toblix

The Walking Dead

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I'm guessing they felt they had to tailor it somewhat to the X% did This, (100-X)% did That! thing, which seems to be an important element of the (marketing of the) game. I felt the numerical summary retroactively detracted somewhat from the experience, as, instead of letting the game be a contiguous series of events and decisions, big and small, it x-rays it to reveal the internal structure of the plot, depicting it as series of discrete A or B decisions, ostensibly revealing what data points are carried over between episodes. It's not a huge deal, since one decision is not necessarily better than the other, but it takes me out of the story, and I wish it'd at least be hidden behind a "statistics" button in the menu or something.

I see what you're saying, but luckily I think the stats screen actually misrepresents that a little bit. It's my understanding from various comments made about how the Walking Dead tools work, and the more complete stats video that was released after episode one, that more or less everything you say or choose is saved - so even choices the designers/writers didn't think much of at the time could potentially be used in later episodes.

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Yeah, I know, but I was referring more to what it looked like than what it technically is. I'm fully expecting my energy bar distribution and lack of radio-fixing to come back and bite me in the final season climax.

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And then, in the final climactic cutscene, it shows you a quick cut of every minor decision that led to that moment, relating to the character about to help/hurt you.

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I'm guessing they felt they had to tailor it somewhat to the X% did This, (100-X)% did That! thing, which seems to be an important element of the (marketing of the) game.
For what it's worth, we support more than binary decisions on that closing stat screen. Duck or Shawn in episode one has "neither," for instance.

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I love statistics, and I especially love comparing my own to others'. So I appreciate the stats screen, for what it's worth.

But also, at the same time, even when I'm heavily immersed in a video game (something The Walking Dead does for me really well), I'm still fully aware it's a video game. So when I see that stats screen pop up at the end of a chapter, it doesn't tear me out of the world or anything. It's kind of just another piece of it?

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So no one had a problem with the fact that the central puzzle has you do something so utterly out of character that it made me pick holes elsewhere? Certainly from a gaming perspective, deactivating the fence to get the brother's attention makes sense. But when that is the only thing from keeping them out, you are left going 'WTF'?

This lead to me questioning why didn't the bandits ever attack, it can't have been that hard to vault the fence. The explanation that they were given food... Well they could have just taken it by force. I wouldn't have thought about any of it if it hadn't been for that generator puzzle though.

All the same still very much enjoyed the game and look forward to the next installment, especially after the killer final moments

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Yeah, that bit had me looking for other solutions, but there weren't any.

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In Episode 2, if you're a horror fan, it was pretty easy to tell where the story was going, but some of the surrounding stuff totally caught me off guard. For example:

I was good in with Kenny through the first episode and way into the second, but it appears that due to my decision to try and help the old racist guy, Kenny now isn't too fond of me, and his daughter has gone from hating me to having my back.

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Another thing I forgot to mention:

Did anyone else think the transition from overly nice to spectacularly creepy was a bit sudden? Obviously these people could not possibly be as nice as they seemed at first, but after that very nicely done sequence in the woods with the camp, where things were implied, etc. suddenly he's making out with his rifle. It struck me as jarring, at least.

Honestly, I just finished the second episode and it happened way too slowly for me.

Since pretty much the moment I stepped on the farm, I knew they were up to no good from their overly-probing questions trying to figure out who was in charge—which I answered in as little detail as possible. (Enjoyed how after I told them everybody worked together, they continued to try and figure out who was in charge/had the survivalist instincts, eventually remarking it was Lily after a tossed-off comment by Lee that she had us train with the rifles.

The bigger issue, though, was that there was no real solid way to act on the foreboding feelings by fleeing the scene. It would have been nice to have some conversational options where I freak out and everyone else flat-out refuses to leave, since I really felt I was bumping up against a rail there. (And that it came from meta-awareness of the genre from seeing other horror films made it even more jarring.)

Also killed the first brother, and immediately felt like shit because Clementine was there. Her (and sometimes Duck) are pretty amazing for forcing me to think about what the right thing to do is, since we want to role-model good behaviors for kids—and I worry about how she'll turn out if the zombies ever stop happening. Weather was great because it was actually getting rainy outside during that portion of the game so it was very immersive! The last part really works because it overloads you with so many different worries—Danny, whatever the mom and Andy are doing, where's Katja and Duck, etc. I know I certainly didn't think through the consequences of killing Danny before I did it, only because those other looming problems were on my mind.

Only snag I ran into was the QTE where Andy is trying to push your head into the electric fence, and you're supposed to fail so that he gets shot at the last moment. However, I was a bit too good at it and managed to hold him off for a minute or so before trying failure to see if it would advance the story.

Can't wait for episode 3!

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In Episode 2, if you're a horror fan, it was pretty easy to tell where the story was going, but some of the surrounding stuff totally caught me off guard. For example:

I was good in with Kenny through the first episode and way into the second, but it appears that due to my decision to try and help the old racist guy, Kenny now isn't too fond of me, and his daughter has gone from hating me to having my back.

I hope some of your choices earlier in the episode and in episode 1 still have an effect in episode 3.

Like hopefully Kenny still thinks you're ok if you gave food to his son and helped save him earlier. He shouldn't just hate you because of helping the old guy. The same should probably apply to his daugther.

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Only snag I ran into was the QTE where Andy is trying to push your head into the electric fence, and you're supposed to fail so that he gets shot at the last moment. However, I was a bit too good at it and managed to hold him off for a minute or so before trying failure to see if it would advance the story.

