Adventure Gamers - Forums

Another
Telltale
thread…

You’d think there was only one developer making adventure games out there…

Not interesting , then like them , maybe love them , then not interesting, and then hate them

Can’t say either way. They just never made a game that I was interested in. That doesn’t make them good or bad in my book just a developer that doesn’t make my type of game.

While Telltale may not be the best developer around, we have a lot to thank them for.
When not a single publisher was willing to spend even a dollar on adventure games, Telltale came up with the episodic model. It may have been first and foremost a business decision, but at least it allowed them to make adventure games while others couldn’t.
Granted, not many Telltale games can stand up to the classics in the genre, and they may take a more risk-averse approach by only using established IPs (and not original ideas), but at least it’s allowed them to endure, and it helped others to endure too.

Telltale is probably the only non-German adventure game developer that survived the entire ‘00s decade. That may not make them talented, but it does make them smart. Considering the dire straits our beloved genre has been in, being smart sometimes comes first, and talent second.

Also, it’s not like they didn’t improve throughout the years. Their style and methods changed while they were searching for new and better ways to make their games. So they adopted QTE’s, and they lowered the amount of puzzles, etc.

But they didn’t destroy adventure games, not by a long shot. Now that our niche genre is finally getting a bit more recognition, it saddens me that the one company that stood tall when times where at their darkest gets all this flack for “moving away from the core of adventure gaming”.
All I see is a company that made smart business decisions to stay afloat, that managed to be successful, that helped in the revival of our genre, and that has broadened and diversified our genre even further than it already was.

Their games may not be the best, and you may not approve of some of their methods, but you can’t deny that they’ve been important. They’ve helped our genre in its hour of need, and you cannot possibly hate them for that.

Quest1 - 18 April 2013 01:30 PM

With Telltale’s change of direction toward non-explorative interactive movies, there is now one LESS developer making adventure games.

So they make games that fall in a subgenre of our BROAD adventure game genre. Still makes their games adventure games.

It’s simple, really: if you don’t like Telltale’s games, pick something else. It’s not like our genre is lacking in diversity…

Blackthorne - 18 April 2013 01:44 PM

They’re okay - really.  I don’t really care for what they’re doing now, but there are definitely other companies that cater more to what I enjoy.

My point exactly.

TimovieMan - 18 April 2013 01:44 PM

Blackthorne - 18 April 2013 01:44 PM

They’re okay - really.  I don’t really care for what they’re doing now, but there are definitely other companies that cater more to what I enjoy.

My point exactly.

yes..in less words

Why does the thread caption have to be about the extremes Love or Hate?

The simple truth is that Telltale used to make games i like, and now they are making games i don’t like. But that doesn’t mean i Hate them now, nor that i used to Love them.

I do however think they deserve credit for helping us getting through the Dark Years.
Edit: As Tim posted while i was slowly typing this

Jurassic Park - Never played it.

Back To The Future - Good character development, rather boring gameplay towards the end.

Sam and Max - Some fun episodes and some lame ones. Season 1 and 3 were the funniest IMO.

Tales Of Monkey Island - Fun game, better than Escape, not as good as the first three games in the series.

The Walking Dead - Really good, it’s very rare that I feel this moved by a game.

Looking forward to The Wolf Among Us since Fables is an interesting comic.

Quest1 - 18 April 2013 02:05 PM

Blackthorne - 18 April 2013 01:53 PM

My brief statement said - let me say something: I often hear people say things like “Telltale got us through” or “Telltale saved adventures.”

I have to call bullshit to this.

There were plenty of other people carrying that torch.  Let’ take a quick look at Telltale’s early history….

Yes, thank you. Nice to see honesty and clear-thinking rather than the usual Telltale praise-a-thon we sometimes see on forums like this.

 

There is clear thinking and there is stubborn babies.

Blackthorne - 18 April 2013 01:53 PM

My brief statement said - let me say something: I often hear people say things like “Telltale got us through” or “Telltale saved adventures.”

They didn’t “save” adventures, but they helped in the revival. And we could use the help!

They founded in 2004; the first game they released was a TEXAS HOLD ‘EM CARD GAME, which is not really carrying the adventure game torch.

That game was made to test their engine. Rockstar Games made Table Tennis for that very same reason. It’s ok to go outside of your main genre for testing purposes.

Fine, so then they released BONE!  Yay, and adventure game, we’re going to do a bunch of these… oh, no cancelled.  What’s next?  CSI CRIME GAMES.

Bone underperformed, and the CSI games really weren’t half bad. I thought some of those CSI games were older, though. Nevermind.

When they announced Sam & Max it was at a time when practically the ONLY thing we had heard coming from the adventure genre were cancellations of big titles. Seeing something, *anything* from the LucasArts legacy return to the forefront was a great success at that time.
And they did a good job with their games. It may not have been a *great* job, but at least they were successful, and The Walking Dead has helped our genre practically just as much as Kickstarter has this past year.