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Let's stop pretending that Telltale "games" are actually games

ColonelTeacup

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 19, 2017
Messages
1,433
If Telltale games are not considered videogames, are Visual Novels considered games?
 

ColonelTeacup

Liturgist
Joined
Mar 19, 2017
Messages
1,433
Okay, so VNs can be considered videogames if they have branching paths, inventory management and the odd puzzle. Ergo, VNs are videogames.
 

Alex

Arcane
Joined
Jun 14, 2007
Messages
8,750
Location
São Paulo - Brasil
Telltale used to make half-decent adventure games. I think either Sam & Max Season 3 or Back to the Future: The Game was among their last decent adventure games. Then they went full retard with Walking Dead around 2012 and haven't looked back since.

Those games were incredibly easy and simplified. Don't get me wrong, they do have some fun in them, but the puzzles are so basic you might just as well watch a let's play on youtube.
 

Tom Selleck

Arcane
Joined
May 6, 2013
Messages
1,203
So if we stop calling Telltale's entertainment product "games," does that Preparation H the butthurt away?

Provided they're well-written (which seems to be like, AT BEST, debatable, and generally, AT BEST, maybe the first season of The Walking Dead on its own ((I would find myself, perhaps, defending others (((The Wolf of Among Us Street, perhaps))) as 'serviceable')) and that's with a particularly loose definition of 'well' and 'written') and they entertain (or accomplish whatever goal they're supposed to accomplish ((tell a story, provide an emotional investment (((in the form of the appearance of choice)))))) with the 'flourish' of interactivity (perhaps in a similar vein as like, 3D adds to garbage summer movies) then are they fine if they're not labelled / considered / identified as games?

I know, for myself, I play them while taking my particular brand of unpleasant bathroom breaks (undiagnosed IBS? ((much more likely a cause: a horrible western diet)) perhaps) but they service to amuse me more than refreshing a forum or like, getting into Dark Souls (which would require moving more than just an iPad into the shitter).

Certainly there's room for them on the gender entertainment spectrum.

Also I just woke up from a coma since 2006, so I'm having these thoughts as if they're new.
 

Cromwell

Arcane
Joined
Feb 16, 2013
Messages
5,443
Okay, so VNs can be considered videogames if they have branching paths, inventory management and the odd puzzle. Ergo, VNs are videogames.

Regardless of how you define games, and if you include tell tale or VN's at least with Vn's I always know what I am getting into, its in the name, its a novel more or less and if I am lucky and have a good one it has a large portion of gameplay and choices (that matter). Tell Tales Stuff are largely animated movies with fake choices and while I dont care what people consume for their entertainment it irks me that they label these kind of things in the same wrong way they label largely non interactive walking simulators.

and while people are very happy to throw money at tell tale for their "adventure games" I am still waiting for "the devils men".
 

Jacob

Pronouns: Nick/Her
Patron
Joined
Dec 24, 2015
Messages
3,335
Location
Hatington
Grab the Codex by the pussy
"choose your own adventure" stories
Aren't these kind of books called "gamebooks"? Then it only makes sense if Telttale games are still categorised as "videogames"

The quality of their products though, is another matter...
 

sser

Arcane
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2011
Messages
1,866,637
I consider them movie-games. Problem is they're shit writers. The Walking Dead Season 1 was decent. Season 2 jumped the fucking shark. Didn't bother with season 3. The "Wolf" game is absolute dogshit (heh). I think it's easily one of the worst games I have ever played and had to essentially force myself to finish only to, surprise, get a go fuck yourself this is a movie-ending. TellTale's been seeking out Hollywood screenwriters, the biggest pile of shit there is, which is probably why the quality nosedived. As far as "games" go -- it's not even an argument. They're not games at all. You look at something like Monkey Island and something like the Walking Dead and the only similarity is that they're point-and-clicks.
 

MRY

Wormwood Studios
Developer
Joined
Aug 15, 2012
Messages
5,703
Location
California
"At least we are doing better than Odd Gentlemen" must be how they sleep at night.
They've made a bazillion dollars, millions of people have enjoyed their products, and they've been entrusted with many of the most beloved nerd franchises in every medium (comics, adventure games, TV shows). They've got nothing to be ashamed of other than their role in kicking adventure game gameplay while it was down rather than lifting it back up. But if I were preparing an indictment for that crime, Telltale would not be in the first ten defendants.
 

Boleskine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 12, 2013
Messages
4,045
Telltale's CYOA games are games, just not very compelling or inspiring ones. If you've played one, you've played them all.

BTTF was the start of their decline. Jurassic Park was an alpha for The Walking Dead. TWD struck gold and Telltale found a winning formula. It's hard to fault them for giving people what they want: story-driven games with no challenge and based on popular IPs.

I'm not sure about the accuracy but here's the SteamSpy data for Telltale's games. Guardians of the Galaxy got mixed reviews and looks like a flop by Telltale standards. The overall trend seems downwards, but bundles and deep sales can exaggerate that.

MFvEh10.png
 

RuySan

Augur
Joined
Jul 11, 2005
Messages
777
Location
Portugal
The first walking dead was decent and fooled me into thinking this style of game by this developer had any potential.

