2 new interviews with Job S.; various hints, including possible reference to classic adventures?
Blind Sniper
Moderator
http://wccftech.com/telltale-games-interview-job-stauffer/#ixzz4J1Cpfb3Y
Since The Walking Dead season one, I feel like I’ve noticed an awful lot of developers coming out with brand new adventure games, which seemed like a dead genre. I feel like Telltale has revitalized a genre that didn’t seem like it was going to ever get its day again. Being inside Telltale, what does it feel like looking outside and seeing other companies inspired by the success of Telltale games?
Yeah, I think we’re simultaneously flattered, and humbled, but also proud. The company was founded by folks who worked on some of the best classic adventure games of all time, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, and adventure games have always been in our DNA, but at the same time we’ve been moving in this direction where we can drop “adventure” as the genre, and the story becomes the genre. I think a lot of that has to do with being more accessible to a wider audience that consumes TV and film, and less head-scratching moon-logic, puzzle-driven experiences, and more familiar experiences for people who watch TV, and watch movies, and really want to be absorbed in the genre, instead of being slowed down and stopped by a puzzle which doesn’t really exist in any realm of actual human drama or emotion. So we’ve definitely taken a different path, we still love classic adventure game logic, there are some projects we have in the works that are tinkering with some of those ideas, and we love games that also subvert those ideas as well. Like, I’d definitely recommend playing Oxenfree from Night School! It does just that. And that’s why we love working with those guys so much, and I hope we’ve paved the way for Adam and Shaun to make a game like Oxenfree the success it has become. It’s awesome for that to have come full circle and now work with them to get Mr. Robot out. It’s great. We love it.
So, you said you’re tinkering and experimenting with the older puzzle elements that used to define adventure games… Does that mean Puzzle Agent is coming back?
It doesn’t mean Puzzle Agent is coming back, I will say that probably the best example of that in our current series is that you can see a lot of that in Minecraft: Story Mode, which was this project we kicked off with Mojang. We were big fans, they were big fans, we saw unlimited potential in the universe, fans were dying to get some kind of story going, there are YouTube videos and people writing their own fan fiction, trying to find and define what the universe of Minecraft was, and to this day there still is no story, and there shouldn’t be, it’s whatever you want it to be. So when we sat down with them and asked what our story should be, we looked to movies we grew up with as kids, classic family adventures, Ghostbusters and definitely The Goonies, and tried to find the spirit of those stories and roll them in to this Minecraft: Story Mode, but also, lean a little closer to puzzle adventure elements, finding Redstone and applying it to different things, crafting things on a crafting table that will unlock a secret chamber, to finding the secret object… That was marrying modern Telltale storytelling with an homage to the classic adventure game roots, and we’re very proud to have welcomed millions of new players, a younger audience, to a crash course on classic adventure games, but also a jumpstart into how interactive drama and interactive storytelling work with Telltale. So we’re always thinking about it, it’s always on our minds, and we’re doing it right now in ways you may not even realize.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/how-telltale-games-used-tv-to-redfine-video-games
"We're definitely looking at VR. Everything we do has been in the language of cinema, which is so very different from the language of presence. Marrying those two and discovering what is going to define a Telltale experience in VR is something we’re excited about. We'll have more to say on VR in the near future, but it won't be until the turn of the calendar," Stauffer grins.
Comments
This sounds good especially the VR stuff, VR could make some really good puzzle elements they they choose to implement it in their games but they could be slightly held back in sales by the smaller number of users who have a VR headset.
Oh, so they haven't really given up on that part of their games. Glad they still aren't "completely" aiming to become more like a TV studio. (As they have said in the past.)
Cool. Good for you, Telltale.
Say what? Did-Did I hear that right? Hmm........
As much as I'm intrigued as to what they have planned for VR for their games, I'm not too keen on spending 500$-800$ on a big VR system. (Even though I'd like to have one.)
That's still their main goal, as their belief is that people liked Season 1 because it played like interactive TV.
Sam & Max???!! The 30th anniversary is next year! Please be a mini series!
30th????
Yep the comics started in the late 80's.
Sam and Max is not an original Telltale IP; it is based off of a relatively obscure comic as freelancepolicefan said.
Dude, I'd love a Sam and Max Miniseries for the 30th Anniversary! That would be so cool!