Updater,time attack and contests.
As we all know that the main problem with Sam and Max is that their is not enough content because alot of space in the 400Mb file is used on old recycled areas.
Why not instead make an updater which would be available 2 days before the release of the first episode. This will contain all the areas of the first episode in season 3 and non talking versions of each character kinda like a debug with a movable Sam.Which means besides minor graphical updates of old areas it would be possible to fit a lot of new content in the 400 Mb file.Whenever we download a new episode after season one we will be given files such as which episode we got and which episode we wont' to download and there would be a small update file which would only add new stuff in each episode game which wasn't available before the episode.
Their will be 2 links for more flexibility the first one minimum which would not contain Easter eggs and side missions and probably be of 300 Mb. We would then download extras which would contains Easter eggs and side missions and be 100 MB. Also by doing this telltale could offer extra content for each episode for a fee thus giving episodic games an xbox live feel.
Then their should be time attack feature with a leader board for bragging rights.
Then they should either put a special mini game in each sam and max episode or be able as a standalone download of 10 mbs with a leader board and the person who has the highest score before the worldwide release of the new sam and max episode would get a prize.
Prizes might be: Episode one (Sam and Max DVD), Episode 2 (Sam and max season 1 with case file and soundtrack), Episode 3 (Sam and Max Season2 with case file and soundtrack) Episode 4 (Sam and Max T-Shirts and caps) Episode 5 (Sam and Max effigy mound) Episode6 (First person to get season 3 with case file and soundtrack). Player with best overall score (Original first edition Sam and Max comic signed by Steve Purcell with new Sam and Max hardcover comic)
Why not instead make an updater which would be available 2 days before the release of the first episode. This will contain all the areas of the first episode in season 3 and non talking versions of each character kinda like a debug with a movable Sam.Which means besides minor graphical updates of old areas it would be possible to fit a lot of new content in the 400 Mb file.Whenever we download a new episode after season one we will be given files such as which episode we got and which episode we wont' to download and there would be a small update file which would only add new stuff in each episode game which wasn't available before the episode. Their will be 2 links for more flexibility the first one minimum which would not contain Easter eggs and side missions and probably be of 300 Mb. We would then download extras which would contains Easter eggs and side missions and be 100 MB. Also by doing this telltale could offer extra content for each episode for a fee thus giving episodic games an xbox live feel. Then their should be time attack feature with a leader board for bragging rights. Then they should either put a special mini game in each sam and max episode or be able as a standalone download of 10 mbs with a leader board and the person who has the highest score before the worldwide release of the new sam and max episode would get a prize.Prizes might be: Episode one (Sam and Max DVD), Episode 2 (Sam and max season 1 with case file and soundtrack), Episode 3 (Sam and Max Season2 with case file and soundtrack) Episode 4 (Sam and Max T-Shirts and caps) Episode 5 (Sam and Max effigy mound) Episode6 (First person to get season 3 with case file and soundtrack). Player with best overall score (Original first edition Sam and Max comic signed by Steve Purcell with new Sam and Max hardcover comic)
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submission date of 2:56 today and this is 2:13 today is this a glitch?
the download was 100ish and the instalation is around 1.4gig
Remember, there is a reason why Windows Live Gaming failed within about 3 days of being launched. This is a PC, not a console.
DONT FEED THE TROLL!
What about the fact that we have download the same environment wouldn't it be more convenient if we only have to download it once it would increase Gameplay time so much.
2. dg10050, I agree. This is a PC, not a CONSOLE. There's a significant difference between the two. You want Sam and Max on a console, wait for Fall for S1 to come out on the Wii.
3. I'm happy with the content there is. It's episodic, you shouldn't expect more than 1 or 2 or 3 huge differences between episodes.
4. There's a reason Sam and Max is episodic. It's to simplify the development. Gameplay time isn't a big enough deal that we only download the enviornments once. I counted, Reality 2.0 only ate up 2 hours to complete the episode and exhaust all conversation options WITHOUT HELP.