I don't think that's necessarily always how it goes down. I may be misremembering, but I don't think I got out of that by him being shot. In fact, the first time I came up to that QTE I actually straight up failed it and he fried my brain. Then at some point later I was struggling with him and Lilly came out with the gun but she just watched, presumably because I'd just let her dad die and had in general been only halfway on her side. Maybe someone else shot Andy at that point, I can't quite remember, but it did definitely seem like I was being left on my own for a little bit there due to my choices.

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I don't think that's necessarily always how it goes down. I may be misremembering, but I don't think I got out of that by him being shot. In fact, the first time I came up to that QTE I actually straight up failed it and he fried my brain. Then at some point later I was struggling with him and Lilly came out with the gun but she just watched, presumably because I'd just let her dad die and had in general been only halfway on her side. Maybe someone else shot Andy at that point, I can't quite remember, but it did definitely seem like I was being left on my own for a little bit there due to my choices.

If memory serves, you have to actually resist him once or twice, then fail the last impossible one for things to keep going. I also kept that one going for a decent amount of time after realizing I was supposed to fail to see if it would just time out or something, but it didn't.

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I just realised that the game has been effecting me emotionality.

When coming out of the barn I got angry, and against out of my better judgement I killed the first brother. When Clem saw what I did I spent the rest of the episode feeling guity and wating for an opportunity to make it up to her. Safe to say we had a chat and I went hungry that night

The only other game to do this was Half Life 2.

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The last Telltale Games game I played was Back to the Future which felt slow, unpolished and kinda awkward. I didn't even finish the last two episodes. Half an our into The Walking Dead and I can already see that this is a completely different beast. Way to make things work Famous 'n' Video Games!

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I'm thinking of buying the Walking Dead on Steam to just to get away from the sub par and frustrating in-game download feature of the Telltale. Is it possible to carry over the savegames?

Also, I probably will post something a bit more detailed later but I really, really liked episode 1 but found the writing and direction of the second not so great:

I really wish this was all paranoia eating me/the character out like it was mentioned several times, because the whole cannibalism thing was played out in a very conventional way I thought (but maybe that's because I read The Road recently). It would have been a tremendous and unique way of raising the tension and putting emphasis on ambiguity... even more so if I had been some way of getting rid of the host family pre-emptively (i.e. being pressured by Kenny or Larry on that)

Also, I saved Doug! I wished there was a way to not show the stats at the end of the episode; I'd rather know that either at the end of the season or at the beginning of the next episode.

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I'm thinking of buying the Walking Dead on Steam to just to get away from the sub par and frustrating in-game download feature of the Telltale. Is it possible to carry over the savegames?

Also, I probably will post something a bit more detailed later but I really, really liked episode 1 but found the writing and direction of the second not so great:

I really wish this was all paranoia eating me/the character out like it was mentioned several times, because the whole cannibalism thing was played out in a very conventional way I thought (but maybe that's because I read The Road recently). It would have been a tremendous and unique way of raising the tension and putting emphasis on ambiguity... even more so if I had been some way of getting rid of the host family pre-emptively (i.e. being pressured by Kenny or Larry on that)

Also, I saved Doug! I wished there was a way to not show the stats at the end of the episode; I'd rather know that either at the end of the season or at the beginning of the next episode.

I don't think that save transferring is possible but if you want to get it on steam now the time, 40% off in the summer sale today.

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Sure it's possible. You won't even have to do anything.

Yeah the savegames likely just work. If they don't (eg if you have to move them into a Steam-specific location) you will find some .save files (sweet file extension) in a Telltale Games directory within your My Documents directory.

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I've not finished act 2, so I'm going to put my fingers in my ears and not read the thread, but is there a way to know when i have triggered a checkpoint? I just had to watch and interact the start of act II as i exited at a bad time last time. Really loving it though!

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I've not finished act 2, so I'm going to put my fingers in my ears and not read the thread, but is there a way to know when i have triggered a checkpoint? I just had to watch and interact the start of act II as i exited at a bad time last time. Really loving it though!

If you happen to notice the saving indicator, yes. If I remember correctly it looks somewhat similar to YouTube's loading indicator, with thin slices of a circle being lit up in series.

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Very much enjoying this experience. Great work Sean and team!

What I especially love is the way this game facilitates group play. It's basically an interactive tv-show, which allows other people to be involved, to watch and be entertained. Much more so than almost any other game. (Heavy Rain is basically the only exception I can think of). I think this is arena is only going to get more popular, a middle ground between games and passive entertainment.

I play with my gf and generally give her control in the talky parts as I make poor, brash decisions. She usually shoves the controller my way during tense action-filled parts as she's not one for the horror genre.

In terms of ep:2 I'd say not being able to just run away before shit hit the fan made sense - as it showed just how much being in a group effects individual actions. Even if Lee wanted to leave, everyone else was starved and willing to take risks.

The slowly building tension throughout the chapter was great. Sort of wanting to trust the brothers but sort of knowing it was obviously a trap. Feeling hemmed in and trapped in the situation and trying to figure out how to survive once the truth came out. And the stair climb to the second floor to check on poor Mark. So awesome. I gave him some of the only food rations though, wasted!

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I am seriously in love with this game. It's my favouritest thing.

I don't just want more episodes, I want more games like it...

Is there going to be a sequel to this btw?

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