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My Dream: Tell-Tale Games Does Star Trek

Borough 31

Lieutenant Junior Grade
Red Shirt
Wouldn't that be amazing? Well, they'd have to keep Braga away from the project..but..I think it would be a hit.
 
Yeah, that'd be my dream too. I suggested once before that Telltale should make a game along the lines of 25th Anniversary, Judgement Rites and A Final Unity. Though it seems like Telltale has started making different types of games involving big franchises. At this point though, I think anything would be better than the last game, though I doubt we'll see a new big budget game for quite a while now.
 
My dream would be for Telltale games to take a timeout and do something different for a while. Their current cycle of churning out redressed TWD games (alongside even more TWD games) will burn them out in no time.
 
I love Telltale games, so this would be awesome. I think a game set in the prime universe, but not about any of the TV crews (although including cameos by some of them) would be amazing, although it will never happen.
 
As long as it is more Tales of Monkey Island than The Walking Dead. Nothing against the latter, I've enjoyed them immensely, but ToMI had something for you to actually do and required work to move along.

I'd actually probably be more excited if someone CD Projects or Bioware did a Star Trek game. I'd love to see a well crafted, big, open world RPG set in the Trek universe.
 
The way they ended season 2 of TWD makes me think they'll give it a rest for a while. More looking forward to another season of 'The Wolf Among Us', honestly.

My dream would be for Telltale games to take a timeout and do something different for a while. Their current cycle of churning out redressed TWD games (alongside even more TWD games) will burn them out in no time.

So after spending the best part of a decade (when did the Sam & Max season first come out again) on reviving the once dead adventure game, perfecting it for modern systems and mechanics they should jack it all in and start making what exactly, military FPS games covered in brown and micro translations? Bugger that!

Seriously though, that's a pretty asinine way of thinking. Calling all their games "redressed TWD" is like calling Bioshock Infinite a "Doom clone" or Saints Row 4 a "GTA clone". Clearly Telltale has found their speciality and they have a pretty good (though by no means spotless) track record of putting out quality products.
 
The way they ended season 2 of TWD makes me think they'll give it a rest for a while. More looking forward to another season of 'The Wolf Among Us', honestly.

My dream would be for Telltale games to take a timeout and do something different for a while. Their current cycle of churning out redressed TWD games (alongside even more TWD games) will burn them out in no time.

So after spending the best part of a decade (when did the Sam & Max season first come out again) on reviving the once dead adventure game, perfecting it for modern systems and mechanics they should jack it all in and start making what exactly, military FPS games covered in brown and micro translations? Bugger that!

Seriously though, that's a pretty asinine way of thinking. Calling all their games "redressed TWD" is like calling Bioshock Infinite a "Doom clone" or Saints Row 4 a "GTA clone". Clearly Telltale has found their speciality and they have a pretty good (though by no means spotless) track record of putting out quality products.
 
I'm not really a fan of Telltale Games. Too much focus on the narrative and too little on the gameplay and puzzles.

I'd much prefer that Tim Schafer's company Double Fine Productions (Full Throttle, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, Broken Age) took a stab at a Star Trek adventure game. Or even better a Doctor Who game.
 
I've never played anything by Telltale Games, so I have no frame of reference to say whether it would be amazing or not. I don't recall ever describing any game as amazing, for that matter.
 
So after spending the best part of a decade (when did the Sam & Max season first come out again) on reviving the once dead adventure game, perfecting it for modern systems and mechanics they should jack it all in and start making what exactly, military FPS games covered in brown and micro translations? Bugger that!

Seriously though, that's a pretty asinine way of thinking. Calling all their games "redressed TWD" is like calling Bioshock Infinite a "Doom clone" or Saints Row 4 a "GTA clone". Clearly Telltale has found their speciality and they have a pretty good (though by no means spotless) track record of putting out quality products.

I think he means the current focus on TWD games at the expense of other lighthearted franchises, which they originally started out doing. Right now, they seem to be stuck in a rut. I feel they really hit their stride with the Sam & Max games, and they should go back in that direction. I don't think he was saying they should switch game genres.
 
