You know, people here are forgetting that there is only one direction. Whether it's the right one or the wrong one, it's their direction they take. We don't have to agree with it, we also don't have to disagree with it.
I do hope Telltale aren't selling out for good. So many companies get greedy and go for riches over soul. It's such a shame.
Agreed. I really fail to see why Telltale couldn't concentrate on the bigger titles like 'The Walking Dead' but release the occasional classic adventure title (this is in essence what decent big Hollywood studios do with their films).
It seems strange to me that Telltale are in danger of becoming the next LucasArts, when the company was essentially formed by a bunch of disgruntled ex-LucasArts employees.
Agreed. I really fail to see why Telltale couldn't concentrate on the bigger titles like 'The Walking Dead' but release the occasional classic adventure title (this is in essence what decent big Hollywood studios do with their films).
Isn't that kinda what they're doing now. I wouldn't class the upcoming Fables based game as a big title like the Walking Dead, plus they like doing little side projects like the Poker games (who would have thought that soon they will have made and released three different poker games). And I would be seriously surprised if they never did another Sam & Max game.
Isn't that kinda what they're doing now. I wouldn't class the upcoming Fables based game as a big title like the Walking Dead, plus they like doing little side projects like the Poker games (who would have thought that soon they will have made and released three different poker games). And I would be seriously surprised if they never did another Sam & Max game.
Aye. 'Tis why I said "in danger of becoming". I haven't written off Telltale yet, I'm just a little weary of the path that they're heading towards. Also, when I talked about "smaller" titles, I wasn't referring to games such as 'Poker Night', I meant adventure games. Adventure games are the only reason I have any interest in Telltale at all.
I haven't checked anything out regarding 'Fables', is it a straight up adventure game?
Who thinks the same as me that the only reason they put Sam in Poker Night 2 is so that they can keep hold of Sam & Max, just in case they have another idea shift or a drought in big licences? *refrains from bitterly ranting about creators normally having no control over their games (Al Lowe was lucky)*
Back on topic, I really liked Heavy Rain but I'm not a fan of the Horror genre. I like most of TT's stuff and I might even try TWD one day but if I were told I could only take one gaming genre into the afterlife, it would be PaC/Text Adventure Gaming with great stories and great puzzles. Of course I'd ask Manny to be my travel agent by name.
I will check back every now and then after Fables (which I will buy) but it looks as though Double Fine, Replay and indie companies on Kickstarter that're developing Adventure games are the ships to hop onto.
I get the feeling it's more the power at the top that want to move away from the Classics and that the core staff that make the money (the writers, the designers, the artists, the musicians, the actors, the programmers) for the company are just as frustrated and depressed as we are about the situation. I know you lot can't speak out, but I'm fairly sure, if the opportunity were there to break away again to form your own company (or join the ranks of eg. Double Fine), then you would do it but you're trapped right now. I understand that. If you do move elsewhere, if I see your name in a press article or something, I'll follow. By reading the thoughts and feelings of others in this thread, I know I'm not alone.
Sorry, a bit off topic, but Walking Dead isn't a horror game. Just wanted to throw that out there.
It may well be classed as a Point-and-Click Adventure RPG but the material is still Horror. It's about surviving a zombie apocalypse, for crying out aloud.
It may well be classed as a Point-and-Click Adventure RPG but the material is still Horror. It's about surviving a zombie apocalypse, for crying out aloud.
No, it isn't horror. I say that because the game isn't attempting to scare you ever. There is a jumps care once or twice yes, but this is not a horror game, and Walking Dead isn't a horror franchise. It may have zombies, but there isn't anything "scary" about them, it is about the interactions with the people. It'd be closer to soap opera than horror.
It may well be classed as a Point-and-Click Adventure RPG but the material is still Horror. It's about surviving a zombie apocalypse, for crying out aloud.
I think he means that it's about the interactions between the characters rather than worrying about the zombies. There's moments of fighting off zombies of course, but the people Lee meets are more of a threat than the zombies are.
There's really no moments in the game where the game tries to scare you, like you'd expect of something in a horror genre. It's really all about how Lee gets along with the people he meets. The zombies are just there to add tension to the group and push the story forward.