Game of thrones was terrible in every possible way, as was the walking dead season 2. And the studio seems completely creatively bankrupt since they can't seem to create a setting of their own. Besides, wtf , "guardians of the galaxy"? Minecraft??
 

Sizzle

Arcane
Joined
Feb 17, 2012
Messages
2,471
And the studio seems completely creatively bankrupt since they can't seem to create a setting of their own.

Doubt it's a question of wanting - they're big and famous enough that they could create something new if they wanted - it's just that they realized they could get off doing famous IPs instead of making their own stuff.

But even this will eventually backfire - I know several people who used to regularly play their games in the past, but have given up because they are so repetitive, lazy and all look and play the same. And bear in mind those are people starved for these kinds of games - they all immensely enjoyed Life is Strange. So it's not like they have huge standards when it comes to quality and gameplay - just that Telltale fails to meet even those basic ones.
 

Naveen

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Aug 23, 2015
Messages
1,115
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
There's a scene in the fourth chapter of The Walking Dead, Season 1, that told me everything I needed to know about their cinematic games. It's near the end when whatshisname is searching for that little girl and finds her hat or cap close to some cardboard boxes. My first thought was "Come on, this is obviously a trap. There's a zombie in there." But then I realized my only options were to move forward and pick up the hat from the ground. I couldn't circumvent it, sidestep to the left to see if there was something hidden behind the boxes, prod it with a stick, or do anything. I KNEW I was going to get bitten, and I spend almost ten minutes, like an idiot, looking at those boxes and trying to force myself into doing something I knew was incredibly stupid. And I had to, of course, because there was no other option. And yes, there was a zombie hidden in those boxes, and it attacks you, bites you and infects you (and then you die at the end of the game.) Then, looking back, I realized the game had been like that all the time —scripted sequences where you could only press "move forward" and, in many cases, the only reason you didn't know what was going to happen was because of the forced camera angle or something like that. So, yeah, a movie.

The Poker games were cool, though.
 
Self-Ejected

buru5

Very Grumpy Dragon
Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2017
Messages
2,048
Then, looking back, I realized the game had been like that all the time —scripted sequences where you could only press "move forward" and, in many cases, the only reason you didn't know what was going to happen was because of the forced camera angle or something like that. So, yeah, a movie.

It's so deep though. I cried.. :cry:
 

Sentinel

Arcane
Joined
Nov 18, 2015
Messages
6,590
Location
Ommadawn
I played Episode 1 of Batman: Enemy Within and I thought it was very good compared to what they've been shitting out lately. I actually had to grab the controller more than once every 2 minutes, there was more gameplay. I really liked it and I think it has a lot of promise.

I also couldn't help but notice that Mr. Kirkbride was lead design on it. Don't think that was a coincidence.
 
Self-Ejected

buru5

Very Grumpy Dragon
Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2017
Messages
2,048
I actually had to grab the controller more than once every 2 minutes, there was more gameplay.

Oh you had to pick up the controller every 2 minutes? Such gameplay!

Such INCLINE!
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
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Developer
Joined
Dec 28, 2010
Messages
16,947
Location
Pannonia
Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
One of the great things about video games is actually being able to play them. Telltale "games" are "choose your own adventure" stories with very limited interaction. They are not games in the truest sense of the word. They're interactive stories, and they're shitty at even that. They have terrible fucking plots, a fucking toddler could come up with better stories. These "games" barely have any gameplay outside of hitting A or whatever to select what shitty piece of dialogue you want to progress the story. They say these "games" are in the vain of old "point and click adventures", but they're absolutely not. Only 1 or 2 of these "games" have any real gameplay (I recall maybe 1 puzzle in The Walking Dead), the rest was just choosing some dialogue options and watching how shit played out in very predictable ways. The only meaningful choices I remember was "lol who should I kill?". And of course you don't get a real choice here, you get a pretend choice that the developers decide for you. You either choose option a or option b, either fucking way you're not making a real choice in a true sense. You don't have the option to try to save both, like any good RPG would let you do.

Not only that, but not 1 Telltale employee has any real talent. They've been doing the same garbage for as long as I remember, and the ONLY REASON their games sell is because they tack on already super popular IP names. When any ol fucking normie sees "MINECRAFT" they're going to buy the fucking game. Of course they probably missed the small print below "MINECRAFT" that says "a Telltale game", but maybe that was the fucking point to begin with. They're a leech. They attach themselves to already successfull IPS and drain the life of anyone who's a fan.

GO READ A FUCKING BOOK.

Telltale is a garbage developer. If you're giving them money then you're part of the problem and you're my enemy.
You are such a fucking edgy moron, you will fit right in to the Codex. Almost all of your sentences is a piece of vomit, it would be a waste of time to answer them, but be assured, you are an idiot.
 
Self-Ejected

buru5

Very Grumpy Dragon
Patron
Joined
Apr 9, 2017
Messages
2,048
You are such a fucking edgy moron, you will fit right in to the Codex. Almost all of your sentences is a piece of vomit, it would be a waste of time to answer them, but be assured, you are an idiot.

So what's your argument here?
 

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