Telltale Games

0renji · 11/02/2006, 02:42 pm

Ask most gamers whether they have heard of Sam and Max and they'll probably say no. I'm talking here about gamers who are not adults, the "young generation" of gamers. The response to Freelance Police is likely nothing to the response that people would have had to, I don't know, Halo 2 or Half-Life 2 being cancelled. What I'm driving at here is that essentially the hard-core fanbase is pretty small.

I think Sam and Max have some deep flaws when it comes to marketing though - it's not for children, but adults don't want to be seen playing a game with a talking dog and rabbit... Telltale also have put so, so many references to previous Sam and Max things but aimed the puzzles at newcomers. Weird contradiction.

*Hero1* · 11/02/2006, 02:52 pm

Well I completely disagree with that.

0renji · 11/02/2006, 02:54 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hero1

Well I completely disagree with that.

Your evidence is overwhelming. I surrender!

*Hero1* · 11/02/2006, 03:00 pm

I think the audience that was targeted when hit the road came out, which was successful, could be targeted once again with culture shock. People like funny games, Sam & Max could be enjoyed by a wide range of people. Are telltale trying to get some kind of half-life like sales? I think the entire Sam & Max audience is reasonably big in the scale of people purchasing games from telltale.

0renji · 11/02/2006, 03:03 pm

Okay. True. Production costs are also a lot lower so they don't need that big an audience. I am just highly pessimistic about all kinds of things, so I'm probably underestimating a lot.

XMunkki · 11/02/2006, 03:18 pm

Just played through it, took about 2.5h. Personally I found the difficulty level to be pretty much spot on, though I wanted the rabbit do some funky things more. Overall I really enjoyed the atmosphere and witty dialogue. As a foreigner my english doesn't quite twist that far when wielding it myself but I can sure understand and enjoy it.

I think some people feel that episodic games are too short because people are not used to episodic content yet. 2.5h for one episode may seem little for some, but if every episodi is as long, then I just got 6*2.5h=15h of game entertainment for my $40. Just my 2c.

Major_Higgins · 11/02/2006, 03:58 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by XMunkki

I think some people feel that episodic games are too short because people are not used to episodic content yet.

Well that's probably a valid point!

Lazerus101 · 11/02/2006, 03:59 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Major_Higgins

Well that's probably a valid point!

True though I have bought both HL2 Episode 1 and Sin Episode 1 and they are both substantially longer, though substantially more expensive.

SurplusGamer · 11/02/2006, 05:16 pm

I actually don't think it's a length problem - it's a pacing problem. Episode 1 is great and short but it has the pacing of a much longer adventure like Hit The Road. Things happen quite slowly, that is. And because things happen quite slowly, over not much time, not much actually happens in the game.

I'm not a TV series fanboy, but I think you can look to these to learn a few lessons about pacing - the TV series was pretty hyperactive because it only had 10 minutes in which to tell its story. But tell it it did and sometimes it was surprising just how much STUFF they could fit into that 10 minutes.

With a longer game like Hit the Road you can afford to slow things right down because by the end of it, there's still plenty of stuff that's happened and plenty to look back on.

With a 3 hour game like Culture Shock I think what's needed is a slightly faster pace so that by the end, even though it didn't take very long, it seems like lots has happened.

If that makes sense.

briankory · 11/02/2006, 06:13 pm

I just played it and it took me about 3 hours. 3 hours for an epsidoe is enough for me . I LOVED THE WHOLE THING

dunkpork · 11/02/2006, 06:30 pm

I thought the difficulty was just fine for the introductory episode.

Pvt._Public · 11/02/2006, 08:09 pm

Would you like some nicely designed puzzles which make logical sense and fit into the context of the game, OR would you like an obscene amount of illogical pointless puzzles which make the game more of a chore than fun?

I personally don't enjoy having every little thing turn into a pointless quest with the logic of 3 year olds. Hmm... I need to get out of the office... First, find the door knob (hidden in the fruit box), find my magnet for later (stuck down the back of the old couch, need enormous ball of twine and paper clip from Kentucky to pick up), etc.

I've found the difficulty level for Bone and Sam & Max to be just about right so far. I'd rather pay for quality, not quantity.

