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The Return of Storied Adventures? 40

Posted by Zonk from the dance-the-grim-fandango dept.
Next Generation has a talk with Telltale, the maker of interactive stories such as Monkey Island and Grim Fandango. In their opinion, story adventure titles are on their way back. From the article: "We're not trying recapture the LucasArts [adventure game] glory as much as trying to build off of it. We're trying to do something different with episodic content and smaller games ... The big reason most of us went to Lucas in the first place is that we loved games based on story with interesting characters that are presented in artistically interesting ways. So when LucasArts stopped doing that and we'd done our share of Star Wars and Indiana Jones games, we wanted to get back to that. There's only so many Star Wars games you can make."
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The Return of Storied Adventures? More

The Return of Storied Adventures?

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  • From TFA (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    From TFA:

    now we can touch those people 3 or 4 times a year.

    Hey, stay away from me!

  • Smart thing to do (Score:5, Insightful)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:19PM (#13974603)
    If your game's selling point is the story rather than the engine, you don't have to make a new game engine each time you want to make a release.

    Just hopefully a good plot.
    • OTOH, for a really good adventure game, the non-engine portion of the development is also the vasto majority of the work. Cost-wise, I'd guess that adventure game makers doing a new story but using the same old engine is about on par with other makers bringing out a new engine but keeping the same old story.
    • George Broussard should take notice. If he didn't spend all of his time jumping back and forth between engines, Duke Nukem Forever would be out already, and the gaming community wouldn't need to make such blatantly obvious jokes. Well, the eventual comparisons to Daikatana would still apply.

  • Their first adventure game (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Kazzahdrane ( 882423 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:27PM (#13974665)
    Was "Bone: Out of Boneville", based on the Bone series of graphic novels/comics. I didn't buy the full $20 game, but I played the demo and I'm sorry but these guys have experience in making games like this and that demo is not a good example of an adventure title. I don't mind 3D, I don't mind action sequences. I do mind terrible voice-acting and bad graphics. They may have been going for a simplistic look, but....see for yourselfs at http://www.telltalegames.com/products?pc=bn0102&CI D=0&dlact=1 [telltalegames.com] I'm a little worried about these guys having the Sam 'n' Max license to be honest, I hope their later attempts are better than the first Bone game. Or that the later demo versions better show what good games they are, if that's the case.

    • Re:Their first adventure game (Score:5, Insightful)

      by WidescreenFreak ( 830043 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @11:32PM (#13976252) Homepage Journal
      I'm sorry, but I have to chime in on this.

      Please define "bad graphics". You apparently are of the mindset that you have to have jaw-dropping renders with full shaders, light sources, fogging, and so forth. That's exactly what Telltale has been getting away from because to what feels like a majority of game comapnies the story comes second to the graphics so that the gaming company can partner with ATI or NVidia. Bone and Telltale in general are trying to get people back to the thought that you don't have to have lens flares, rippling waters, and hundreds of particle algorithms in order to have a great game.

      This was their first attempt to recapture what adventure gaming used to be and I'll confess that it's a bit weak. But they get a lot of constructive feedback on their forums, which I'm sure is taken seriously since many of the forum members have been around since the company was first created.

      As for your Sam and Max concerns, you apparently are unaware that most of the team who was working on LucasArts' Sam and Max: Freelance Police went on to form Telltale after Lucas scrapped the project when it was about 90% completed. So, not only were they the people who were writing and developing it, they've gotten the blessing from Steve Purcell himself who said that he can't imagine a better group to make the game.

      As long as I'm preaching, look at how many other games out there rake in a lot of money with relatively simplistic graphics -- Zuma, Bejewelled, and a ton of others. Gameplay without graphics does matter to a lot of people. Apparently, you're not one of them -- and that's fine. But there are a lot of us who look to companies like Telltale to give us something different from the latest barrage of "graphics first, story second" games that have comprised the majority of releases in the past several years.

      Disclaimer: No, I don't work for Telltale. I just like supporting the underdog and protecting them from undue criticism when I can. I guess that's why I also love *nix. :)
      • Mod parent up.

        With LucasArts milking the Star Wars franchise for all it is worth, I can't wait to see an actual adventure game on the market again. It's been far too long. SCUMMVM is a godsend, bringing back the tentacles, three-headed monkeys and motorcycle company takeover plots that have fallen so far by the wayside, remembered by only a few.
      • You "apparently" don't actually know me, wow that's amazing... Sorry but I am *not* of the mindset that I have to have omgoshlolzprettypictures to make games good. I just bought Darwinia, and I'm playing through Ocarina of Time which is pretty ugly compared to recent games. I am also a HUGE adventure game fan, and so yes I know all about the Freelance Police fiasco, and that Telltale is mostly made up of the people who worked on it. My comment about graphics is one that I find hard to explain, but essent
      • ### Please define "bad graphics".

