(Please bear with the post length. I didn't realize it was so long until I was done. Hopefully the busy folks at Telltale will have time to get through it all.)
So, I'm a big proponent/evangelist of widescreen. (I own the website linked as my homepage at the bottom of the post.) I downloaded the Bone demos to see if they worked in widescreen. I'm a fairly "casual" gamer, and a comic book geek, so they looked interesting to me. Unfortunately they didn't support widescreen, so I set them aside - I've got plenty of other widescreen compatible games to still play.
I bought a subscription to GameTap the day that Sam & Max came out. I'd been meaning to check GameTap out, and this was the final straw. While the GameTap interface does support 1680x1050 and 1920x1080, Sam & Max did not. I like the game, and will finish it. I'm old school enough to remember release days for the original King's Quest, Ultima, and LucasArts games; so it's basically a requirement to play. But, needless to say I am disappointed in the lack of widescreen support.
But, I have to wonder why the developers don't embrace widescreen. All Macs now are widescreen. A large portion (if not majority) of notebooks from the major manufacturers are widescreen, and widescreen monitors are now very affordable. HDTV is taking off, so the widescreen landscape is hitting it's stride and maturing.
Over this past year we did an interview (
link) with some of the folks at Sigil Games, who are making Vanguard: Saga of Heroes, after Brad McQuaid has stopped by our forums. In the interview their Director of Technology, Ryan Elam, said:
Quote:
"With almost no exception, 3D programs use the mathematical equivalent of a ‘pinhole camera’, one with an infinitely small aperture. Converting a game to widescreen is actually quite simple, and any game maker who is making a PC game is going to already have everything in his engine that he needs to support widescreen. You can think of the typical ‘camera’ as having a completely adjustable aspect ratio.
The same math that allows us to render at 1280x1024 or 1024x768 is used to render at 1600x900 or 1920x1080. The only real difference is the number of pixels and a larger ‘viewport’ which would cause more things to be rendered, but programmers don’t really have to take extra steps to account for such a change."
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He also went on to say:
Quote:
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"Widescreen is certainly a friend of the MMOG game designer... it offers us the ability to grant the users a panoramic view of a landscape that our artists have spent so much time on...
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I would certainly agree with him, and go on to say that widescreen is friend of adventure games and gamers as well. Many titles offer great immersion with their characters and story, and/or expansive worlds to explore (adventure in). And, while the landscape of Sam & Max may not have "vistas" it does have a wonderful, quirky design of which I'd like to see more of. And, you have characters that certainly immerse you into the story.
All of this rambling exposition is not to pimp my own site, or toot my own horn. It's to provide some background as to my stanpoint and experience, and to say/show that I'm not someone simply swooping in to say, "you suck" or "why can't you do what I want." I honestly what to understand what may be barriers to developers implementing widescreen. So, to the real questions:
Is there a reason that Telltale has chosen not to include widescreen support? (Ryam Elam indicated it would be relatively easy for 3D programming.)
Is it too small of a market? (Heck, I'd love to partner with Telltale and help spotlight great games that offer great widescreen support.)
Is it just something that hasn't been a priority, or requested?
Great game (event without the 16:10 love), and I'm glad that you got all the press you did for picking up a franchise and genre most people have forgotten about. I can't tell you how happy I am to see adventure games come back, and how much happier I am to see old franchises come back. Thanks for your time and indulging me.