Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures now available on XBLA!

[Emily]

Fright of the Bumblebees launched this morning on Xbox LIVE Arcade. So... what does everyone think?

[W&G156]

im going to play it as soon as i get xbox live arcade. in the mean time i want to see a walkthrough for the game and the achievements.

[patters]

Excellent, just finished it, love the graphics, especially the small touches like the finger prints on the queen bee. it's a little jerk in places and the controls are a little fiddly in circumstances.

All in all I really enjoyed it and I am looking forward to the next one (whenever that is released).

[Emily]

Originally Posted by W&G156

im going to play it as soon as i get xbox live arcade. in the mean time i want to see a walkthrough for the game and the achievements.

There's a walkthrough here.

As for the achievements, I don't want to spoil the fun of discovering them! (Maybe people can post here as they get them...?)

[Junaid]

Woohoo I finally played it! Demo didn't run too smooth on my pc so I decided to wait for the Xbox version.

Anyway, I loved it
As a big Wallace & Gromit fan, I was happy to see that the basic story structure was used; Wallace has an invention, invention backfires and Gromit needs to save the day

The new voice of Wallace was weird at first, but later I didn't even notice it

I hope the wait for the next episode to appear on Xbox Live isn't too long

all in all, cracking job, lads!

[scoobyroo]

First up, congrats on the XBLA release. Here’s hoping it brings a brand new audience to the adventure genre… incentivising developers such as Tell Tale and Lucasarts to invest (or re-invest in the case of Lucasarts) in this much loved game format.

I’m actually a bit surprised this thread hasn’t grown pages in length… seems that either no one has downloaded the XBLA version, no one has any comment, or they are all too busy playing to provide any feedback )

Anyway, I wanted to try to give you guys some constructive feedback and I’d be interested to know if others agree/disagree with my comments.

First up a confession…. My heart lays with Sam and Max, which is second only to Full Throttle (oh and Monkey Island) as my favourite game of all time . Indeed the only reasons I downloaded W&G on XBLA was because

a). I’m an Adventure starved gamer,
b). My PC hasn’t been upgraded for over 3 years and is a bit too anti-social now that I have kids. XBLA however makes for a preferable experience
c). I wanted to do my bit by purchasing this game to persuaded you guys to continue investing in (and developing) both the adventure genre AND XBLA as a distribution platform.

Yes I am desperate to see Sam and Max on XBLA (just a sniff of a date would be so welcome… please!?), however I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by W&G. I have just started Act 3 and I have to say am really enjoying the format and humour )

The good bits…

• The humour
• The art/sound design
• The story is fun and typical of a W&G animated feature
• The episodic nature, availability on XBLA and very reasonable 800 point price tag (1,200 would have put off some ‘newbies’ to the genre I think)

.


The not so good bits… (not taking away from what you’ve done, just trying to provide some feedback to consider)

• The gameplay is prone to bad frame rate and sound skips/stutters and glitches. Hopefully you can ‘tweak’ the engine a bit to help resolve these for future releases.
• The control interface is ok, but not great. I am not sure if I would have preferred a point/click interface (or indeed if the PC was pint/click?). The interface actually reminded me of Grim Fandango a bit, maybe I’m just trying to cling on to the past. I suspect point/click is just unworkable on a gamepad, hence the decision
• Movement controls would really really benefit from utilising the analogue sensitivity of the 360 gamepad (i.e. smaller movement to creep, further to walk, full movement to run).
• The use of white boxes and white text for objects/interactions makes it far too difficult to see/read. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’ve played it on both a 32” and 50” HD screen as 1080p and found it equally as difficult to read object text or see the highlight boxes, against the bright/light art style. Perhaps if you are sat inches from the screen this is fine, but remember that most people will be playing their Xbox from several feet away. Might I suggest you either try a different colour (dark blue?), outline the white text/lines with a colour (black/dark blue?) or better still provide a cursor colour slider in the options menu so the user can set his/her preference?
• On a similar topic, a larger (user configurable) font for the object text would be useful. Also, maybe try positing the text differently over the object/item in question so as to draw the eye to that area?
• The Object descriptions are somewhat lacking. For example, in Act 3 to unlock an achievement I need to not pick up Gorgonzola. However the object description when highlighting the various pieces of cheese provides no indication as to what type it is. this was fine in the old point/click days of ‘examining’ and ‘object’ to find out exactly what it was prior to ‘picking it up’, ’using it’, etc.., but the new interface doesn’t offer that flexibility of command. As such, when I click it I automatically pick it up, and only when it’s in my inventory is it identified as Gorgonzola. Hope that makes sense, as this is rather annoying.
• On that topic (and having not played the PC version), are the object/item interactions supposed to be so dumbed down? Where is my ‘Look at’, ‘examine’, ‘Pick up, ‘Move’, etc options? Seems that all I can do is one thing with each item? Will Sam and Max be like this? Half the humour was in trying all the ways to interact with an object/item and getting all the funny remarks (“why would I want to do that”, “I can’t pick this up”, “what would I do with a rubber chicken”, “etc..”
• Having not completed the game yet, it’s possible this comment is ungrounded. However, given that many achievements are missable (made up word )) in the first play through (the snail one for example), I think it would make sense to allow the player upon completing the game, the opportunity to play individual Acts again (without relying on them using bookmarks for each act – which is the approach I’m having to take). Having to re-play the game to get these will be rather annoying
• Why no conversation trails? Is this simply a design choice for W&G? Does Sam & Max have conversation trails? Again half the fun for me in an adventure game is trying out all the different questions/responses
• Whilst 800 MS points is a good price point, will XBLA users be able to benefit from cheaper later episodes if they have one/all of the previous episodes? You allude to this in the release announcement blog, however it is unclear if you are suggesting that PC users will continue to benefit from ‘discounts’, or XBLA users as well?