*Hero1* · 11/02/2006, 08:24 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pvt._Public

Would you like some nicely designed puzzles which make logical sense and fit into the context of the game, OR would you like an obscene amount of illogical pointless puzzles which make the game more of a chore than fun?

why cant you have nicely designed puzzles that make logical sense, fit in with the game and are difficult? Take the psychoanalysis puzzle.. that was great and required thinking..

numble · 11/02/2006, 10:40 pm

Here are just some important points from a recent Retronauts podcast dedicated to Sam and Max Hit the Road, that I think should be considered. They do conclude in the end that they believe in Telltale and think Telltale will do just fine.

A lot more of things are said in the podcast itself, and here's the link:
Retronaut's podcast on Sam and Max Hit The Road

A: "Sam and Max is the one game so far, that I love! Sam and Max is awesome."
B: "Well that's going to make an interesting podcast, I really like the graphics and the animation of Sam and Max; I love the writing, but I don't think it's all that fun.
A: "Do you just not like adventure games?"
B: "Because it's an adventure game. And as much as like the idea of adventure games, they ultimately boil down to this pointless BS where you're just like clicking on stuff and hoping that you can make compilations and connections. "
C: "Yes! I was thinking today..."
B: "I was playing Sam and Max this weekend... and I kind of had this epiphany...this remembrance of what the genre was like and why it's dead now, why people don't play it anymore. There's just too much of... I'll just combine stuff and then eventually I'll get something right."
C: "There's this peculiar dream-logic in adventure games where the solution you're acting out only makes sense in adventure games."
B: "It makes sense retroactively, it's like you do it, and then you say, 'Oh, I kinda see how that happened, but it wasn't really intuitive in terms of logic or gameplay."

...
A: "You just start sweeping your cursor."
B: "That's what happens in every adventure game, at some point you get to the area where you're like, 'Alright I'm completely stuck, so I'm going to spend an hour making every possible click combination."

...
A: "(The illogical adventure puzzles) felt maybe a little more offensive in Sam and Max because the rest of the game is so good."

C: "...there was a certain masochism to the logic..."
...
B: "...I feel good when I saw a solution that had a logical build-up, when I solve a puzzle that is kinda arbitrary, I don't feel satisfaction... I'm just annoyed that they made me jump through so many stupid hoops."
...
C: "There's a strangeness, where if you played enough adventure games, you would be able to start to thinking as crazy as they did, to kind of circumvent their craziness."
...
B: "...(in the 90s) adventure games had become so insular and so recursive, so that only if you played adventure games, then you spoke the language. In a way adventure games became as insular and stagnant as fighting games, like you can't be good at a fighting game now, unless you played all the fighting games and you really master them. Adventure games were about the same way... a kind of niche genre that continues to fold in on itself until it eventually dies."

numble · 11/02/2006, 11:12 pm

And if anybody asks, the reason why I bring outside gamer opinions in here is just for a little perspective... We need to face the reality that Sam and Max fans discussing something in a Sam and Max forum do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the majority of gamers. It's the equivalent to Star Trek fans discussing whether or not Star Trek should change certain aspects of their shows to appeal to a greater audience... in the end, the creators rely on more objective opinions to know what their audience really thinks. We can go on and on about whether or not we think there is a sufficient fanbase to make profitable games of a certain type, but saying something like "I know I'll play it, and a couple of my friends would too if the difficulty were back to Hit the Road levels" is really not the most reliable indicator of reality.

Basically my argument boils down to this:
It will be more difficult, but you are not going to get to the level of past adventure games where you get stuck for an hour or more on a puzzle, nor reach those insane levels of illogicality.

Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale, on where he expects episodic gaming to be like in the future:
"The more things that pull people into playing an episode, and sustaining that episodic feel where you're always getting new content and stories, that's growing. You know, on Monday I can play Sam & Max, on Tuesday I can play Half-Life, on Wednesday I can play Penny Arcade, and on Thursday maybe I can play the new Simpsons game. It starts to validate it as a way of getting content in a way that's an intelligent evolution from television, gaming, web surfing--bringing it all together. There is a critical mass approaching."

Incognito · 11/02/2006, 11:59 pm

Quote:

Originally Posted by numble

A: "Do you just not like adventure games?"
B: "Because it's an adventure game. And as much as like the idea of adventure games, they ultimately boil down to this pointless BS where you're just like clicking on stuff and hoping that you can make compilations and connections. "
C: "Yes! I was thinking today..."
B: "I was playing Sam and Max this weekend... and I kind of had this epiphany...this remembrance of what the genre was like and why it's dead now, why people don't play it anymore. There's just too much of... I'll just combine stuff and then eventually I'll get something right."

