I Thank You, Telltale Games

[Lurie]

For a good, long time now, I've been a fan of comics (all of my life, really), and very rarely have I seen videogames accurately portray something I've enjoyed in the past.

That said, I discovered this site when I saw an ad for Game Tap on the television. Lucky me, since I usually don't watch TV. In that commercial, I saw Sam & Max advertised... in 3-D. I'd thought that they were lost when Lucasarts stopped properly supporting them, and when I discovered they still existed, I immediately looked them up.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that they had a new game out, with the promise of future episodes! Upon playing the demo, I was amazed at how Steve Purcell's characters were as good as ever, in 3 dimensions, with the same old style of gameplay as the original game. I found myself laughing immediately. Though I do not have any extra money at the moment, I can promise you have a buyer of the entire series in short order... not to mention all of the people I'm going to tell about this.

It could have been enough, just seeing Sam & Max, but I found myself looking at the Telltale games main website, just in case there were any more mentionable gems among your games.

...and I saw Jeff Smith's 'Bone' staring back at me.

My grandfather has been in the comic industry for most of my life. He has connections with lots of big names, though he is not a big name himself. As a result, I knew about Bone as soon as it had any fan base, and met Jeff Smith briefly at a ComicCon just before the third Bone collection was released. I followed the series all the way to its end, and was never disappointed with it.

As a huge Bone fan, I downloaded the Game-Demo for Bone immediately, hopeful, as well as scared to death that its magic would be ruined by voice-actors and animation.

However, just as with Sam & Max, I was not disappointed in the slightest.

The new Sam & Max and Bone games are not super flashy. More time was dedicated to voicework and imagery than original gameplay in both games. The result was exactly the old style of Sam & Max I loved, and an only slightly altered storyline for the Bone game (which generally takes you in a set direction), preserving the magic.

Telltale Games, by properly portraying both Jeff Smith and Steve Purcell's characters in brand new games and/or storylines, you have created a fan of your works. You'd better believe I will be watching you with high expectations from now on.

Thanks to Jeff Smith and Steve Purcell for sharing their worlds with your company. I also thank those who did the work to bring both projects to life. Finally, I thank the men/women in charge of finding such wonderful subjects for your games... obviously, somebody knows what they're doing.

Sincerely, Tucker James Carothers

[Emily]

You're welcome! Thank you for buying the games. We're glad you enjoyed them.

[Evil Penguin]

I just had to join in the praising...

I must say that Sam&Max (Ep.1) was much better than I had dared to hope when I first found out about that this series would be released.

While the story is limited (partly because of the format, I suppose), this game really captures the mad Sam&Max atmosphere in a great way.

Very fitting graphics (was a little scared of it being in 3D, but that worked out great!), great voice acting and lots and lots of funny little comments when doing the "wrong" things - that really adds to the enjoyment of playing.

Fantastic job, guys!
The one thing I would complain about is that the puzzles could be made a bit more complex... Perhaps something you might want to look into for the upcoming episodes?

Really looking forward to the coming episodes!

[numble]

Originally Posted by Evil Penguin

The one thing I would complain about is that the puzzles could be made a bit more complex... Perhaps something you might want to look into for the upcoming episodes?

This blog posting by one of the Sam and Max game designers, Brendan Ferguson, might interest you. P=

[Hero1]

Originally Posted by numble

This blog posting by one of the Sam and Max game designers, Brendan Ferguson, might interest you. P=

numble are you being paid by telltale to talk about the puzzles level of difficulty

[Evil Penguin]

Originally Posted by numble

This blog posting by one of the Sam and Max game designers, Brendan Ferguson, might interest you. P=

Thanks, numble!

[Oilers99]

Originally Posted by numble

This blog posting by one of the Sam and Max game designers, Brendan Ferguson, might interest you. P=

Nice, he actually mentions pacing as a concern. That's good. It's the thing that gamers, and oftentimes designers, seem to forget when they ramp up the pacing. If a game is overly difficult, the pace of the game comes to a crashing, shuddering, hideous halt. In a comedy game, that can be deadly. It made Hit the Road, an otherwise hilarious game, unfunny for stretches.

[sokuni]

There's also an aspect that deserves thanks from me.

For many many years, I though point 'n click -games were completely dead and without hope of resurrection (since all of those rare possible adventure games used the icky 3D interface like in Grim Fandango and Escape from Monkey Island). Thank you for proving me wrong. I almost had a tear in my eye when I tried out the demo of Culture Shock, just because of that mouse interface.

[Mack Daddy]

Telltale has done real justice to the 'Bone' books I agree Lurie.