Joystiq interview about Wallace & Gromit

[Emily]

Joystiq caught up with Dan, our CEO, to talk about Wallace & Gromit - read the Q&A here!

Lots of interesting info there, including some discussion about other platforms the game could show up on in the future, and the controls.

[Laserschwert]

Great interview!

But now that there's mentioning of a non-point-and-click-interface for the 360-version, does this mean, that the PC-version isn't point-and-click either?

[Rather Dashing]

Hm...oh my

"Well that's been something that was a major thing for the studio to go after here. We are incredibly excited about the results for Wallace & Gromit. For us, pointing and clicking has always felt like you're one step removed from the gameplay."

...I'm not liking where this is going....


"You lose a little bit of the immersion that you get from actually controlling the players."

...Wait...

"So being able to rethink how you play a story-based game, a puzzle-based game, using a gamepad has been a great, great opportunity for us to solve some of those immersion issues and accessibility issues."

The accessibility of pointing at something, and clicking to interact with it? What I'm seeing here are problems and issues with the core mechanics of a point and click adventure. Has Telltale been making the wrong kind of game? Is the genre not mainstream enough for them?

"There's a lot of people say: "Well, I don't play adventure games," and not even try. I think with Wallace & Gromit, we've got something that people can sit down and drive Wallace around and drive Gromit around and interact with the world in a whole new way that just feels completely different and it is a little bit more accessible and a little bit more immersive. We also went after the interface in a way that reflected the way a modern gamer thinks about gaming."

....#$%^.

The modern gamer has enough games. I don't want the modern gamer's titles. That's why I by from independent studios over the internet. That's why I play point and click adventures. Are adventure games not going to be different anymore? I think this is a valid concern, given the quotes we have here.

"Really what we want to do, we believe that the adventure genre has really been the best genre for telling stories and games ever since it started and that's why it's still around."

Yes, it's great at telling stories. But...

"But we do want to evolve it and we do want to expose it to more people and we don't want it to be a block for new people who are interested in games but don't know what an adventure game entails."

...they aren't good ENOUGH. Or rather, not profitable or easy enough. Maybe if it were more homogeneous with other genres, it'd be more accessible.

"We want to make it so that an average gamer can sit down and play Wallace & Gromit and enjoy the story and feel like they're playing their other games as well,"

So, wait. I see what's wrong with the adventure genre here.

I get it!

The goal is for the next Telltale game is to make sure it is:

"not something that is a unique type of experience based on a control system."

Ah. Thanks for clearing that up.

And for those who don't think that this control system will affect the PC game:


"That's a good question. I don't think so. I think those games are built around the control system and it's so at the core of the entire game from a presentation standpoint, from a gameplay stand point. So to go in and do that, it changes the product completely.

...

Some of the products might make sense to be just pure point-and-click and that's the best way to play them and others might work better with the Wallace & Gromit control system."

"Products", as in "games". As in how they are built from the ground up to be played.

[Harald B]

Good stuff. Should I read that part about the DS as talking about getting stuff ported over or are you actually considering publishing brand new games there? Didn't 3d party games stop being part of your business strategy years ago?

[Tjibbbe]

Oh man, I wonder where Telltale is going to be in 5 years. Great interview. I wonder if Telltale could create some sort of achievement-system for the pc-version, like Hothead did with the Penny Arcade-games at Greenhouse (which they are planning to use again for the Deathspank-games). It gives a nice little extra reason for fans to join the Telltale-community, and, seeing as how most games get an eventual release on Steam, can be continued there.

And man, the part about Fate of Atlantis' age scared the crap out of me. Made me feel like an extremely old man.

[ig0rpwnwEd]

Not a point-n-click?

Why? If you're doing a puzzle adventure (as I'm sure this is), it's better to find where you want to go and click there. You're character may not be able to grab something, like you can only reach it up close, but an object keeps sliding you back! Even if that's not the case, it just does not seem like it would feel as good. Let's hope the PC version is point and click.

[Pantagruel's Friend]

Originally Posted by ig0rpwnwEd

Not a point-n-click?

Why? If you're doing a puzzle adventure (as I'm sure this is), it's better to find where you want to go and click there. You're character may not be able to grab something, like you can only reach it up close, but an object keeps sliding you back! Even if that's not the case, it just does not seem like it would feel as good. Let's hope the PC version is point and click.

I dunno, when Grim Fandango came out, I really hated the idea of losing the mouse, but it didn't took me too long to get used to the keyboard based control. I'm not saying that I was preferring it to the old point-n-click method, but it didn't feel too inferior, either. And I came to agree with Dan's comment about immersion, definitely.
So why not keep an an open mind to changes in the control method?

[Guybrush Threepwood]

What? Please, oh please, don't tell me this isn't going to be point and click for the PC.

[Emily]

We're still working on the PC controls so I can't speak right now to exactly how they'll end up, but I can say that they'll be different from what you're used to in a Telltale game. (And change can be good! )

Point & click vs. direct control is one of the classic debates in adventure games, and we're interested to hear what you guys think!

You're character may not be able to grab something, like you can only reach it up close, but an object keeps sliding you back!

I know what you're talking about, but based on what I've seen so far, this shouldn't be a problem in Wallace & Gromit.

Should I read that part about the DS as talking about getting stuff ported over or are you actually considering publishing brand new games there? Didn't 3d party games stop being part of your business strategy years ago?

What Dan was saying is that our studio isn't set up for DS development the way we are for Xbox and Wii, but if an opportunity arose for us to have our games ported to DS by another company, we'd consider it.

[Hero1]

Walking around in Grim Fandango was probably the worst part of the game.. So this is gonna be interesting to see what Telltale have come up with..

[Quuux]

Direct controls are a pain, particularly character relative. If you have to go down that road, camera relative is the way to go.

[Pantagruel's Friend]

Originally Posted by Hero1

Walking around in Grim Fandango was probably the worst part of the game.. So this is gonna be interesting to see what Telltale have come up with..

While it was tedious at times, I just loved running around the locations of nighttime Rubacava - it was soooooo atmospheric.

Quuux: agreed, camera relative is better. you can get used to character relative, but then you keep wishing for a first person view.

[Derwin]

Originally Posted by Quuux

camera relative is the way to go.

Fully agreed, if direct controls are necessary.

[Emily]

Since there's not too much to say about the Wallace & Gromit controls yet (only a few handful of people have experienced it yet!) and this thread is going a little off topic, I started up a more general thread about this topic here. So you can weigh in on your thoughts about direct control vs. point and click there, if you want.