Personally I think that many people are overreacting and will stop being so melodramatic once Telltale Games puts out next good title. This is just yet another period where they are not releasing any episodic projects at the moment.
Personally I agree. I played telltale's games for good narrative, not for puzzles, those bore me half the time. Heck a poker game kept me going for far longer than it should've been because of good dialogue.
Personally I think that many people are overreacting and will stop being so melodramatic once Telltale Games puts out next good title. This is just yet another period where they are not releasing any episodic projects at the moment.
Well some of us have been waiting quite a while for a new good game.:(
Well some of us have been waiting quite a while for a new good game.:(
I agree that Telltale Games has broaden their focus when it comes to what genres they do, but as long they don't screw up their narrative, it works. It is subjective what one considers a good game, people have a different standards and preferences.
I don't see how some people think The Walking Dead was somehow a sign of Telltale selling out. TWD was just as much of a passion project and risk as any other property Telltale has done. They broke new ground narratively and really worked out of the comfort zone of the things they normally did. Thankfully, it turned out to be great and got TT some much-deserved awards (and money) but that doesn't mean they did it to sell out.
I don't see how some people think The Walking Dead was somehow a sign of Telltale selling out. TWD was just as much of a passion project and risk as any other property Telltale has done. They broke new ground narratively and really worked out of the comfort zone of the things they normally did. Thankfully, it turned out to be great and got TT some much-deserved awards (and money) but that doesn't mean they did it to sell out.
Yeah, my issues with Season 1 are really more to do with the community than Telltale.
Still, they're releasing Season 2 so soon after the first game, and there's apparently going to be something else Walking Dead-related in between, as well. To be fair, after finally releasing a big mainstream hit Telltale would be crazy to not try and capitalize on it as much as possible, but it's still no mystery what the motivation is.
But maybe I'm just still bitter about King's Quest getting cancelled.
Still, they're releasing Season 2 so soon after the first game, and there's apparently going to be something else Walking Dead-related in between, as well. To be fair, after finally releasing a big mainstream hit Telltale would be crazy to not try and capitalize on it as much as possible, but it's still no mystery what the motivation is.
I wouldn't read too much into The Walking Dead Season Two coming out one year after Season One either.
Releasing a second season so soon after the first isn't unprecedented for Telltale. Actually, it's pretty much the norm. The only two full seasons that have received sequels so far are Sam & Max and CSI, and the first sequel to both of those seasons came out one year after the last.
But maybe I'm just still bitter about King's Quest getting cancelled.
To be fair, it sounds like Activision pulled the license rather than the other way around.
Besides, they were going to be the publisher of that title, rather than the developer (and that's kind of out of the norm for Telltale, since they only did it once before with Hector).
There's still a chance that a developer can work out a deal with Activision to do King's Quest 9 without having Telltale as the middle man.
I don't see how some people think The Walking Dead was somehow a sign of Telltale selling out. TWD was just as much of a passion project and risk as any other property Telltale has done. They broke new ground narratively and really worked out of the comfort zone of the things they normally did. Thankfully, it turned out to be great and got TT some much-deserved awards (and money) but that doesn't mean they did it to sell out.
I was more referring to a recent interview Dan Connors gave than just Walking Dead. I'll paste the link when I find it.
Edit: I've looked through this entire thread and the "post whatever's on your mind" thread and still can't find it! I haven't even got a subscription to the Cancelled King's Quest thread, wtf!
I think there’s an expectation that comes with the classic stuff that puts us in kind of a no-win position where we’re going to disappoint on some level if we don’t stay true to the roots there. Right now we’re in a place where we’re really pushing in a new direction. I think there’s a possibility to be back in that space and modernize some of the older franchises still, but right now our focus is certainly The Walking Dead and Fables: The Wolf Among Us. They’re taking up a lot of our mental bandwidth. What we do next is still something we’re working on, but I think we’re going to have some very cool, future-looking announcements. I think ‘modern’ is kind of the key word. Bringing stuff forward from the past, that’s not a huge focus for us right now.
Yeah, my issues with Season 1 are really more to do with the community than Telltale.
Yeah, the forums were really whiny and annoying. The Blog Posts were something else... I can't tell you how many times I've been spoiled there during The Walking Dead...
