Telltale Games

[Lilikins]

Im actually wondering how the escapist community feels about these games.
Incase anyone is not familiar with them, they are completely text pathed games which play out like a story.

To the topic itself, I actually wondered how you all feel about these 'games'. For me for some reason they just feel like interactive books...maybe I havent gotten into them that far or just havent devoted myself enough to them but...I cant put my finger on it. In my case, it feels like Im reading a book with visuals, in which case Id rather pick up a book and read/create my own world and characters as I depict them from reading.

I spose the main reason I started this thread was to see who actually enjoys them and why? By all means I wont be scoffing at anyone who enjoys them, seeing as I myself most likely enjoy things that others would scoff at so I will be the last one to judge. Nevertheless I would like to know though.

Is it because the story telling or maybe because of (dont take this wrong of me please) the laziness of having to take a book and read more words? Im just interested

Ill be very happy over any answers I recieve and proper explanations of such. As always, please no flaming/trolling etc. Thank you all very much for your input, I cant wait to read it.

 

[hazabaza1]

Just finished the most recent episode of The Walking Dead and I continue to fucking love them.
They do receive a lot of criticism, especially the most recent ones. The 'lack of gameplay' is always one that gets brought up, despite gameplay including like... everything you do. The basics from moving and examining your environment, to the dialogue choices and combat. It might not be the type of gameplay an individual is looking for, and that's fine, but to say that they have "no gameplay" is somewhat ridiculous.
There's also that ever present argument that "your choices do nothing." I understand why it's said, especially after the somewhat ambitious "the story is framed by your choices" disclaimer thing they have. The way I'd describe it to people is that, while your choices won't have the biggest impact on the overarching plot or ending given, but characters will make call-backs to how you treated them, dialogue will be shifted to be hostile, aggressive, forgiving, all based on the choices and speech you made. And I really like that.

And I wouldn't compare it to a book personally, I'd say that they're comparable to a continuous drama series (hell for TWD it's directly comparable, and a hell of a lot better than the actual Walking Dead series.)
What always gets me is that people berate the games for having such a focus on the writing and characters that they're not "proper" games. I wonder if these people have ever seen the writing of these "proper" games. Because most of them are fucking awful. As in, worse than the worse stuff on television awful.

But yeah, they're certainly a very divisive series. Personally, Telltale have worked their way up to being one of my favourite developers, able to show that video games can be mature, intense and well written while still being interactive. I'm not saying every game needs to take the story focused/point and click gameplay of Telltale's stuff, fuck no, I enjoy some Revengeance fairly frequently. But video games is a medium that I've been with since I was but a wee babbie, and it's nice to see that with the approach that Telltale and other devs are taking they're not all being reduced to gung-ho, borderline offensive killing schlocks.

 

[Zhukov]

Love 'em.

They're easily among the best dialogue writers in the business. They tell good, well, tales and create good, if generally rather simple, characters.

Sure, they're more like playing an interactive movie or TV episode than a traditional game, but I have nothing against that. Telltale games are like Heavy Rain but not crap.

I'm not saying every game needs to be like that, that would be silly, but it's nice to see some that are.

 

[balladbird]

Adore them. there's plenty of interactivity in dialogue and decisions affecting the plot, so they're games, no quotation-marks needed.

If they're not your cup of tea, then I respect your taste, but it's always a sore subject for me when people complain about games having too much story. No, they really don't, in my opinion, and a game that has no story is impossible for me to even begin to give a crap about, even if it has the most polished, fun mechanics on earth.

but I lament, I have become derailed: I enthusiastically adore telltale games. They're like what japanese visual novels would be if they had budgets and/or didn't cut corners.

 

[Johnson McGee]

They're more interactive novels than games but I don't consider that a bad thing. They're good at what they do...

At least The Walking Dead, Wolf Among Us and Sam & Max are; Wallace & Gromit and Back to the Future were a bit dull.

 

[shrekfan246]

To the topic itself, I actually wondered how you all feel about these 'games'. For me for some reason they just feel like interactive books...

Well, they are "adventure" games. Genre purists scoff at classifying them as point&click because they don't have silly, arbitrary puzzles which use logic that no sane human would ever actually utilize (I'm making a joke, just to clarify), but they're adventure games through and through, and adventure games tend to be focused on telling a story before all else.

Personally, I want to play The Walking Dead Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us, but I don't care for episodic releases. I'm waiting for them to be completely finished before jumping on them. But I like them more than I do most 'typical' adventure games, simply because they don't shove in those ridiculous puzzles which can screw over the player who wasn't observant enough to pick up a rogue banana peel and lost slipper within the first ten minutes of the game.

 

[L. Declis]

I love them.

I just get annoyed when they never tell us when they're going to bloody release them, so we only find out the day before.

I also get annoyed when I have to wait a week longer (or sometimes even longer than that) because I had the audacity to be born in Europe instead of the US.

 

[Aesir23]

They're great developers even if the gameplay is more 'interactive storyline' as opposed to traditional gameplay. It's a fun format but I think it's better applied to some games than others. The Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us? Absolutely excellent.

Jurassic Park? That one was a bit of a miss.