Such stupid comments like these from Retronauts makes me wanna punch peope in the face.

1. If it boils down to "Just clicking on stuff" when you´re playing, then you are either playing a crappy adventuregame (Simon the Sorceror, Discworld 2), or you aren´t really interested in the game.
2. The adventuregenre IS NOT DEAD. Nor has it been dead. It would be pretty impressive for a dead genre to just recently have gotten games like Fahrenheit, Dreamfall, Broken Sword 4, Bone 1&2, Sam & Max and have upcoming games like Sam & Max ep 2-6, Bone Episode 3, Runaway 2, Overclocked, A Vampyre Story, Omikron 2, Heavy Rain etc...

I wish people who have no knowledge about the genre would stfu.

numble · 11/03/2006, 12:14 am

If you just emphasize that only adventure gamers can talk about adventure games, you just PROVE their point. Especially this point:

Quote:

"...adventure games had become so insular and so recursive, so that only if you played adventure games, then you spoke the language. In a way adventure games became as insular and stagnant as fighting games, like you can't be good at a fighting game now, unless you played all the fighting games and you really master them. Adventure games were about the same way... a kind of niche genre that continues to fold in on itself until it eventually dies."

Anyway, their point about how it was previously a dead genre is in terms of where they exist in the wider world of video games--15-20 years ago, they were probably a VERY big part of the video game world--you were not a gamer unless you had played a Sierra "Quest" game, or a Lucasarts SCUMM game. Go into a video game store, and there would be a adventure section full of those. In the past decade however, I would say most video gamers consider it more of a niche genre, go into any video game store, at least in America, and you won't find any such section today.

And I would argue that the episodic model and differences in the Telltale adventure gamers is the beginning of a resurgence of such games, with changes that really alter things. If you listen to the podcast for example, you'll learn a theory about why Telltale games only have one "verb" for the cursor, compared to past adventure games that had "talk to, pick up, use, look at" and how this change makes it much more intuitive for all gamers.

Face it, if you are an experienced adventure gamer (I am), every time you entered a room, your brain would automatically go into the "adventure-game trance":

1. Right click/navigate cursor to "look at" verb
2. Left click object to "look at object"
3. Right click/navigate cursor to "pick up" verb
4. Left click object to "pick up object"
4a. Object goes into your inventory.
4b. Object does not go into your inventory.
5. If object can't be picked up, right click/navigate cursor to "use" verb
6. Left click object to "use object"
7. Repeat steps 1-6 for for every other object in the room.

Veteran adventure gamers expect this activity and don't mind it, but it's not really a stretch of an imagination to imagine why people don't find this activity fun. Making the mouse automatically pick up something if it can be picked up really cuts out a lot of this activity, but also shortens the game a bit, and I've seen some people on this forum actually request the old implementation.

Incognito · 11/03/2006, 12:30 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by numble

If you just emphasize that only adventure gamers can talk about adventure games, you just PROVE their point.

I din´t say that you have to be an adventuregamer. I said that you have to be someone interested in playing an adventure game. If other genres like the strategygenre was trying to satisfy non-interested games like him in retronauts, then there wouldnt be any Total War-games, just hordes of Command&Conquer-clones.

Markusdragon · 11/03/2006, 12:43 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by Incognito

1. If it boils down to "Just clicking on stuff" when you´re playing, then you are either playing a crappy adventuregame (Simon the Sorceror, Discworld 2), or you aren´t really interested in the game.

Right, that's it! No-one insults Discworld 2!

*storms out*

Jokieman · 11/03/2006, 12:56 am

I stand by my statement that Sam & Max: Culture Shock is still missing something. There is a lack of depth/lack of creativity when it comes to the puzzles that needs to be addressed. The ease of the puzzles is a part of it, but not the whole part. I felt some of the puzzles to be very bland and not very creative.

I liked the game, don't get me wrong, they are on the right track, but if I were to compare the game to a swimming pool, then Sam & Max would have about 6 inches of water in it, while some Lucas Arts classics were about 10 feet deep.

I also felt the plot line was too linear, and that there should have been a couple of sub plots thrown in for good measure.