I think it's worth noting that Sam & Max wasn't included in the classic franchises that interview. At this point, Telltale probably sees Sam & Max as a modern franchise rather than a classic one, since they've now done five projects with the Sam & Max license.
Sam & Max will be in Poker Night 2 (with Sam as one of the poker players), so they definitely haven't given up on that license. It was mentioned in that interview that Telltale has projects that haven't been announced yet. I wouldn't be surprised if Sam & Max Season Four was one of them.
I originally had a long post written up, but the site ate it (curse you cruel world) so I am just going to retype the general synopsis and/or try to once again articulate my point. I wrote a post explaining (before I started my main point about Telltale's new direction) about how I became a fan of Telltale through playing Episode 104 of Sam and Max on Steam, and even though I didn't experience genuine adventure games from LucasArts/Sierra in their hay-day, I did my research on those games after becoming a fan of adventure gaming in general specifically because of Telltale, and even watched whole play throughs of adventure games such as Grim Fandango on Youtube and played Monkey Island 1/2 Special Edition on Steam.
Before talking about my main point, I stated that even though I did not have the experience of being a fan of point and click adventures in their prime before they temporarily died out, that I hopefully at least had some background in my points even though I was not, so to speak, a veteran of the genre like many of Telltale's community members were up until Telltale switched to mainstream licenses and that even though I did not become a fan of Telltale during their niche early days since I had become around the middle of Telltale's time in 2008, I hopefully had some merit in that I had become a fan before Monkey Island/Back to the Future/Walking Dead brought massive new audiences to Telltale.
Then, I went to my main point that although I was initially a skeptic of Telltale stating they planned to use Walking Dead's gameplay for future licenses, reading the preview of Wolf Among Us changed my skepticism and having watched the video GMan posted earlier in this thread about Walking Dead and classic point and click adventures, I realized that Telltale was actually on to doing something cool with adventure games (which I elaborate on below) instead of just patronizing gamers through easy and casual titles like they had before with Back to the Future/Jurassic Park.
The video GMan linked to above stated that basically, what made Adventure Games so appealing to gamers initially was the story telling they had over other games at the time, and that as other games improved, Adventure Games began to use puzzles to distinguish their story telling after non-adventure games had caught up with their own story telling abilities. Although veteran adventure game fans may beg to differ, I think this interpretation of adventure games seems fair. Anyways, the video stated that by Telltale giving a clean slate to adventure gaming and focusing on story instead of obscure puzzle solutions, I had an epiphany from having both watched the video and reflected on how Telltale made changes to the Walking Dead formula for Wolf Among Us which actually added new player interactions instead of just telling a good story at the expense of compromising interactivity that older adventure games were made for.
Basically, I stated that although I was a fan of story over gameplay from Telltale unlike some classic adventure gamers, I understood and initially shared their skepticism that Telltale was simply using Walking Dead's gameplay for future licenses just to try and strike gold while making gameplay casual at the expense of the respect for Telltale's veteran point and click fans. However, as I read the preview for Wolf Among Us, I though that perhaps Telltale isn't using their new Walking Dead/Wolf Among Us gameplay to patronize adventure gamers with casual puzzles, but rather that they are trying to find a new way to make adventure games return to the basics of story telling with a new gimmick instead of puzzle solving. In my opinion, If Telltale continues to add improvements to their Walking Dead/Wolf gameplay that are on the same level as the improvements they added to Wolf, than basically this relates to my epiphany which was basically that Telltale is not taking this new direction to appeal to casual gamers and alienate us core adventure fans, but instead are just trying to return to player interaction through something else rather than puzzles.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that their new direction is perfect and I think it wouldn't hurt for them to continue to give their niche fans attention while also appealing to mainstream gamers. However, as a Telltale fan, I think that this new direction could actually result in a new breed of adventure games with a new gimmick instead of just making puzzle oriented adventure games that tried to appeal to both mainstream and core adventure gamers, but only disappointed some people. Ideally, Telltale could focus on both old and new adventure gameplay and continue to create games which appeal to adventure gamers in addition to making story oriented titles, but nevertheless I still am excited for Telltale's new direction as a former skeptic. I can't speak for old adventure gamers, but hopefully I was at least a voice of reason.