        "Unpleasent to look at"

        I havn't played Bone yet, but the screenshots look rather ugly, the same 'ugly' that was already present in Sam'n Max2 screenshot. And no, that kind of ugly doesn't come from a lack of shaders, but from going 3D in the first place. Both Bone and Sam'nMax seem to be a perfect fit for good old classic 2D graphics, going 3D just trashes that style down, which is why I don't understand why they did go 3D. The old Sam'nMax looked perfectly fine and even tod
      • Personally, I am of the opinion that Monkey Island 1, 2 and 4 should all be remade in the style of Monkey Island 3.

        Anyone agree?
    • Upon reading your post I went out and download the demo and played it.

      The voice acting, it turns out, is quite *good*, and it's obvious that an absurd amount of time went into having characters' mouths and body language match what's said. Considering that most 3D games are content with just changing the facial texture whenever a character has to speak (Ivy's laugh in the SoulCalibur games is unintentionally freaky because of this), and I have to say, Telltale has done a great job on that.

      The graphics are 3

  • Touching? (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "Rather than getting a Grim Fandango or a Monkey Island, 3 or 4 times a decade, now we can touch those people 3 or 4 times a year."

    I don't know what a Grim Fandago or Monkey Island is, but if they're anything like a Cleveland Steamer or a Hot Carl, I don't think I want these people touching me.

  • More power to them (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fujiman ( 912957 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:38PM (#13974761)
    ... However, putting together a good adventure is wicked hard. Telling a good story is (partially) about pacing. But how do you control pacing when the player is stuck on a puzzle for 3 hours? So the story needs to be in sync with the puzzles, with just enough difficulty to keep the game and story in line.

    Day of the Tentacle did an amazing job at this, as did some other LA titles, but I do remember wondering about Sierra adventures ... non-sequitors, die-before-you-try puzzles, bleeecch. I count Ms. Williams' adventures as some of my most frustrating experiences in gaming.

    Anyway, go to it guys. Do something great. I'll buy it.

    • Kings Quest games were evil, fact. As were the Space Quest series, though there was less death in them IIRC.
    • Oh, but I loved the Sierra games. One of the things I loved about them was the fact that there weren't a defined set of things you could do. It's not like there was a "use" button and a "pick up" button. You couldn't just click all over the screen and hoped something happened. It wasn't like you click on the key and click on a door, and the game figured out what you wanted to do. You might have to unlock the door with the key, or you might want to slide the key under the door. Really, it could be anyt

  • Bone (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Negative9 ( 512823 )
    I bought the first "chapter" of the Bone game and wasn't impressed. For only $20 I wasn't expecting it to be very long, but I finished it in about an hour, and out of that there's hardly any gameplay at all, it's mostly branching conversations with a few very basic adventure game type puzzles and two dull action sequences. The best thing I can say about the game is that the story was kept very faithful to the comic. I hope they have better things in store for their Sam & Max game.

  • Huh? (Score:3, Informative)

    by Tankko ( 911999 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @07:58PM (#13974940)
    Next Generation has a talk with Telltale, the maker of interactive stories such as Monkey Island and Grim Fandango.

    Telltale didn't make Grim Fandango or Monkey Island. Thoese were made by LucasArts, and even then, they were designed by Tim Schafer and Ron Gilbert. The people at TaleTell just worked on them.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by dommer2029 ( 862153 )
      Interesting. Designing the adventure engine is not the hard part in making a good adventure game, it's the scripting of the story itself. If these guys don't have that experience, it would explain the negative Bone reviews.

      I was excited at first, but maybe there's nothing to see here, and I should go about my business.

      • Re:Huh? (Score:1, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Except that Dave Grossman, one of the Telltale guys was a writer on the first two Monkey Islands, and co-designer/writer on Day of the Tentacle... I think some of the others have similar although slightly less illustrious experience, but I couldn't be bothered looking it up.
    • Ron Gilbert is heading Telltale Games, they only lost Schafer.
  • If you look around the adventure genre is far less dead than many people claim, with AnotherCode/TraceMemory and Phoenix Wright there are two decent ones for the NintendoDS, there also was Fahrenheit recently for PC, XBox and PS2, soon there will be Dreamfall and if you look a bit in the past there was The Moment of Silence, Westerner, Black Mirror, Runaway, Syberia, Still Life and plenty of others. Not all of them might be up to the legendary LucasArts ones, but many of them are still quite good, some, like Fahrenheit, even try something different then classic point&click and succeed at doing so, some other of course not so much (BrokenSword3).

    So while the adventure genre has far less games to offer then the first person shooter genre, there are still plenty of gems available that shouldn't be missed and several other on the way. The adventure genre seems to have found it niche to live in.

    • I have to agree with you on this. I bought Phoenix Wright on a whim the other day, and I have to say this is the most fun I've had with a game in a long time. They have really done an amazing job with the localization on this one. I laughed so hard on some parts that I had to put down the game until I'd calmed myself down.