 

[Dalisclock]

I've played all of the main series except for Jurassic Park(mostly because I heard it wasn't anywhere near their usual quality) and the current season of Walking Dead(only because I want to wait until it's closer to completion, if not complete). So I enjoy their series. I started with Sam and Max and feel the whole thing has only gotten better. Even their weaker releases(BttF and Wallace and Gromit) have been worth the time and money for me.

The fact they know how to do Adventure games right, episode content right(Unlike someone I could mention coughValvecough), and do licensed properties right should be more then enough reason right there, but their games are fun and engaging most of the time. If you don't like adventure game, then yeah, I guess they aren't going to convert you, but they do them well(and I say that as someone who grew up in the golden age of Sierra and Lucasarts).

 

[Funyahns]

Love Tell Tale Games. But I am a fan of point and click games and Visual novels over all.

 

[The Madman]

I'm looking forward to playing Wolf Among Us once the series is complete, although Walking Dead season 2 I might skip as I'm not sure I want another round of soul-crushing the likes of which the first season delivered.

So overall a damned good developer. Hope they'll bring back Sam & Max eventually as well, that last season was stellar!

 

[buffbabybear]

Like the medium, dislike the episodic releases.

 

[Lilikins]

Mind you all in my original post I wasnt trying to berate them in any way, my apologies if it came across that way.
I can of course understand the liking of the games in specific aspects, I personally for instance value you the story of a game over its gameplay.
If a game has crappy controls but a good story, its still 'good' in my opinion because it took me along on its little adventure and kept me occupied/interested in whats happening next. Vice versa, if the controls are excellent but the story is just plainly uninteresting to me, then I cant bring myself to play it for a very long time.
But these games themselves somehow remind me of... dont really remember what the books were called hehe, but does anyone remember those 'make your own adventure' books? Where youd basically read, and then it would give you 'choices' at the end of the chapter where you could pick how the story turns out and flip to that specific page?

Nevertheless, after seeing everyone recommending them, seeing as I trust everyones opinion here far more then any game rating sites etc, I shall give them a shot then. What would you all recommend then? Wolf Among Us or Walking Dead?

Thanks for all your answers up to now.

 

[kingthrall]

Wolf Among us is by far the superior game in my opinion, simply put the whole zombie thing is overdone, worn out like 2nd rate hand me down clothes. Nothing wrong using it, but you can do better.

I am really entranced by this game, I played all released wolf parts in one go last night, and I enjoy having a different style and pace of game that reminds me of the older stuff like day of the tentacle/full throttle and Sam and Max (which is theirs) , however if they improved on the puzzle side of things to the degree of that of the zork series they could raise the bar of quality even further.

 

[Ubiquitous Duck]

I still consider them 'games'. There is limited 'gameplay' but it is more in interactions and talking than anything else.

This is a large part of RPGs and I don't see them being discredited as 'not real' games. Sure, they tend to have combat as well, but you can go for large chunks of time without any and I really enjoy that still, helps develop the lore and story.

Telltale seems to of removed the even small parts of Walking Dead season 1 point and click type puzzles (although they were barely puzzles), in season 2, I have seen none of these. I like this, because I thought they were pointless, but this further removes the 'gameplay' aspects.

They really are more like interactive stories, but I really enjoy them and I don't see much point in not playing them based on the judgement of whether they are a game or not.

I play Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead and will probably play their future instalments of Game of Thrones and Borderlands too.

My complaint is the episodic releases. It would work a lot better if they could keep to effective timescales, but Wolf Among Us had like a 4-5 month gap between episodes 1 & 2, which really disconnected some people from the game. I recognise the 1 week turnaround TV has isn't workable in this medium, but they really need a tighter schedule to manage people's expectations better.

 

[Robot Number V]

I don't know why everyone's comparing them to books, when the visual aspect makes them more similar to movies.

Anyway, I think they're awesome. The only new games I've played in quite some time have been from Telltale. I don't really care about the low level of interactivity, I'll read/watch/play anything with a good enough story and/or set of characters. And both "The Walking Dead" and "The Wolf Among Us" have those. I think people get too hung up on whether or not they're "games". Who cares? Call it an interactive movie if that helps. Whatever. The point is, it's a good story. The medium doesn't really matter.

EDIT: This has nothing to do with anything, but I just wanted to note the Stanley-Parable-esque irony of being forced to type "take back your freedom" by a captcha. Seriously, is that not the exact kind of thing that game would ask/force you to do?

 

[Vausch]

Love the Walking Dead games, love their writing, love how the moral choices actually feel like a choice that's something one would make and not just listed as their objective "Good" and "evil".

Do wish they'd have a specific release period though.

 

[Smooth Operator]

We are probably talking about the latest entries (from Walking Dead forward)? I like their presentation quite a bit, they certainly take the time to tell the full story, properly written, acted out and animated.

But the gameplay I hate, and I do mean hate, to the point I could never bring myself to suffer through the entire thing even for the great story... I much rather just watch someone else play it.

 

[K12]

I really don't care about the "is this a game" argument. Walking dead is really good and I feel a sense of agency (even though this is often an illusion) when experiencing it.

I'm perfectly happy for someone else to come up with a term for the "interactive narrative experience" genre but I'm not going to and if the name is as shit as the one I just offered then I'm going to just call it a game.