And I can't imagine the "separate environment download" would work too well, since the environments change quite drastically from episode to episode. You'd have to download the thing five times per season, unless you expect Telltale to be able to do an entire season's worth of environment work before they release the first episode of the season. I won't say that they shouldn't make a single, full-length Sam & Max game instead of this episodic deal . . . but I will say I rather enjoy the way they've gone about business so far, and I would probably miss it if it changed in such a dramatic fashion.
In conclusion, I think you're a bit nuts. I can't say "Minigames in Sam & Max is a terrible idea! You're a madman!" because we all like the diversions to be found in the Sam & Max episodes, but I will say that turning them into entirely separate downloads makes absolutely no sense. You might as well be asking for a Sam & Max party game, ala Rayman's Raving Rabbids and Mario Party. With leaderboards, I'm sure.
Your ideas rank somewhere between "Hey guys why not have Sam and Max get drunk and race each other on snowboards in the next episode while Batman chases them" and "Why aren't you making Sam & Max for the Nintendo DS, and here's how you should do it" on the Sam & Max Idea Leaderboards. And if I'm being too insulting, I apologize. I also apologize to everyone else for feeding the troll, an expression that the creator of this topic doesn't seem to understand.
So let me get this straight you rather download those 100mb files in which their is a lot of recycled environment or have an updater. Since most of the old environments in new episode have little or no new enchantments. I mean Sam and Max travel by car and don't have roads. It just adding new areas link in the car each episode.Episodic games need to grow up like spore as in they should have a lot of game play and content.
So would you prefer the environments to have no differences at all in each episode instead of "little or none"? Because that's what you're implying. If there are any differences --and there almost always are -- then they need to be downloaded again. There might be some way to "merge the changes" in, and then have some sort of fancy code where it's changed in episode 2 but not in episode 1... but that sounds way, way more complicated than simply keeping the 100MB download size.
Though the idea of updating may sound appealing, it could possibly cause more questions than it answers so to speak.
Okay, lets say we have a season subscriber. Well that's easy, he's already going to have all of the files so having smaller updates would work fine. However, what if there's a customer that happens upon the site and decides to buy episode 2 without having episode 1. Simple enough solution, just offer a "full download" version of each game with the option an update for those who own previous games. Problem solved. . .
But what if someone buys episode 1, loses interest in episodes 2 and 3, but buys episode 4 which makes use of some environment introduced in episode 2? According to your argument, he already has the files from episode 1, so why should he have to redownload those? But he still needs the environment from episode 2 so a completely different update file needs to be made.
It would just make everything way too complicated and would make each episode dependant on every other one which goes against the concept of episodic gaming. Each episode is it's own self-contained game. You need to stop looking at it as one big game that is released in 5 parts and start looking at it was 5 separate games released in close proximity of each other. Each one isn’t that large and takes just minutes to download. Why make it more complicated than it needs to be. Besides, complication = more time = more resources = possibly a higher price for the customer. I'm happy with the system the way it is right now.
This, and Priacy are the main problems of PC gaming(and the reason why Crysis didn't sell well), developers are getting annoyed and stop making PC exclusive or porting the game on to PC.
I quite like Tom's idea of an updater, you can download a game engine with no content in it, and you just need to download contents of the episode to play it.
But I often delete the episode after I play through it one or two times anyway(I blame the size of my steam folder), and there's also problem of Priacy made easy and making installing and vertifying a lot more complicated.
However, this is a pretty nice idea, but it would work better if the game is over a gig or everyone is still using 56K internet.
Then, after that is all the code for the game itself, Databases (database of items, database of characters, characcter lines DB, etc), and the code that strings this all together (which in and of itself is probably close to 30mb, just because of the sheer number of items/lines/etc that interact.
The only reason they're able to keep the filesize reasonable is nothing in the game is high-res, including movies. IF they made these photo-realistic, then teh size woudl skyrocket to several gb per episode!
