing nature of the word 'fun', developers should not try to make games 'fun', they should try to make them 'engaging'..
Assume away.
I probably am in TTG's most ideal target audience.
I don't think you understand the major complaint we gamers have about Telltale as it relates to that video. We want challenge and also the freedom of choice regarding interaction.
Walking Dead is a QTE game, as was Jurassic Park. BTTF was closer to an actual adventure game, but it was insultingly easy and extremely light on available hotspots.
With Telltale, this is also compounded by the increasing presence of obvious bugs and glitches, but that speaks more to quality control problems than to design flaws.
As hard as writing.
Has that been confirmed? I'm going to be upset if it is.
The thing is, from what little Telltale's said about The Walking Dead (and I can't help but notice they've been dancing around the question for a year and never straight-up explaining how it'll play), it does sound like another "interactive movie." I mean, it seems like it'll be better than Jurassic Park, at least, but that's because you'd have a hard time making it worse.
From the Walking Dead FAQ thread:
Ah, the quote that is notably older then the far more specific, recent quote.
While I would hope for this (that TTG stops making QTE games), my expectations are not high. Besides that, I'm not really into the whole zombie thing so I wouldn't buy The Walking Dead anyway, no matter the gameplay choice.
edit: by "not into the whole zombie thing," I mean there has been a whole slew of zombie games in recent years and it's getting rather old.
Yes. That's what I'm saying. That's why it's slipped from Fall to Winter to 'soon', they've needed to change the gameplay to make sure they don't get the same reaction they recieved when Jurassic Park released.
King's Quest is pretty much the only upcoming title I'm keeping an eye on, though hopefully Telltale really learned from the Jurassic Park fiasco and makes some decent games out of their other licenses.
Very few of those zombie games have been good though, and Walking Dead is pretty good source material.
I don't want Telltale to stop using QTE. I just want them to integrate them naturally rather than make whole games out of them. I don't think they're as good at doing that as the makers of Heavy Rain, obviously.