11/02/2006, 02:52 pm	#42
Hero1 conclusion jumper Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: melbourne, australia Posts: 1,571	Well I completely disagree with that. __________________ My Sam & Max Devil's Playhouse: The Penal Zone Review What happened to Sam & Max in 2004: http://www.savesamandmax.com

11/02/2006, 03:00 pm	#44
Hero1 conclusion jumper Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: melbourne, australia Posts: 1,571	I think the audience that was targeted when hit the road came out, which was successful, could be targeted once again with culture shock. People like funny games, Sam & Max could be enjoyed by a wide range of people. Are telltale trying to get some kind of half-life like sales? I think the entire Sam & Max audience is reasonably big in the scale of people purchasing games from telltale. __________________ My Sam & Max Devil's Playhouse: The Penal Zone Review What happened to Sam & Max in 2004: http://www.savesamandmax.com

11/02/2006, 08:09 pm	#52
Pvt._Public Evil Talking Skull Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: New Zealand Posts: 402	Would you like some nicely designed puzzles which make logical sense and fit into the context of the game, OR would you like an obscene amount of illogical pointless puzzles which make the game more of a chore than fun? I personally don't enjoy having every little thing turn into a pointless quest with the logic of 3 year olds. Hmm... I need to get out of the office... First, find the door knob (hidden in the fruit box), find my magnet for later (stuck down the back of the old couch, need enormous ball of twine and paper clip from Kentucky to pick up), etc. I've found the difficulty level for Bone and Sam & Max to be just about right so far. I'd rather pay for quality, not quantity. __________________ That's a good point. I'll counter it with a HURRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! Yes I am a bastard. I've worked long and hard for the right to be one and what would be the point if I didn't flaunt it?

11/02/2006, 10:40 pm	#54
numble Glottal stop Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Super Happy Farmland Posts: 521	Here are just some important points from a recent Retronauts podcast dedicated to Sam and Max Hit the Road, that I think should be considered. They do conclude in the end that they believe in Telltale and think Telltale will do just fine. A lot more of things are said in the podcast itself, and here's the link: Retronaut's podcast on Sam and Max Hit The Road A: "Sam and Max is the one game so far, that I love! Sam and Max is awesome." B: "Well that's going to make an interesting podcast, I really like the graphics and the animation of Sam and Max; I love the writing, but I don't think it's all that fun. A: "Do you just not like adventure games?" B: "Because it's an adventure game. And as much as like the idea of adventure games, they ultimately boil down to this pointless BS where you're just like clicking on stuff and hoping that you can make compilations and connections. " C: "Yes! I was thinking today..." B: "I was playing Sam and Max this weekend... and I kind of had this epiphany...this remembrance of what the genre was like and why it's dead now, why people don't play it anymore. There's just too much of... I'll just combine stuff and then eventually I'll get something right." C: "There's this peculiar dream-logic in adventure games where the solution you're acting out only makes sense in adventure games." B: "It makes sense retroactively, it's like you do it, and then you say, 'Oh, I kinda see how that happened, but it wasn't really intuitive in terms of logic or gameplay." ... A: "You just start sweeping your cursor." B: "That's what happens in every adventure game, at some point you get to the area where you're like, 'Alright I'm completely stuck, so I'm going to spend an hour making every possible click combination." ... A: "(The illogical adventure puzzles) felt maybe a little more offensive in Sam and Max because the rest of the game is so good." C: "...there was a certain masochism to the logic..." ... B: "...I feel good when I saw a solution that had a logical build-up, when I solve a puzzle that is kinda arbitrary, I don't feel satisfaction... I'm just annoyed that they made me jump through so many stupid hoops." ... C: "There's a strangeness, where if you played enough adventure games, you would be able to start to thinking as crazy as they did, to kind of circumvent their craziness." ... B: "...(in the 90s) adventure games had become so insular and so recursive, so that only if you played adventure games, then you spoke the language. In a way adventure games became as insular and stagnant as fighting games, like you can't be good at a fighting game now, unless you played all the fighting games and you really master them. Adventure games were about the same way... a kind of niche genre that continues to fold in on itself until it eventually dies." Last edited by numble; 11/02/2006 at 10:43 pm.