TL;DR: By watching the video GMan linked to as well as reading the gameplay preview for Wolf Among Us, I had an epiphany and Telltale's new direction clicked with me. I don't think they are patronizing adventure gamers or saying "puzzles = scary for casual gamers," I think they are just trying to create a new take on the adventure genre that hopefully both old and new people can appreciate, even though Telltale is focusing less on puzzles and more on player interactions with the story.
I think it's worth noting that Sam & Max wasn't included in the classic franchises that interview. At this point, Telltale probably sees Sam & Max as a modern franchise rather than a classic one, since they've now done five projects with the Sam & Max license.
Sam & Max will be in Poker Night 2 (with Sam as one of the poker players), so they definitely haven't given up on that license. It was mentioned in that interview that Telltale has projects that haven't been announced yet. I wouldn't be surprised if Sam & Max Season Four was one of them.
It also theoretically makes sense to push popularity of Sam and Max series to new heights as it is the license they actually fully own without an danger of expiration date or being pulled.
Walking Dead certainly wasn't that and if you think that then you're just being bitter.
I played the first two episodes, and they still are most definitely not adventure games. It's still a colossal stretch to even call them "games", especially considering most of your "choices" turn out the same way no matter what you pick.
Winning game of the year as a semi-interactive movie is absolutely idiotic.
So it's not a game because choices don't matter...
Then that must mean that most games aren't really games as it seems from your definition that only games with 'real' choices are games.
There's more to games than just gameplay. Something which is getting a lot more deserved attention these days, with the likes of the Walking Dead and Journey being prime examples. If they're the future, bring it on.
Not to mention how to define 'what matters' is highly subjective, since many would define what matters as the personal kinship they feel with the characters, and his character, as being a matter of great emotional resonance and importance. Therefore why it won Game of the Year.
The Walking Dead is like a visual novel and your gameplay is ability to move, interact and pick from the dialogue choices presented at a time outside of very simplistic "combat" events.
But I don't really care, the "game" is good due the storyline it has and that's why I bought it.
Visuals Novels have been a very popular game genre in Japan, for a long time. Anyone remember the Kemco games back on the NES? Shadowgate? Deja Vu? Uninvited?
One of my favorites which took a fan translation in order to play it... Radical Dreamers...
The genre has a history tied to Adventure game genre, both were inspired by the original interactive novels (Choose Your Own Adventures books).
There's more to games than just gameplay. Something which is getting a lot more deserved attention these days, with the likes of the Walking Dead and Journey being prime examples. If they're the future, bring it on.
Yes, but a game does require gameplay to be an actual game.
TWD and Journey are fine for what they are, even excellent. But if they represent the future of video gaming then I want no part of it.
Rock, Paper Scissors is a 'game'... There isn't many actions or choices to it though... Tic, Tac, Toe is a game... There isn't much to it though. Cups is a game... again there isn't much to it (some cheat on it by palming the pea/coin...).
Choose your own adventures are actually a genre known as 'gamebook (they have also been called 'adventure books')'!
"Choose Your Own Adventures" is actually a trademark.
A gamebook is a work of fiction that allows the reader to participate in the story by making effective choices. The narrative branches along various paths through the use of numbered paragraphs or pages.
The fact that you can interact is the 'gameplay' although it isn't actually much direct gameplay.
Perhaps the problem is video gamers don't really know what a 'game' is, was (in the past historically), or can be. Or the fact that it breaks down in many subgenres. Many subgenres that existed long before there were video games...
In the past there actually was something similar where a bard or story teller started a story, and asked for ideas from the audience, in which affected the story as it went. Or he asked for verbs and nouns at the beginning. This was another type of game of long agone... It had limited 'gameplay' but what made them games was the 'interaction' with the audience.
You damn kids... Back in my day, all we had were a stick or a rock, and we could turn that into a game... Sure there weren't many rules... It took a bit of 'imagination'... But we could play a 'game' .... We had to walk fifteen miles through the snow barefoot to get the rock or stick, but better believe it we made it into a game... :cool:
I really wish that every non-Walking Dead post Telltale made didn't get immediately flooded with "DON'T CARE WHERE'S SEASON 2" posts. There's been more complaining about the fact that Season 2's not coming out right away than the fact that King's Quest's not coming out at all.