      Definitely the kind of adventure game I want to see more of.
    • In case you didn't know, Revolution had openly said they weren't planning to make another Broken Sword game after The Sleeping Dragon. However, due to immense pressure from the fans, Charles Cecil turned around and said "yeah, ok" and now Broken Sword 4 is in the works. BS3 had its flaws, most of them to do with the annoying crate puzzles and less conversation than the previous games. But some of the best puzzles were only possible thanks to the 3D engine, such as the channeling of the spooky blue light in

    • The DS seems to be shaping up to a great console for adventure gamers. Phoenix Wright is utterly hilarious, with an awesome storyline and fascinating puzzles. I hope Capcom is going to localize a few more of the Phoenix Wright games, appearently there are several GBA sequels to Phoenix Wright available in Japan.

      The only bad thing I can say about Another Code is that it's too freaking short. It should have been three times as long at least.

      The dual screen/touchs creen combination really works great with ad

  • Telltale Developing New Sam & Max Game (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dividedsky319 ( 907852 ) on Monday November 07, 2005 @11:25PM (#13976219)

    Back in September, Telltale bought the rights to the Sam and Max adventure game from Lucasarts [adventuregamers.com]

    I can't WAIT. I was disappointed when Lucasarts cancelled Freelance Police, but it's great to hear that TT put it back into development. Sam and Max Hit the Road , along with Day of the Tentacle, are among my favorite adventure games.

    Good to see a company is trying to revive the genre.

  • There's only so many Star Wars games you can make.

    Really? My goodness.

    Would you care to get me a hard number so we can begin the countdown? (KOTOR notwithstanding.)

    • There's only so many Star Wars games you can make.

      Would you care to get me a hard number so we can begin the countdown? (KOTOR notwithstanding.)

      Sure: ONE. [klov.com]

      The original quote is obviously spoken by someone utterly fed up with making movie property games. Lucasfilm used to be known for making some absolutely brilliant things; not only did they make what are regarded by many to be the best graphical adventures, but it was also in their halls where was created what may very well have been the first true graphic [fudco.com]

  • ScummVM (Score:3, Informative)

    by Boronx ( 228853 ) <evonreis.mohr-engineering@com> on Monday November 07, 2005 @11:26PM (#13976230) Homepage Journal
    What I'm doing is just playing through the great Lucas Arts games I never got around to or haven't tried using ScummVM [scummvm.org].

    Who knows how many hours of gameplay that's worth. Heck, there's two free games to download, I've got four or five more games on the shelf I bought from a friend, including Loom and Sam and Max, still in it's original box. The two I have played, Monkey Island and Full Throttle both are easily good enough to deserve a replay.
    • Loom is really awesome, you should play that next.

      Just make sure you listen to the audio CD (or cassette tape, if your copy is old enough) before you start the game - the audio is the background story, if you just start the game without knowing the story you lose some of the coolness.

      Wonderful, wonderful game, I just replayed it a couple of months ago - I hadn't been able to play it since I switched to Linux until I found out about ScummVM, then I had to. :)

  • I've played the third Monkey Island and Toonstruck and I must say that I like them and am interested in getting more titles. They're often going cheap in game stores or the classifieds of your papers.

    I think there is a site dedicated to retro games such as this, but failing that Ebay might be a good place to check these gems out. Haven't checked for a while so I'm not sure.

  • At last (Score:2, Interesting)

    by j0ve ( 805820 )
    I think it was a mistake not to make this kind of games anymore. I know many people who belong to the much-less-than-hardcore-gamer category. These people arent very charmed with the shooters, the stragegy games, the online rpg's and so forth. I hear stuff like "what about that game with the rabbit and the dog, don't you have that one anymore" all the time. I think if game producers want to draw more people to their products, they should be making as much Sam&max's, SpaceQuests, Larry's, Day of the Tent

  • Adventure games are where its at (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Gulthek ( 12570 ) on Tuesday November 08, 2005 @11:08AM (#13978629) Homepage Journal
    My wife and I love to play adventure games (I guess we call them storied games now?) because one can play and the other can watch and both have an enjoyable experience. We are currently in the midst of Indigo Prophecy and recently completed Still Life, Grim Fandango (she had never played it), Resident Evil 4 (more action than adventure but tremendously exciting for player and watcher), etc.

    The better the story the better, the better the voice acting the better, the better the music the better. Graphics have little to do with it, so perhaps these games will make a huge comeback when the videogame graphics orgasm is over. I.e once all games look really good, other thinks like acting, plot, music will differentiate.
    • Or you could just be an extremist and abandon graphics entirely [ifarchive.org]. If you want a game with a plot, that's where to look.
      • Been there, done that since the 1980s, love my text games to death. Unfortunately they don't work as well for two person playing.

        Although I have to say Photopia's storytelling is amazing, and the puzzle (if you've played it you know the one) in Spider and Web is so awesome that it's awesomeness can not be explained, it must be experienced. And Zork III is utterly epic: sword, lamp, dungeon, and the mythology of itself. Hello sailor!

        Hmm...now that I think on this perhaps once I someday get my HDTV projector

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