One thing that could really benefit Season 2 and Telltale as a whole...

[zgamer]

I know this is a costly and time consuming process, but I think if this investment was made, it would pay off for the studio and their future products. As much as I love their writing and style of adventure gameplay, there's one thing I feel needs a serious upgrade:

Telltale's game engine.

They are able to overcome issues of technical design through great art and character design, but doing projects as ambitious as TWD shows they need to up their tech. The slowdowns, stiff character movements and other perceptible tech limitations pull back what could be a totally immersive game. It's popped up in previous games, but TWD is kind of a breaking point for me. It's a fantastic game overall, but this is my main complaint.

Honestly, how great would it be to debut the next season of TWD with a brand new game engine capable of pushing their tech capabilities further? They could show even greater potential for emotional payoff, excellent set pieces and creative adventure gaming. With the revenue TWD is making them, they could have a chance to do this. It's not going to stop me from playing the games if they don't, but it would be a nice change.

[gwader]

Amen!

[phazonic]

I definitely agree. The Walking Dead is my favorite game this year, but the one thing holding it back is the dated engine. The graphical style is pretty awesome, but I want to see it benefit from a more powerful engine.

[Master of Aeons]

The Telltale tool has grown a lot since Bone and Sam and Max S1. I think they've pushed it as far as it can go and really impressed us.

But that said, I think a complete rehaul of the engine between Fables and whatever's next would be a good move.

[HailTWD]

If Telltale could make even slightly better looking characters, great! If not, i guess some chum in season 2 will be shaped like a dong. I wont care though, it's all about story.

[shedim]

I couldn't care less about the engine. The game looks pretty good already so there's no need to change it. I'd rather have my choices truly impact and shape the story. I'd rather have more challenging puzzles. I'd rather have more freedom and less railroading in the story, especially when people are dieing.

I do realize you can't save everybody and this is a TWD game, where people are supposed to die. However, I'd love to have more choice, something like Mass Effect's paragon/renegade interrupts that slightly change the outcome of certain situations.

This game is more like a movie or a novel and feels less like a game. It's way too railroaded, your choices don't matter a lot, you don't get to make the important decisions in the story anyways and even the main character's final hours are preset. This is kind of a disappointment, at least to me. I expected this to be much more tailored to my gameplay, my decisions, my story. After all this is a video game, not a novel, comic or a movie. It's supposed to be more interactive.


This game's issues are not the engine.

[Gman5852]

Originally Posted by shedim

I do realize you can't save everybody and this is a TWD game, where people are supposed to die. However, I'd love to have more choice, something like Mass Effect's paragon/renegade interrupts that slightly change the outcome of certain situations.

Was about to attack the paragon/renegade thing, then saw you ment the interuptions. That could be interesting if done right, but Mass Effect didn't even do it right(I remember interrupting caused an entire planet to fall to the reapers, which was not the outcome I wanted, doing nothing spared them stupidly enough).

Could certainly work if done right though.

[zgamer]

Originally Posted by shedim

I couldn't care less about the engine. The game looks pretty good already so there's no need to change it. I'd rather have my choices truly impact and shape the story. I'd rather have more challenging puzzles. I'd rather have more freedom and less railroading in the story, especially when people are dieing.

I do realize you can't save everybody and this is a TWD game, where people are supposed to die. However, I'd love to have more choice, something like Mass Effect's paragon/renegade interrupts that slightly change the outcome of certain situations.

This game is more like a movie or a novel and feels less like a game. It's way too railroaded, your choices don't matter a lot, you don't get to make the important decisions in the story anyways and even the main character's final hours are preset. This is kind of a disappointment, at least to me. I expected this to be much more tailored to my gameplay, my decisions, my story. After all this is a video game, not a novel, comic or a movie. It's supposed to be more interactive.


This game's issues are not the engine.

Actually, those choice issues are totally part of the engine. The engine has to process all the data a player inputs into each episode and the most significant slowdown issues come from the engine computing a choice (generating Carley into an episode 2 cutaway moment). Also, a better engine may be able to handle more choices that can significantly carry through a whole season. Think about if we could make a Carley/Doug choice that actually lasts through all five episodes

[Milosuperspesh]

or just take a little more time to polish the game ?

it's bit lazy of ttg to let some of these things slide, oh look lee walks like he got a stick up his ass

@ttg we should fix it, nah it'll take to long to fix leave it in, yes sir no one will notice anyway...