Anyway, I hope these comments are read and perhaps even responded to (by others if not Tell Tale themselves). I’d also be really interested to see some stats around downloads PC ‘V’ XBLA (for the full release as well as demo)… if only so I can rest easy that Sam and Max will actually make it onto XBLA ) Of course, I would not seriously expect you guys to divulge such information )

Keep up the good work!

‘Scoob’

[LittleBuddy]

On that topic (and having not played the PC version), are the object/item interactions supposed to be so dumbed down? Where is my ‘Look at’, ‘examine’, ‘Pick up, ‘Move’, etc options? Seems that all I can do is one thing with each item? Will Sam and Max be like this? Half the humour was in trying all the ways to interact with an object/item and getting all the funny remarks (“why would I want to do that”, “I can’t pick this up”, “what would I do with a rubber chicken”, “etc..”

Sam & Max is similar, but it does have a lot of different funny quotes to listen to anyways, especially from episode 4 of the first season (after that one, pretty much every item receives a different answer in every episode). You can still try to use two items together and get a hilarious answer too (look for the "Did you try...?" lists in the website after you play them).

Why no conversation trails? Is this simply a design choice for W&G? Does Sam & Max have conversation trails? Again half the fun for me in an adventure game is trying out all the different questions/responses

Yep, it does, exactly like the adventures of old ;-)

Whilst 800 MS points is a good price point, will XBLA users be able to benefit from cheaper later episodes if they have one/all of the previous episodes? You allude to this in the release announcement blog, however it is unclear if you are suggesting that PC users will continue to benefit from ‘discounts’, or XBLA users as well?

Sadly, I don't think there'll be any offer of this kind for Wallace & Gromit since MS doesn't usually offer packs for Live Arcade... Sam & Max will be a single game for each season, though.

Welcome and glad to see you liked W&G :P

[maximmortal]

Downloaded this yesterday! Looking forward to playing it properly!

[Bundybear]

Downloaded it a few days ago, love it! got most the achievements on it. Cant wait for the next eposide to be released any hints to when we can expect it??

Keep up the great work guys!

[BigShawn7324]

Apparently some but not all are experiencing the glitch that even after 5 attempts still shows its ugly face. The Sniffer 3000 remote after being acquired keeps vanishing from item list. Anyone heard of this & know whether they are going to be fixing it soon?? I've had no such issues on the PC version.

[maximmortal]

Finished this last night and loved it! Would agree with one of the above points that the white highlighting brackets really aren't that highlighty at all. Instead, I found myself looking at the top right-hand corner to see what I'd selected.

[Noxide]

Originally Posted by Emily

Fright of the Bumblebees launched this morning on Xbox LIVE Arcade. So... what does everyone think?

We love it but it is tough to keep younger players involved in the puzzle solving... It would be awesome if there was more action (like shooting at the bees, etc...) and less storyline to keep the young people interested and involved! We do thank you for creating the game and look forward to the other chapters yet to come!

[roberttitus]

Originally Posted by Noxide

We love it but it is tough to keep younger players involved in the puzzle solving... It would be awesome if there was more action (like shooting at the bees, etc...) and less storyline to keep the young people interested and involved! We do thank you for creating the game and look forward to the other chapters yet to come!

I would have to disagree.... the thing that kept me so interested was the story.... I liked solving the puzzles & seeing the story unfold. If I wanted to shoot something, I would play Fallout 3 not an old school adventure game.

[brof]

Great game! I am going to play it through a second time with my children (now that I know the puzzles :-)

I love the puzzles, the story, the music, the voiceacting and the art/graphics. Nothing wrong here...

Controls could be more responsive, but you get used to it quickly.

Sometimes the game feels too much like a finite state machine ... less repeated dialogue and more solution paths for the puzzles would be better.

Good Work, waiting for the next episode to be released soon

cheers,
brof

[uktigger05]

I got this game for the xbox 360 and love it but im stuch on the changles on it how do i get stung 3 times and whats gastropod

[uzivatel]

Wallace & Gromit in Fright of the Bumblebees - 400 Microsoft Points


details: http://majornelson.com/archive/2010/...wout-sale.aspx

(Super Street Fighter II HD Remix is only 560 MP)

[pwblaine]

don't know if anyone else has this bug,
but in Last Resort, when Poodgie-Woo and Tinkie-Wee scare Gromit out of the bedroom window, there's a selectable invisible "Duncan" being barked at by a Poodgie-Woo and Tinkine-Wee in ms flitt's doorway, a scene which takes place hours before. I'm pretty sure that's a violation, even blatant disregard for the temporal prime directive.