Do people really hate variety that much? I mean, from the sound of it The Wolf Among Us seems like it'll be even better than The Walking Dead.
It's not like the game left much of a cliffhanger either. It's just a general open-for-a-sequel ending. At least it was fucking announced unlike BTTF. I wasn't exactly left with a need for a follow-up there, but it was kind of hinted at a couple times.
Personally I agree. I played telltale's games for good narrative, not for puzzles, those bore me half the time. Heck a poker game kept me going for far longer than it should've been because of good dialogue.
this is totally relevant, i would still say that you can have a great puzzle oriented adventure game, but that is a whole new set of problems to tackle, but the walking dead wasn't trying to do that
It's just a low-res low-poly machinima movie that waits for you to press buttons to proceed, and tries to pretend you have a fraction of control over what happens. You don't. There's no thought or effort in any of the game, the "gameplay" consists of you repeatedly asking the "game" to continue showing you the story. This does not make it a game, this makes it a movie with busywork.
If you went to a theatre to see the new Evil Dead movie, and they handed you a 360 controller when you sat down, and every 5 minutes it popped up and said "PRESS A TO AVOID DEATH!" and if you failed, it just restarted the scene from 10 seconds ago over and over again until you succeed, would that be considered a game now?
I don't care in the slightest how good the story is, it's hardly a game if you aren't expected to provide any meaningful choices or actions, or even think a little bit.
And to be honest, a Choose Your Own Adventure book typically has more real interaction than these "games" do.
Comments
Agreed. I really fail to see why Telltale couldn't concentrate on the bigger titles like 'The Walking Dead' but release the occasional classic adventure title (this is in essence what decent big Hollywood studios do with their films).
It seems strange to me that Telltale are in danger of becoming the next LucasArts, when the company was essentially formed by a bunch of disgruntled ex-LucasArts employees.
...You always become the thing you hate the most!
Isn't that kinda what they're doing now. I wouldn't class the upcoming Fables based game as a big title like the Walking Dead, plus they like doing little side projects like the Poker games (who would have thought that soon they will have made and released three different poker games). And I would be seriously surprised if they never did another Sam & Max game.
Aye. 'Tis why I said "in danger of becoming". I haven't written off Telltale yet, I'm just a little weary of the path that they're heading towards. Also, when I talked about "smaller" titles, I wasn't referring to games such as 'Poker Night', I meant adventure games. Adventure games are the only reason I have any interest in Telltale at all.
I haven't checked anything out regarding 'Fables', is it a straight up adventure game?
Back on topic, I really liked Heavy Rain but I'm not a fan of the Horror genre. I like most of TT's stuff and I might even try TWD one day but if I were told I could only take one gaming genre into the afterlife, it would be PaC/Text Adventure Gaming with great stories and great puzzles. Of course I'd ask Manny to be my travel agent by name.
I will check back every now and then after Fables (which I will buy) but it looks as though Double Fine, Replay and indie companies on Kickstarter that're developing Adventure games are the ships to hop onto.
I get the feeling it's more the power at the top that want to move away from the Classics and that the core staff that make the money (the writers, the designers, the artists, the musicians, the actors, the programmers) for the company are just as frustrated and depressed as we are about the situation. I know you lot can't speak out, but I'm fairly sure, if the opportunity were there to break away again to form your own company (or join the ranks of eg. Double Fine), then you would do it but you're trapped right now. I understand that. If you do move elsewhere, if I see your name in a press article or something, I'll follow. By reading the thoughts and feelings of others in this thread, I know I'm not alone.
Sorry, a bit off topic, but Walking Dead isn't a horror game. Just wanted to throw that out there.
It may well be classed as a Point-and-Click Adventure RPG but the material is still Horror. It's about surviving a zombie apocalypse, for crying out aloud.
No, it isn't horror. I say that because the game isn't attempting to scare you ever. There is a jumps care once or twice yes, but this is not a horror game, and Walking Dead isn't a horror franchise. It may have zombies, but there isn't anything "scary" about them, it is about the interactions with the people. It'd be closer to soap opera than horror.
There's really no moments in the game where the game tries to scare you, like you'd expect of something in a horror genre. It's really all about how Lee gets along with the people he meets. The zombies are just there to add tension to the group and push the story forward.
