Are Telltale listening to the complaints about the difficulty-level of their games?

[Incognito]

I haven´t finished the first episode myself yet, but every text you read about the game contains the same pros and cons: Absolutely wonderful presentation, but is soooo easy. Which is the same response the Bone-games got.

Are Telltale listening to this critic, or will the coming episodes have the same diffculty-level?

I´m playing Broken Sword 4 now at the same time, and that is one game that really requires one to think, and adds some very neat minigames and puzzles. Maybe that game can be a source of inspiration for Telltale, to raise the quality of their games from "really good" to "downright excellent"?

[Duate]

Yeah raise the difficulty a bit. I've only been stuck twice, and both of those for like 5 minutes. Inventory combinations would help bring the difficulty up.

[Junkface]

Anyone who ties quality to difficulty is an utter moron. Even so, I do agree that from what I've played Culture Shock seems to lack something of Sam & Max's lunacy in its puzzles. I've actually found them more straightforward than The Great Cow Race's.

[Hero1]

I hope they are listening..

[Incognito]

Originally Posted by Junkface

Anyone who ties quality to difficulty is an utter moron. Even so, I do agree that from what I've played Culture Shock seems to lack something of Sam & Max's lunacy in its puzzles. I've actually found them more straightforward than The Great Cow Race's.

Moron? Geezz...

An adventuregame with great presentation and no difficulty = interactive movie
An adventuregame with great presentation and a healthy difficulty-level = classic.

Im not saying that Telltales games are interactive movies, but every adventuregame needs a bit of a challenge since adventuregames are games.

[Hero1]

That's how I feel I wanna play a game not a story.. but if telltale upped the difficulty level for the next episode sam and max would be near perfect..

If I can go off on a tangent here.. It does kind of bug me that developers are so afraid of making people think.. Even prince of persia:sands of time had a few "adventure game" type thinking elements..when they did warrior within the prince was quickly a generic bad ass, it was now an action game and all those fun puzzles were quickly removed. It's a sad state of gaming is all I can say.. Grim fandango has been the last great adventure challenge (as far as the puzzles) ive played.

[Tobias]

Yeah, Culture Shock only lasted me around 2 hours, a bluescreen + reboot included. It was pretty disappointing to see the end credits roll just as you were starting to get into the game, and then when the dedication to Karyn Nelson, some 41 years young woman who died, showed up at the end I got even more depressed.

As for the difficulty, I'd like to suggest something along the lines of the Monkey Island 2 approach where you get to select between the "full" experience with more puzzles and a "lite" version for inexperienced adventurers.

I'm willing to bet that the better part of your customers are people who have already played the original Sam & Max (and many other adventure games) back in the days, so don't patronize us with easy puzzles - after all, adventure gamers is a pretty hardcore target audience.

[numble]

Tobias: If you go to Gametap.com, you'll see that Sam and Max has been the most played game on that network for the past three weeks, and there has not been any adventure games--as far as I recall--in the top rankings, so you might not be entirely correct with your prediction that most players of Culture Shock are experienced adventure gamers. After all, Gametap includes a whole bunch of Sierra's adventure games, a bunch of the Zork adventure games, as well as the Last Express.

[Tobias]

Originally Posted by numble

Tobias: If you go to Gametap.com

I can't. GameTap is only open to panamericans. Apparently, I'm not welcome over there.

My reasoning still stands though, it's fully possible to trim out some of the bigger puzzles for a "lite" option in the game, as previously shown in other adventure games. No need to disappoint long-time fans just to make it accessible to inexperienced players.

[numble]

As to the "light" and "hard" modes, I'd rather Telltale have people get comfortable and then slowly ramp up the difficulty. First off, it's been tried in previous adventure games, but people were still turned off from adventure games as the market showed--people won't try something if it's too hard for them, but definitely don't want to feel that they're too dumb to play the "complete" game.

Secondly, it adds additional work for the team with very little payoff--they've already stated that they're shooting for 4-6 hours per episode, and even the most experienced players are taking 2-3.5 hours already, make it longer and, assuming most people take longer than experienced players, and you end up with game length that is outside their desired goal for episodic games--and many people, especially Gametap players, have been telling Telltale that they find the gameplay length just about right.

There are some people that can beat Super Mario in 10 minutes, but that doesn't mean Nintendo should make an easy/hard mode, or make the game harder for those players.

[numble]

I only said to visit Gametap.com, not to subscribe to their service--the website tells you their popular games as well what games they offer. But maybe they block the website so non-americans/non-canadians aren't allowed to visit--I wouldn't know about that.

[jp-30]

Trimming puzzles from an episodic game is counter productive. There's little enough to do anyway.

Best way to ramp up difficulty would be;

1. Inventory combination puzzles (eg. having to find ammo for the tear gas launcher)
2. Extra steps in puzzles (eg. needing to find a key to open closet in office)
3. Have Max give hints to make harder puzzles passable for novice palyers (this was done in Bone).
4. Have option to turn off automatic cursor, and use right button to cycle look/interact/walk. I'm always accidentally clicking my right-button where my fingers rest and accidentally skipping dialogue.

[Tobias]

Originally Posted by numble

There are some people that can beat Super Mario in 10 minutes, but that doesn't mean Nintendo should make an easy/hard mode, or make the game harder for those players.