Most of what you download _IS_ exclusive to each episode. Yes, you could download some basic sound effects like doors and gunshots, and some animatics like Sam and Max themselves, but the vast majority of it is still unique. This is why an updater would be mroe trouble than it's worth - you're only removing 50 mb or less from the download.
The general idea of what you said is right, but two points:
I can only assume they use something more efficient than MP3 for the music; OGG at the very least. That probably cuts the songs down to about 2 MB each at most. (The quality wouldn't be as high as a 128 kbps MP3, but it would sound just about as good when there's plenty of other stuff going on, and it wouldn't be all watery-sounding like an equally compressed MP3 would.)
As for "movie files", there really aren't many of those, are there? Almost everything is rendered in the engine. I can't recall any Psychonauts-esque jarring cuts to blurry 4:3 FMVs... The only thing that springs to mind is the special credits of the season finales; I don't remember, but they may have had a few video clips in them. Otherwise, they don't seem to use many of those, if any.
And true, no need for high-quality MP3s for the dialog, though soem of the backgroudn music... and yes, otehr formats do offer mroe opertuntiy to cut the size, Atleast they didn't use raw waveforms, that would have made each game several GB lol
Though I still with T3 or something similar were avalible for those of us that want to make adventure games... most of what I've seen is more FPS oriented...
Have you seen:
.- Visionaire
or
.-Wintermute
Both 2D though in Wintermute you can use 3D meshes on 2D backgrounds
I also tested like 100 engines and none of them are "easy" to work with for adventures.
Im currently working with Visionaire and for me its just the best since i dont have to code a word ^^, hope there was something similar to visionaire but for 3D adventures T_T.
I'm going to HAVE to get a good book on maya, I had no idea those options were avalible.
@ glen: thanks I'll take a look at those. I thought about openscumm but I really didn't like the scumm engine (or LA for that matter) and from what I've read everything is coded, no drag-and-drop at all! not having to write much code sounds like my kinda program, as I tend to make lots of typos (you'd all cringe to know how long it takes me to proof the programming I do...)
@ will: must be an interesting process to make the games... having that many people dabbeling in the "code" I'm amazed you can keep everythign congruent, since as A was working on part 1, B would be workign on part 2, and C might be working on another aspect of part 1 (that is to say, I dont know how you can keep all the changes together without verions overwriting each other and losing bits along the way)
Besides, there are methodologies that allow multiple people to work on the same thing and tools to help you on that.
You are cruisin for a bruisin, man. I think you managed to demean everyone who makes these games. For what its worth, to elaborate on what Will said, everybody has a hand in making the games here, and I don't mean that in some sort of Office Space hilariously-bullcrap-laden corporate synergy way. Our art director and concept artist definitely draw a lot of characters and environments, and in addition to that they also lay out camera setups in game, do character animations, fix bugs when we're closing the episode, and do a zillion other things. The writers are also frequently programmers -- nearly all of them come from a programming background -- and also do some cutscene work when the load gets heavy. Also our writing team doubles as the design team - in addition to "doing scripts" they also "design the every system and puzzle which become the game." And finally, regarding your comments about marketing: ouch. I work in marketing. Massive burn!
I can't speak for everyone in the studio, but I think my experience over the Sam & Max games is a good case study for the interdisciplinary attitude we try to foster around here. In addition to handling day to day and long term PR type things and creating and maintaining things like the Telltale website, game box art, the games' trailers, and yes, the sizzle reel, the marketing department also lends its weight to helping create cutscenes for the game, and to do a lot of graphic design for the games. Though my job title on my business card at the time was "web content and community coordinator," I designed the opening and closing credits, as well as the inventory artwork and menu design and functionality for Sam & Max Season One and Two, did the choreography on about 4/5 of the machinima shorts last year, and killed myself for about two weeks building the War Song and Max Max Max World closing credit sequence last year (with the help of many other talented art folks). I also occasionally sneak into game design meetings and help come up with puzzles and story points for SBCG4AP. All in addition to working with the other four or five web/marketing guys on keeping the website a-runnin, keeping the trailers and gameplay videos coming out at a regular pace, and you know, generally not touching anything short of a playable demo/reel, etc.