Personally I agree. I played telltale's games for good narrative, not for puzzles, those bore me half the time. Heck a poker game kept me going for far longer than it should've been because of good dialogue.
I agree that Telltale Games has broaden their focus when it comes to what genres they do, but as long they don't screw up their narrative, it works. It is subjective what one considers a good game, people have a different standards and preferences.
We know what a cash-grabbing Walking Dead game looks like.
Yeah, my issues with Season 1 are really more to do with the community than Telltale.
Still, they're releasing Season 2 so soon after the first game, and there's apparently going to be something else Walking Dead-related in between, as well. To be fair, after finally releasing a big mainstream hit Telltale would be crazy to not try and capitalize on it as much as possible, but it's still no mystery what the motivation is.
But maybe I'm just still bitter about King's Quest getting cancelled.
Well...yes, there's that.
Releasing a second season so soon after the first isn't unprecedented for Telltale. Actually, it's pretty much the norm. The only two full seasons that have received sequels so far are Sam & Max and CSI, and the first sequel to both of those seasons came out one year after the last.
To be fair, it sounds like Activision pulled the license rather than the other way around.
Besides, they were going to be the publisher of that title, rather than the developer (and that's kind of out of the norm for Telltale, since they only did it once before with Hector).
There's still a chance that a developer can work out a deal with Activision to do King's Quest 9 without having Telltale as the middle man.
I was more referring to a recent interview Dan Connors gave than just Walking Dead. I'll paste the link when I find it.
Edit: I've looked through this entire thread and the "post whatever's on your mind" thread and still can't find it! I haven't even got a subscription to the Cancelled King's Quest thread, wtf!
Edit 2: Found it! Important part pasted below:
Yeah, the forums were really whiny and annoying. The Blog Posts were something else... I can't tell you how many times I've been spoiled there during The Walking Dead...
Man... Jurassic Park really fucked things up with Telltale's schedule, didn't it?
http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax/comics/44530849
Sam & Max will be in Poker Night 2 (with Sam as one of the poker players), so they definitely haven't given up on that license. It was mentioned in that interview that Telltale has projects that haven't been announced yet. I wouldn't be surprised if Sam & Max Season Four was one of them.
Before talking about my main point, I stated that even though I did not have the experience of being a fan of point and click adventures in their prime before they temporarily died out, that I hopefully at least had some background in my points even though I was not, so to speak, a veteran of the genre like many of Telltale's community members were up until Telltale switched to mainstream licenses and that even though I did not become a fan of Telltale during their niche early days since I had become around the middle of Telltale's time in 2008, I hopefully had some merit in that I had become a fan before Monkey Island/Back to the Future/Walking Dead brought massive new audiences to Telltale.
Then, I went to my main point that although I was initially a skeptic of Telltale stating they planned to use Walking Dead's gameplay for future licenses, reading the preview of Wolf Among Us changed my skepticism and having watched the video GMan posted earlier in this thread about Walking Dead and classic point and click adventures, I realized that Telltale was actually on to doing something cool with adventure games (which I elaborate on below) instead of just patronizing gamers through easy and casual titles like they had before with Back to the Future/Jurassic Park.
The video GMan linked to above stated that basically, what made Adventure Games so appealing to gamers initially was the story telling they had over other games at the time, and that as other games improved, Adventure Games began to use puzzles to distinguish their story telling after non-adventure games had caught up with their own story telling abilities. Although veteran adventure game fans may beg to differ, I think this interpretation of adventure games seems fair. Anyways, the video stated that by Telltale giving a clean slate to adventure gaming and focusing on story instead of obscure puzzle solutions, I had an epiphany from having both watched the video and reflected on how Telltale made changes to the Walking Dead formula for Wolf Among Us which actually added new player interactions instead of just telling a good story at the expense of compromising interactivity that older adventure games were made for.