I really hope we get another Wolf Among Us game. I was already a huge Fables fan, and that game did the comic justice.
 
So after spending the best part of a decade (when did the Sam & Max season first come out again) on reviving the once dead adventure game, perfecting it for modern systems and mechanics they should jack it all in and start making what exactly, military FPS games covered in brown and micro translations? Bugger that!

Seriously though, that's a pretty asinine way of thinking. Calling all their games "redressed TWD" is like calling Bioshock Infinite a "Doom clone" or Saints Row 4 a "GTA clone". Clearly Telltale has found their speciality and they have a pretty good (though by no means spotless) track record of putting out quality products.

I think he means the current focus on TWD games at the expense of other lighthearted franchises, which they originally started out doing. Right now, they seem to be stuck in a rut. I feel they really hit their stride with the Sam & Max games, and they should go back in that direction. I don't think he was saying they should switch game genres.

I'll be honest, I ever only played the first season of 'Sam & Max' so I don't know to what degree later seasons improved things. However, what I did play felt very flat, boring, graphically dull and repetitive. Literally in the case of art assets and setting since each episode seemed to use a lot of the same locations, characters etc. with very minor skin changes. That'd be fine in theory, but it felt like a crutch to hide some technical limitations. Tales of Monkey Island also suffered from a lot of the problems, including using the same 5 NPC faces and animation cycles ad nausium.

Don't ge tme wrong, I'm a Lucasarts point'n'click fan from way back. Still, TWD and latter TWAU seems like a MASSIVE leap forward for the genre. It mostly did away with the old "pick up all the things and use them on all the things" puzzle game design and replaced it with an almost Bioware RPG level of character agency and world immersion. They put the "adventure" back in Adventure Games.

Still, for those wanting them to get back to more light hearted subject matter, I believe they have a game set in the Borderlands IP game coming up...that's funny and light hearted, right?...OK maybe funny, light hearted, brutally violent and criminally deranged but still with the funny! ;)
 
Don't ge tme wrong, I'm a Lucasarts point'n'click fan from way back. Still, TWD and latter TWAU seems like a MASSIVE leap forward for the genre. It mostly did away with the old "pick up all the things and use them on all the things" puzzle game design and replaced it with an almost Bioware RPG level of character agency and world immersion. They put the "adventure" back in Adventure Games.

But the puzzle game design is the core aspect of point 'n click adventure games. If you remove the puzzles, then you're just left with a visual novel.
 
Don't ge tme wrong, I'm a Lucasarts point'n'click fan from way back. Still, TWD and latter TWAU seems like a MASSIVE leap forward for the genre. It mostly did away with the old "pick up all the things and use them on all the things" puzzle game design and replaced it with an almost Bioware RPG level of character agency and world immersion. They put the "adventure" back in Adventure Games.

But the puzzle game design is the core aspect of point 'n click adventure games. If you remove the puzzles, then you're just left with a visual novel.

....and?

The genre is called "Adventure Games", not "Adventure Puzzle Games". The puzzle thing just evolved as a convention , mostly as a holdover from the old text-only adventure games ala 'Zork'. Some of the best games ever made were the one's that defied the conventions and pushed the genre and indeed the art-form as a whole into new territory.

To claim that a *rigid* set of conventions must *always* be adhered to in inherently narrow thinking. That's the same kind of mentality as the people that say Mass Effect 2 & 3 aren't RPGs because they don't have an inventory system or loot, which is of course ridiculous.

Even so, "visual novel" is hardly an apt description of TWD and other recent Telltale games. Novels are passive experiences; they are read by you or are read to you. These games are deeply immersive and interactive. You shape the story based on your actions. You *inhabit* the role of Lee, Clem and Bigby as an active participant in their stories, not as a passive observer. What's more there's no "correct" outcome, just a set of consequences based on decisions made by the player. It's an adventure and you're more than just along for the ride.
 
The genre is called "Adventure Games", not "Adventure Puzzle Games". The puzzle thing just evolved as a convention , mostly as a holdover from the old text-only adventure games ala 'Zork'. Some of the best games ever made were the one's that defied the conventions and pushed the genre and indeed the art-form as a whole into new territory.