A postscript: You keep putting "code" and "coding" in quotes, weirdly implying that code is somehow the only aspect in the game that is real. Our programming and authoring/scripting guys are all amazing, but our studio is set up so that the visual, written, and audio sides of game production can fend for themselves without always needing a "coder" to do the "actual work." The art and writing and music and sound in the games games don't make themselves, and the whole game definitely isn't hacked away from scratch by three programmers hiding in a dark corner of an empty warehouse. The sound guys have tools to implement almost all all of their sound effects at the right moment without a "coder." The animators and choreographers and art director work together to polish the animations and camerawork in not just the cutscenes and interactions with objects in the world, but all of the dialog and conversations with characters, completely as an autonomous group. They don't, like, scribble down notes of where a camera should point and then tell a programmer to make it work - the artists just do it. Every moment of those games - every line of dialog, camera cut, piece of character animation - are a combination of deliberate creative choices across all disciplines required to make a game.
I mean, for example visionaire's workflow is 100% artist friendly and the "coding" for interaction and inventory items is done trough a point-click perspective so you literally don’t write anything other than dialogues.
Though is kind of a necessity to have an understanding on how programming works you don’t need to know any programming at all.
If you don’t work like that you guys can look how the visionaire team programmed it and maybe implementing it into your tool might make things much easier and faster. (just a thought)
Next, I meant no offence. I was raised with the ideology that everyone has the own little corner and nobody interferes with anyone else. I.e. if you write the script you dont do ANY artwork. If you do 3D art, you dont touch the hand-drawn boxart except perhaps to say "no, look at this, the nose is wrong" or such. I was raised with the philosophy that everyone was specialized and could only do their specific job and nobody else coudl do it without MASSIVE ammounts of retraining (going back the my earlier note, Most hand-drawing-artists could never write C++ code without lots of training, also in genneral those who woudl work on the script probably couldn't do the intense detailed drawings for boxart, etc, due to the genenral idea that you're eitehr an artist or your not)
I appoligize profusely, I simply am not familiar with the culture where people all share jobs and bounce around on projects outside their "specialty" (in specific, I have alwaysbeen told marketing was taking what the artists gave you and pitching it, it is a specialty for people who are good at sales)
Again, I'm sorry for any offence I may have caused, I simply dont know what goes on behind those doors and have to guess from what I've experianced and been taught. (corporate culture is changing so fast I cant keep up...)
I'm a former game designer, and your assumptions of specialization are indeed not wholly wrong. A lot of companies, mostly the super large ones, have the funds to throw at people so that they have specailists. These are the same companies that throw out things like:
Condemned 2
The problem is that these companies also lack the ability to bring visionary concepts to life. Case in point is the fact that most games now look, play, mimic all the aspects of every other game out there. Look at games like:
Turok
Turok was originally based on a comic book property about a time traveling native american heroic character who is the defender of a prehistoric world.
This was a cool concept...
Until you see the new Turok. Where the hero is a space marine who is thawed out and lands on an alien planet with hostile aliens (that resemble dinosaurs) and must fight his way out...
Sound familier? Sure it does. Its the same as Halo. Or Halflife 2. Or the movie Aliens.
I am glad that Telltale is a smaller company, with hard working people who actually allow their people creative freedom. Its reminiscent of the days of old when design teams could come up with fun concepts and run with them without worrying about having to market to the "X-Box" generation and know that they sunk $20 million into a project and thus they have to make $40 million back so they have to play it safe.
I hold the Sam and Max games up there with games like Psychonauts and Katamari Damacy, those games are different, innovative, and most importantly fun.
Heck, if I went back to Game Design ever freaking Telltale would be the first place I'd send my application. :P