Basically, I stated that although I was a fan of story over gameplay from Telltale unlike some classic adventure gamers, I understood and initially shared their skepticism that Telltale was simply using Walking Dead's gameplay for future licenses just to try and strike gold while making gameplay casual at the expense of the respect for Telltale's veteran point and click fans. However, as I read the preview for Wolf Among Us, I though that perhaps Telltale isn't using their new Walking Dead/Wolf Among Us gameplay to patronize adventure gamers with casual puzzles, but rather that they are trying to find a new way to make adventure games return to the basics of story telling with a new gimmick instead of puzzle solving. In my opinion, If Telltale continues to add improvements to their Walking Dead/Wolf gameplay that are on the same level as the improvements they added to Wolf, than basically this relates to my epiphany which was basically that Telltale is not taking this new direction to appeal to casual gamers and alienate us core adventure fans, but instead are just trying to return to player interaction through something else rather than puzzles.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that their new direction is perfect and I think it wouldn't hurt for them to continue to give their niche fans attention while also appealing to mainstream gamers. However, as a Telltale fan, I think that this new direction could actually result in a new breed of adventure games with a new gimmick instead of just making puzzle oriented adventure games that tried to appeal to both mainstream and core adventure gamers, but only disappointed some people. Ideally, Telltale could focus on both old and new adventure gameplay and continue to create games which appeal to adventure gamers in addition to making story oriented titles, but nevertheless I still am excited for Telltale's new direction as a former skeptic. I can't speak for old adventure gamers, but hopefully I was at least a voice of reason.
TL;DR: By watching the video GMan linked to as well as reading the gameplay preview for Wolf Among Us, I had an epiphany and Telltale's new direction clicked with me. I don't think they are patronizing adventure gamers or saying "puzzles = scary for casual gamers," I think they are just trying to create a new take on the adventure genre that hopefully both old and new people can appreciate, even though Telltale is focusing less on puzzles and more on player interactions with the story.
It also theoretically makes sense to push popularity of Sam and Max series to new heights as it is the license they actually fully own without an danger of expiration date or being pulled.
Steve Purcell owns Sam & Max. Telltale does not.
I played the first two episodes, and they still are most definitely not adventure games. It's still a colossal stretch to even call them "games", especially considering most of your "choices" turn out the same way no matter what you pick.
Winning game of the year as a semi-interactive movie is absolutely idiotic.
Then that must mean that most games aren't really games as it seems from your definition that only games with 'real' choices are games.
There's more to games than just gameplay. Something which is getting a lot more deserved attention these days, with the likes of the Walking Dead and Journey being prime examples. If they're the future, bring it on.
But I don't really care, the "game" is good due the storyline it has and that's why I bought it.
One of my favorites which took a fan translation in order to play it... Radical Dreamers...
The genre has a history tied to Adventure game genre, both were inspired by the original interactive novels (Choose Your Own Adventures books).
TWD and Journey are fine for what they are, even excellent. But if they represent the future of video gaming then I want no part of it.
Choose your own adventures are actually a genre known as 'gamebook (they have also been called 'adventure books')'!
"Choose Your Own Adventures" is actually a trademark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamebook
Why is it called a gamebook?
The fact that you can interact is the 'gameplay' although it isn't actually much direct gameplay.
Perhaps the problem is video gamers don't really know what a 'game' is, was (in the past historically), or can be. Or the fact that it breaks down in many subgenres. Many subgenres that existed long before there were video games...
In the past there actually was something similar where a bard or story teller started a story, and asked for ideas from the audience, in which affected the story as it went. Or he asked for verbs and nouns at the beginning. This was another type of game of long agone... It had limited 'gameplay' but what made them games was the 'interaction' with the audience.
See Mad Libs...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Libs
Also see several other types of word games that require very limited 'gameplay'
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_game
Do people really hate variety that much? I mean, from the sound of it The Wolf Among Us seems like it'll be even better than The Walking Dead.
this is totally relevant, i would still say that you can have a great puzzle oriented adventure game, but that is a whole new set of problems to tackle, but the walking dead wasn't trying to do that
If you went to a theatre to see the new Evil Dead movie, and they handed you a 360 controller when you sat down, and every 5 minutes it popped up and said "PRESS A TO AVOID DEATH!" and if you failed, it just restarted the scene from 10 seconds ago over and over again until you succeed, would that be considered a game now?
I don't care in the slightest how good the story is, it's hardly a game if you aren't expected to provide any meaningful choices or actions, or even think a little bit.
And to be honest, a Choose Your Own Adventure book typically has more real interaction than these "games" do.