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11/02/2006, 02:42 pm	#41
0renji Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 51	Ask most gamers whether they have heard of Sam and Max and they'll probably say no. I'm talking here about gamers who are not adults, the "young generation" of gamers. The response to Freelance Police is likely nothing to the response that people would have had to, I don't know, Halo 2 or Half-Life 2 being cancelled. What I'm driving at here is that essentially the hard-core fanbase is pretty small. I think Sam and Max have some deep flaws when it comes to marketing though - it's not for children, but adults don't want to be seen playing a game with a talking dog and rabbit... Telltale also have put so, so many references to previous Sam and Max things but aimed the puzzles at newcomers. Weird contradiction.

11/02/2006, 03:03 pm	#45
0renji Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 51	Okay. True. Production costs are also a lot lower so they don't need that big an audience. I am just highly pessimistic about all kinds of things, so I'm probably underestimating a lot.

11/02/2006, 03:18 pm	#46
XMunkki Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 12	Just played through it, took about 2.5h. Personally I found the difficulty level to be pretty much spot on, though I wanted the rabbit do some funky things more. Overall I really enjoyed the atmosphere and witty dialogue. As a foreigner my english doesn't quite twist that far when wielding it myself but I can sure understand and enjoy it. I think some people feel that episodic games are too short because people are not used to episodic content yet. 2.5h for one episode may seem little for some, but if every episodi is as long, then I just got 6*2.5h=15h of game entertainment for my $40. Just my 2c.

11/02/2006, 05:16 pm	#49
SurplusGamer Mojo Mixer Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: London, UK Posts: 395	I actually don't think it's a length problem - it's a pacing problem. Episode 1 is great and short but it has the pacing of a much longer adventure like Hit The Road. Things happen quite slowly, that is. And because things happen quite slowly, over not much time, not much actually happens in the game. I'm not a TV series fanboy, but I think you can look to these to learn a few lessons about pacing - the TV series was pretty hyperactive because it only had 10 minutes in which to tell its story. But tell it it did and sometimes it was surprising just how much STUFF they could fit into that 10 minutes. With a longer game like Hit the Road you can afford to slow things right down because by the end of it, there's still plenty of stuff that's happened and plenty to look back on. With a 3 hour game like Culture Shock I think what's needed is a slightly faster pace so that by the end, even though it didn't take very long, it seems like lots has happened. If that makes sense.

11/02/2006, 06:13 pm	#50
briankory Junior Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 15	I just played it and it took me about 3 hours. 3 hours for an epsidoe is enough for me . I LOVED THE WHOLE THING

11/02/2006, 06:30 pm	#51
dunkpork Member Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 86	I thought the difficulty was just fine for the introductory episode.

11/02/2006, 11:12 pm	#55
numble Glottal stop Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Super Happy Farmland Posts: 521	And if anybody asks, the reason why I bring outside gamer opinions in here is just for a little perspective... We need to face the reality that Sam and Max fans discussing something in a Sam and Max forum do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the majority of gamers. It's the equivalent to Star Trek fans discussing whether or not Star Trek should change certain aspects of their shows to appeal to a greater audience... in the end, the creators rely on more objective opinions to know what their audience really thinks. We can go on and on about whether or not we think there is a sufficient fanbase to make profitable games of a certain type, but saying something like "I know I'll play it, and a couple of my friends would too if the difficulty were back to Hit the Road levels" is really not the most reliable indicator of reality. Basically my argument boils down to this: It will be more difficult, but you are not going to get to the level of past adventure games where you get stuck for an hour or more on a puzzle, nor reach those insane levels of illogicality. Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale, on where he expects episodic gaming to be like in the future: "The more things that pull people into playing an episode, and sustaining that episodic feel where you're always getting new content and stories, that's growing. You know, on Monday I can play Sam & Max, on Tuesday I can play Half-Life, on Wednesday I can play Penny Arcade, and on Thursday maybe I can play the new Simpsons game. It starts to validate it as a way of getting content in a way that's an intelligent evolution from television, gaming, web surfing--bringing it all together. There is a critical mass approaching."

11/03/2006, 12:56 am	#60
Jokieman Member Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 31	I stand by my statement that Sam & Max: Culture Shock is still missing something. There is a lack of depth/lack of creativity when it comes to the puzzles that needs to be addressed. The ease of the puzzles is a part of it, but not the whole part. I felt some of the puzzles to be very bland and not very creative. I liked the game, don't get me wrong, they are on the right track, but if I were to compare the game to a swimming pool, then Sam & Max would have about 6 inches of water in it, while some Lucas Arts classics were about 10 feet deep. I also felt the plot line was too linear, and that there should have been a couple of sub plots thrown in for good measure.