Thyroid

I wonder how Telltale is doing

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As an aside, I had to help a card-carrying member of Mensa through pretty much every stage of Culture Shock. People who don't play a ton of adventure games don't often catch the familiar formula.

:erm: looks to me like somebody needs to cancel their membership to mensa.

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No, elmuerte. That's exactly why I said what I said. Your standard glib posts attempting to make us see the light with zero support are wearing a little thin, at least in my opinion.

Adventure gaming is a learned trait as the games tend to follow a pretty standard formula for puzzle solving. People who don't play a lot of these types of games aren't stupid for getting stuck or not knowing to look at everything and talk to everything and throw Max at everything.

Thanks for trying, though.

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:erm: looks to me like somebody needs to cancel their membership to mensa.

Looks to me like somebody needs to cancel their membership to getting the point!!

sorry

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Looks to me like somebody needs to cancel their membership to getting the point!!

Did that a long time ago, I never got the point. They claimed they shipped it the minuted I ordered it, but I never saw anything. Bastards.

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Still though, as a boy I was able to complete Full Throttle (with my brother of course) and puzzle-wise that game was, at times, broken. Remember the demolition derby? The wall kicking? Did the game contain one puzzle that wasn't totally obscure?

This Mensa member may have been new to the genre, but Culture Shock is hardly the kind of game that would turn a person away. More likely the game didn't fit his tastes, because if a game is--like Full Throttle-- compelling enough, you can't leave it unfinished.

Plus adventure games require the player to spend time thinking about the scenario and puzzles even when they're away, the solutions aren't always within reach during your current play-through...

...anyway what I mean by all of this is: the Lucas Arts adventures had mass appeal and I often saw casual or non-gamers with copies. The barrier of entry to adventure gaming can't be as big an obstacle as you suggest. How then would all of those non-gamers and children become such huge fans of the genre? How would we be fans?

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From what I understand enough people are buying Sam & Max and Telltale are doing fine. But maybe Doug, Jake, or Emily can tell you more given that they actually work there.

Oh, man, I knew the Thumb was cool. Time to suck-up. Well, no. I hate sucker-upers.

There's a little kernel of truth to your rant (there was a lot of opposition to 3D, for a time) but I disagree that this has anything to do with the current state of the genre or the current state of its followers and in fact I disagree with your characterizations of both. :) Incidentally, adventure games are the topic of our next podcast, so maybe I shouldn't post too much in this thread.

Mmm ... I dunno, I was pretty furious around the time I wrote that post, and the Ron Gilbert interview on the site wasn't exactly a mind-changer ... I should re-consider, then.

I saw a lot of people on AdventureGamers with those damn "Purist" badges, too.

As for why I'm with 3D:

"3D does a lot for us. Primarily, it enables us much more freedom while making the game. We can try all sorts of camera angles and animations to see which ones work the best. Doing that kind of iteration in 2D is much slower, and even then you only get to see it on paper. I've been in a lot of situations where the concept art looked great, but the final art just didn't have the same impact, and another iteration was needed. In 3D you can see the results of a creative decision right away, and it's much easier/faster to iterate and get it right." - Kevin Bruner, who works in Telltale.

Telltale's doing fine. The games are doing well and everyone is happy.

I'm happy too, now.

I always liked adventure games because they had characters and stories unlike any other in the entirety of gaming, but still offered challenges and interactivity that I couldn't get from a more passive medium like a book, comic, or film.

Yes, exactly. Tension works for FPSs (which could have a good story, by the way) the same way humour and exploration works for adventures (adventures). That's the reason I liked Day of the Tentacle so much, because there was an unlimited possibility for exploration and several types of humour strapped into one package. I think it kind of failed on the puzzles-bit, where it would strap too many puzzles, frustrating you (an "easy" mode would have been wonderful, and how was I supposed to know that I'm supposed to paint the damn fruit?).

As for the episodic content stuff, I don't like it (not even in the Telltale approach).

Do what I'd do if I weren't such a sucker for hype; buy the whole thing and then play it all at once by May 2007.

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an unlimited possibility for exploration

Day of the Tentacle? Really?

Do what I'd do if I weren't such a sucker for hype; buy the whole thing and then play it all at once by May 2007.

Why would you do that? There is no good reason. It's a lot closer to six short games than one game separated into six parts.

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Since Sam & Max, Telltale's approach to episodic content looks even more engaging because - from how the first episode felt like - it seems that they don't consider it just cutting a full game into pieces [like chapter]... it's something else and it's refreshing in the way that, to me, the format enables to get another angle on the adventure game genre. Mainly it enables designer to develop ideas inside a limited canvas; ideas which would be seen as too simplistic or underused in the traditionnal length.

That's why I wish Ritual or other companies had this kind of philosophy, because that might bring us innovation inside genres which have begun to run in circle.

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Do what I'd do if I weren't such a sucker for hype; buy the whole thing and then play it all at once by May 2007.

I bought the whole thing and I'm playing them as they hit, is that close enough?

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Day of the Tentacle? Really?

Well ... there was always an area I hadn't found, an area I'd thought I went off to and then I'd notice that I'd only done it with Hoagie, and forgotten to do it with Bernard.

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