First of all, people do not beat Super Mario Bros in 10 minutes the first time they play the game, and secondly to reach that time you have to use alot of short cuts. The game does take more time to clear if you play all the levels, the content is there if you opt for the full experience. So it is kind of a moot point.

Also you might remember that Nintendo did in fact include a series of harder levels in Super Mario World called "Special World". And just recently, in New Super Mario Bros on the DS, Nintendo included a special challenge mode that turns off backtracking on levels to make it more challenging.

I'm tired of being spoonfed when it comes to difficulty, or lack thereof. I paid for the game too, don't I have a say in what's "just about right"?

[Yandros]

I agree. Puzzles were too simple. And it was very linear. I felt like I was watching TV; not that I don’t like watching Sam and Max, but really I was expecting more oomph.

Any experienced adventure gamer will tell you about that feeling you got when the next monkey island *JUST CAME OUT* and you just sat down to play it. Explore, and enjoy, and start nibbling away at some of the easier puzzles. Well that lasted about 15 seconds with culture shock.

Initially upon competition I felt relatively satisfied, but after thinking about it a little more, really this was entirely due to the fact this is Sam and Max. The actual quality of the adventure wasn’t really very good. Very entertaining, as Sam and Max always are, but it definitely lacked the feel of an early 90’s Lucas arts adventure game.

Set your sights for one of these three: Monkey island 3, Day of the tentacle, or Grim Fandango. They were all quite different interface wise but they all had the correct feel of an adventure game. Freedom, hard puzzles… a game which keeps you up at night… a game with atmosphere… a game with character… a game with oomph.

[numble]

I'm just a subscriber to Old Man Murray's theory for the death of adventure games. If only targeting hard core adventure gamers was enough to make adventure games successful, Lucasarts and Sierra would still be churning out those babies left and right. Many of those games tried to implement both hard and easy modes, but the market still didn't bite. There's a certain innate skill set hard-wired into experienced adventure gamers that isn't in all gamers. An example would be the look-at/pick-up response in the old games--almost everything you looked at you would also try to pick up, but even that isn't hard-wired into inexperienced gamers. A podcast I listened to discussed one such problem with Sam and Max Hit The Road, where nobody would ever expect to tell Sam to "pick up" the mousehole, and thus would never know where to get money from. Culture Shock simplifies this because looking at things and picking up things are the same command.

I do expect the episodes to be more difficult in the future, but people should not expect the extremely difficult and complex puzzles of the past--use paper cup with golf ball retriever and make a bungee rope with twine so that you can bungee jump with it to retrieve a piece of tar.

If you want adventure games to be continued to be made, you need them to be successful. For them to be successful, there needs to be certain changes made to engage with a wider audience. It may be a sharp razor to swallow, but it's true.

[Major_Higgins]

That's sad, I was mortified when realizing all I needed to make the helmet was the "antenna."
That was ridiculous. But I liked the whole psychotherapist part. I think it was the best puzzle.

Now, there must be a way of pleasing casual gamers (the Market...) and adventurers. It can be MORE difficult without having to write "DJ bring sekey madoule" on a tombstone

[0renji]

My problem with having no difficult puzzles is this:
I am unashamedly RUBBISH at solving puzzles. What I enjoy is the story, and actually seeing the solutions to the puzzles. If I CAN work out a puzzle, alrighty; but if I can't, and I look up a walkthrough, I can still marvel at the insane logic of whoever designed this, and I can enjoy the outcome. Of course if a puzzle is hard because it's NOT logical, I get no enjoyment; if it's logical but I couldn't figure it out, I still get enjoyment. If the puzzle is so easy I can just do it straight away, I also get no enjoyment, and the end result is just not as wacky (the reward for solving a hard puzzle in HtR was a funny scene or just a really good animation which is funny in itself, plus story advancement and often new locations.)

However I think that it's right to start out this easy. Train up those who have just picked up the game and haven't been conditioned to pick up every object, and then in later games, get them thinking.

[Hero1]

I don't buy that argument numble.. I think people who arent in your "hardcore adventure gamer demographic" would just as much like a challenge as the rest of us.. Why is everyone so afraid to force people to think about situations a little bit?

I think the easy/difficult mode would not be that hard to implement either.. in easy mode you use gas launcher.. set it to difficult and you cant just use it you must find ammo to use etc etc using jps example.

[0renji]

Originally Posted by Hero1

I don't buy that argument numble.. I think people who arent in your "hardcore adventure gamer demographic" would just as much like a challenge as the rest of us.. Why is everyone so afraid to force people to think about situations a little bit?

The risk is too high that new players who aren't used to adventure games will get stuck on a puzzle, then just abandon the game on a shelf because it's "too hard." And then of course they won't play any other of the episodes or any other adventure games maybe.

Some people get angry when they feel they aren't "smart enough" for a game, so even if they look up a walkthrough they're likely to just resent it and feel, not that they didn't get the puzzle, but that THE PUZZLE WAS WRONG. and so on...

[Hero1]

I think the people that would enjoy the difficulty would far outweigh those that would be turned off by it.. you would get 95% very high rated reviews.. you would get really strong word of mouth..