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Can someone explain more about "making the same game over and over"? I don't know anything about these games. Were they all similar, despite being different fra

• 7000skeletons 8y ago
  Telltale's games tended to utilise similar mechanics across their games. They'd generally follow a linear storyline to certain points where players could make choices that changed some outcomes, along with limited scene exploration and the use of quick-time events. There was a lot of noise made about player decisions affecting the overall outcome of the story, but not everybody would agree that this was the case.
• prithee 8y ago
  They all shared the same narrative focus and gameplay mechanics of titles in the "adventure" game genre (inspect environment, walk around, quick time events, make decisions in conversation or events that at least promised branches in storyline.) Typically the engine and graphics styles were roughly the same, though improved as time progressed (to the point where you often felt they were battling the old engine). I understand the limitations to this style and the problems became pronounced as time progressed but to have a "Telltale take" on a property, I roughly knew what kind of experience I was getting and at least for a while made me cautiously optimistic for the release (though I may be a minority.)
  • taneq 8y ago
    Sounds like those Sierra games. Those hacks.
    • SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
      Yup. LucasArts too obviously. It doesn't really matter if the gameplay is identical and the puzzles similar and formulaic if the story is interesting and the game is fun. Perhaps there's just no appetite for the adventure genre anymore?
      • usrusr 8y ago
        Or there is appetite, just not at the speed at which Telltale was pushing out sequels. They have clearly been successful for a while (otherwise hardly anybody would be noticing their demise), but while sequels are comfortably predictable compared to the lottery ticket of a fresh launch, they also come with an inherent limitation: the market for a sequel can be no bigger than the number of people who have already consumed the iteration before and still want more. There will always be losses. Repeat that a few times and numbers will be predictably low. Do the same at a high release cadence and you also lose those who might eventually want a sequel, but not at the prescribed sped, they may not even have finished the previous iteration. Consumers who built up a consumption backlog will lose interest in the whole franchise because they are immune to new release hype.
      • Footkerchief 8y ago
        Classic adventure games thrived on the originality of their settings and characters.
    • prithee 8y ago
      The Sierra DNA is there, but on a much, much more accessible level (for better or worse depending on how you want to take on the narrative or the game.)
• bliblah 8y ago
  All the games followed the same basic gameplay roadmap. Event happens -> Talk to other characters -> Another event happens Usually the events were cutscenes or QTEs (timed button presses) that you either pass or get a gameover if you fail too many. Now this wouldn't be an issue if the games were marketed as such but instead they tried to present them with the taglines "Your choices have consequences" while it was clearly not the case. You could run the same game twice making completely opposite choices and the end results were always the same; sometimes a character would die but at most that just resulted in some extra dialogue since those characters were designed to be non essential. Here is an example of what I mean: Alice is a fugitive on the run and needs a car so she can: 1)Go to her friend Bob and have him drive the car after asking him 2)Threaten Bob to drive her around In the end Bob is always driving the car and his opinion of you doesn't matter outside a throwaway line where he says "Hey, you owe me!" or "Hey, you're a jerk!" The illusion of choice is very apparent at times even DURING the game since the events occurring are just too limiting. It didn't help that Life is Strange and the Witcher 3 came out and had more in depth consequences and exploration of these systems.
  • na412 8y ago
    I haven't played any of these games either, and the kinds of "press a button in time to make stuff happen" events you describe are something I really hate in games, so I don't think I will. That said, your description of the illusion of choice in the story... sounds like every story-based videogame ever. I've been playing games since the 90s, and I can't really think of any such games off the top of my head where your choices will lead you down a completely different path. Commonly the game will have different ending cutscenes depending on your choices, but the main story quest always takes you to the same locations. Deus Ex was lauded for giving you choices, but you always took the same general path through the game. Maybe you saved that character and then you meet him again for a short conversation much later - but it didn't really matter. Planescape Torment is often described as the best story-driven RPG ever written. While it had lots of optional sidequests and offered the option to roleplay your character in loads of different ways, in the end you always took the same path through the main storyline. These are just two examples of higly rated, character- and story-driven games that happen to be among my favorite games of all time. It's understandable, after all creating content costs money, and content that won't be seen except by a tiny minority of players seems like a sunk cost to the developers.
• jccalhoun 8y ago
  As others have posted, the game play of all of them are largely the same. They were really fighting their game engine which really limited what they could do. For example, at one point in one of their games the characters had to go into a building and I wondered how they were going to do that because of the limits of the engine. They just played a cut scene instead of having the player do it. The strengths were in the writing and voice acting.
• SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
  Sad that an adventure game studio could die off for this reason when "Call of Duty" is pretty much the same game every year and somehow manages to be one of the best selling franchises of all time.
  • gassed 8y ago
    Just because they make adventure games they aren't superior. Also your argument is flawed. After all, all football matches are the same.