[Araron]

Honestly,I don't think TWD's graphics are bad.I agree,they could definitely improve the textures on some parts and polish the game a little,but this isn't a super high budget product.The graphics might not be best possible,but I think facial movement and expressions look just more alive then in a lot of today's games.

[Zeruis]

Wait, do you mean Telltale's game engine or TWD game engine? I would agree that TT's game engine would go great with future games.

Word on the street is that King's quest is using TWD game's engine. Is this true?

[MaKTaiL]

The quality get better with each installment. But there are some problems that can only be fixed with an engine upgrade.
Telltale has been using the same engine for years now. They improve it bit by bit, but it's still the same tech.
I remember when I played Back To The Future's first episode on PS3, the graphics were pretty bad, it was very washed out with no anti aliasing.
Then episode 2 came and everything was improved. I was pretty impressed. You can clearly see it.

The same thing can be seen across Sam & Max Episodes.
They learn with their mistakes and fix it in future releases.
That's what a good company should always do.

The Walking Dead has been using the engine at it's finest. The best version of the engine since the beggining of the company.
They fix some bugs here and there, but I don't see it getting any better than this.
Some bugs will still remain though. Uou can see some of the same bugs on all TT Games if you played them all like me, so you end up getting used to it.
That's why you can't see graphical improvements between Walking Dead episodes, because there is nothing more to get better at. At least for now. Making any more improvements would require a lot of coding behind the engine and you can expect that for Season 2 I'm sure.

[Jokieman]

Meh, the better it looks, the higher the system requirements. A lot of people who play adventure games don't have great systems to begin with. I'd rather they just fix what they have so that the action sequences work better.

I think what would really benefit them at this point is to go after some of those new Disney IP's aggressively, and secure some new seasons of all the old Lucas Arts Adventure games. I think they need to make a better Monkey Island, some Indiana Jones maybe, and definitely a Grim Fandango.

[owner070]

Originally Posted by phazonic

I definitely agree. The Walking Dead is my favorite game this year, but the one thing holding it back is the dated engine. The graphical style is pretty awesome, but I want to see it benefit from a more powerful engine.

Naah i like the graphics they are like a moving comic book you know. It starts to irritate me to see on every game the same fckng graphics and just buy a better screen the graphics will be 10 times better

[fangorn]

I'm all for a better optimized or new engine as long as they keep to this art direction and color palette

[crash665]

So, you want Halo 4 graphics with TWD emotions? The problem is developing a game on an engine like that is expensive and time consuming. You'll pay for it in the long run. Hint: Doubt the next season would be $24.

Besides, the game is designed to look the comic book - a job it does really well.

Activision is making a FPS game based on Merle and Daryl leaving Atlanta. I'm sure it will be high def and maybe what you are looking for.

[Master of Aeons]

Originally Posted by crash665

Halo 4 graphics

NO

God no.

I guess the question goes to the devs: Does the Telltale Tool need an upgrade? They're the ones who know what its capable of and if it really holds them back.

[zgamer]

Originally Posted by crash665

So, you want Halo 4 graphics with TWD emotions? The problem is developing a game on an engine like that is expensive and time consuming. You'll pay for it in the long run. Hint: Doubt the next season would be $24.

Besides, the game is designed to look the comic book - a job it does really well.

Activision is making a FPS game based on Merle and Daryl leaving Atlanta. I'm sure it will be high def and maybe what you are looking for.

No, I just want them to eliminate the stuff character movements, slow loading times and technical hiccups that take you out of the immersion. I love the art design for this game, but it's the actual technical output that needs a boost. I'd like for people to not immediately snap into a position when a new bit of dialogue starts up or to doubt the impact of the action because the arm and leg movements are unconvincing. I just think it would help the level of immersion even further and it could increase the amount of emotion they can convey.

Plus, don't knock Halo 4's graphics. Those are some of the best the Xbox 360 have processed in years and they are some of the best art designs of the year! So TWD would be happy to be compared to Halo 4 if they could.

[QuarterPounderVlad]

Completely agreed.
I don't want to say anything more.

[Master of Aeons]

Okay, I asked the devs in that thread. Maybe we'll learn how the engine is used and dispel some misconceptions about it.