The puzzle thing? The puzzles are the key (and only) gameplay mechanic of Point 'n Click Adventure Games. Without the puzzles, there's no game. An adventure game without puzzles is a platformer without jumping. An adventure game without puzzles is a visual novel.

Even so, "visual novel" is hardly an apt description of TWD and other recent Telltale games. Novels are passive experiences; they are read by you or are read to you. These games are deeply immersive and interactive. You shape the story based on your actions. You *inhabit* the role of Lee, Clem and Bigby as an active participant in their stories, not as a passive observer. What's more there's no "correct" outcome, just a set of consequences based on decisions made by the player. It's an adventure and you're more than just along for the ride.

I didn't make up the term visual novel to be disparaging. It's an actual game genre with a heavy focus on story, usually multiple endings, and minimal (but still some) gameplay that generally involves puzzle solving. Phoenix Wright and Danganronpa are probably the best known example of this genre.
 
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I'll be honest, I ever only played the first season of 'Sam & Max' so I don't know to what degree later seasons improved things. However, what I did play felt very flat, boring, graphically dull and repetitive. Literally in the case of art assets and setting since each episode seemed to use a lot of the same locations, characters etc. with very minor skin changes. That'd be fine in theory, but it felt like a crutch to hide some technical limitations. Tales of Monkey Island also suffered from a lot of the problems, including using the same 5 NPC faces and animation cycles ad nausium.

Well, you'd be right for the most part. Even the second season recycled a lot. But in general, that's a problem with most of their games and their design as they sort of use a hub structure throughout a season. It's not tied to S&M alone, but goes back to their earlier games as well. It's most likely the engine they developed that seemed right at the time, but was limiting them in the end. It was a contrast to the original S&M game which actually had you travelling quite a bit. But Season 3 which had come out years later after the second, had actually managed somewhat of a departure, with better graphics, a connected storyline between episodes and a different control scheme. That one was also ported to consoles. But overall, it was the quirky humour. Telltale by then was known for their humour, which became one of their trademarks, a sharp contrast to their current games.

The last game from that era was BTTF.

Still, for those wanting them to get back to more light hearted subject matter, I believe they have a game set in the Borderlands IP game coming up...that's funny and light hearted, right?...OK maybe funny, light hearted, brutally violent and criminally deranged but still with the funny! ;)
All well and good, but I have no interest in the Borderlands IP, but I can see how it would fit in with their catalogue. But either way, I'm impressed that they felt they could do an adventure game out of a shooter franchise. I'm actually really curious about their Game of Thrones game. That'd be the one I would go for.

Now I realize that's ironic considering we were just talking lighthearted, and I doubt it will be... ;)

And as for the adventure game genre, I'm going to have to disagree with you on that.
 
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Seriously though, that's a pretty asinine way of thinking. Calling all their games "redressed TWD" is like calling Bioshock Infinite a "Doom clone" or Saints Row 4 a "GTA clone". Clearly Telltale has found their speciality and they have a pretty good (though by no means spotless) track record of putting out quality products.
It's not meant in a negative way, I'm a huge fan of Telltale games. I'm stoked they basically single-handedly revived and modernized an entire genre and introduced it to people who never played adventure games back in the day. I will grant you that it was an oversimplified way to express my sentiment, which is that I don't want them to burn out on these kinds of games. You're right, they've found their specialty. But Borderlands, really? You can't tell me you don't know where I'm coming from here.
 
Honestly, as much as I enjoyed The Walking Dead and A Wolf Among Us, and as much as I'm looking forward to their Game of Thrones game, I'd really like to see Telltale do something original, instead of more licensed games.
 
Well, if you think about it, most of their games have been based on licensed material, as early as their second game, Bone, which was based on a comic book. Then they had CSI games. Sam & Max was also originally based on a comic book. The whole list of their games can be seen here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telltale_Games

I think what really changed was the tone of their games and the direction the licensed material took them in, and they haven't had a lighthearted game since 2010. I personally wish they'd return to that, to at least give some of us some variety. Maybe it's time for them to revisit the Monkey Island franchise.
 
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