@Dedodido said:

@dinkley2 said:

@Renahzor said:

I ironically finished Ep5 about 5 minutes prior to this posting. hooray!

thats a coincidence not irony.

irony is like rain on your wedding day

No... that isn't irony either. That's just unfortunate.

But leading up the wedding there was a drought!

Meh, it's still not really a game and just a somewhat interactive DVD menu. I was really very disappointed, especially after liking the (already light on gameplay) BTTF and Tales of MI from Telltale. This is by far their worst product so far. Sure, Clem is the best child ever in a "game", since she's wasn't obnoxious as fuck and actually written like an intelligent kid, but the rest was not that special. And, I mean, it was absolutely clear in episode 3 already what was going to happen at the end. Teaching Clem to shoot set it in stone. This really shouldn't be anywhere near the Top 5 of a GOTY list. Maybe around ~15, if you're easy to impress by some good writing and nothing else in a game.

@Kevin_Cogneto said:

@Xeirus said:

@Renahzor said:

@dinkley2: Fixed internet asshat! The worldinternet this thread is now a better place for being cleansed of erroneous uses of the word irony.

If it makes you feel any better his example wasn't correct either.

Jesus, do I really live in a world where people are unfamiliar with this song? It's official, I'm fucking old.

It figures

@Krabonq said:

Meh, it's still not really a game and just a somewhat interactive DVD menu. I was really very disappointed, especially after liking the (already light on gameplay) BTTF and Tales of MI from Telltale. This is by far their worst product so far. Sure, Clem is the best child ever in a "game", since she's wasn't obnoxious as fuck and actually written like an intelligent kid, but the rest was not that special. And, I mean, it was absolutely clear in episode 3 already what was going to happen at the end. Teaching Clem to shoot set it in stone. This really shouldn't be anywhere near the Top 5 of a GOTY list. Maybe around ~15, if you're easy to impress by some good writing and nothing else in a game.

With only 7 posts, and being able to see your post history, I can tell you're a great addition to the community.

I believe all 7 of your posts are about how much TWD sucks, great job!

Thanks Patrick. These have been absolutely fantastic. I always find it really interesting to see what developers/writers/etc. were thinking.

Good article. One of the most gripping game experiences I've had in a long time.

I also told Clem to kill me. I figured it was necessary for her to see that in that world, once someone is about to turn, you have to kill them no matter who they are. It sucks to force her to do that, but it's one final important thing that Lee can teach her.

@Krabonq said:

Meh, it's still not really a game and just a somewhat interactive DVD menu. I was really very disappointed, especially after liking the (already light on gameplay) BTTF and Tales of MI from Telltale. This is by far their worst product so far. Sure, Clem is the best child ever in a "game", since she's wasn't obnoxious as fuck and actually written like an intelligent kid, but the rest was not that special. And, I mean, it was absolutely clear in episode 3 already what was going to happen at the end. Teaching Clem to shoot set it in stone. This really shouldn't be anywhere near the Top 5 of a GOTY list. Maybe around ~15, if you're easy to impress by some good writing and nothing else in a game.

What exactly are the requirements to label something a game then? Who decided that your definition of what a game is should be the end all, be all definition? You're entitled to your opinion, no doubt, but that doesn't make it wrong or not make you an ass.

Would have been a more gripping experience if my choice actually mattered and if characters didn't contradict themselves all the time. Also, who thought that, by keeping their arm, they'd actually get a better chance at saving Clem? Who seriously thought that?

Overall, I loved the game and I can't wait for season 2. But please, please, make my choices really matter and stop giving me false choices .

@Albedo12 said:

What really got to me in that final scene was the "Clementine will remember..." captions. Before, they were always there to let you know that your decisions would affect the story down the line. Now they are telling you that Clementine will remember your advice after you're dead.

Yeah, that was the part i got a kick out. Having the notifications on. The people that turned them off were really missing some things that add more than you would think to the story.

That being said, they need to stop telegraphing episodic deaths so much in this game for it to continue to be good. Actually, they need to stop telegraphing EVERYTHING.

"someone appears a lot more in an episode?" = dead/major choice

kat saying she couldnt imagine living without Duck= suicide

they really telegraphed so much throughout the game, and it really took away from it when I could see the stuff coming from across town.

Hey, @patrickklepek , minor error but in the article you link to Lily , a character from the Yakuza series, not Lilly the character from The Walking Dead.

Awesome article nonetheless!

I've been waiting for this to pop up. I'm gonna instapaper this bad boy.

tl;dr! Would be awesome if you guys could have interview on the BombCast. Maybe even extra special episodes between main episodes.

Even after reading this, I have no idea why the majority of players cut off their arms.

You people are crazy. Lee's fainting at that point, obviously it ain't in the arm anymore.

I was definitely one of those people that went "You know what mysterious stranger? You're right, I'm a piece of shit, take care of Clementine."  
 
Made me so damn mad when he started talking to the head in the bag. Can't anybody be fucking sane in this game? Look at me, I'm covered in blood, and I only have one arm, yet I'M the best choice to take care of Clementine? 

@Klei said:

Would have been a more gripping experience if my choice actually mattered and if characters didn't contradict themselves all the time. Also, who thought that, by keeping their arm, they'd actually get a better chance at saving Clem? Who seriously thought that?

cutting off worked in the comics/show, though the distressing amount of time between bite and chop made me seriously doubt it. i had to try anyway when the option came up.

Clem :( hope she does fine without Lee. she's a survivor. :)

i actually thought the twisting of everything on you and making you reflect on your "monstrosities" with the stranger was a clever way of flipping the script. it actually was kinda tearing me up and making me feel super guilty, though i was constantly wondering when they were going to reveal the dark secret of the bag....

@Swifdemon said:

Even after reading this, I have no idea why the majority of players cut off their arms.

You people are crazy. Lee's fainting at that point, obviously it ain't in the arm anymore.

Because it's more exciting. I wanted to see how they would do it. I'm not gaining anything by NOT cutting the arm off and even though we all knew that cutting it off wouldn't do anything we went for it because it's such a crazy option.

@ripelivejam said:

i actually thought the twisting of everything on you and making you reflect on your "monstrosities" with the stranger was a clever way of flipping the script. it actually was kinda tearing me up and making me feel super guilty, though i was constantly wondering when they were going to reveal the dark secret of the bag....

Only for me it completely didn't work because I didn't really do anything wrong that entire game. I didn't feed Clem the human meat, I hurried as fast as I could and yelled for her to stop and the game showed her spitting it out - only later did they retcon the moment to say she swallowed it - I had no control over that. Choosing Carly over the nerdy kid also wasn't some vile decision, it was one or the other and I chose her, it's a lose/lose situation. I refused to take anything from the guys broken down car, and couldn't influence the entire group to also leave it. One by one he mentioned these things that I didn't do which just made him an insane person in my playthrough.

@Albedo12 said:

What really got to me in that final scene was the "Clementine will remember..." captions. Before, they were always there to let you know that your decisions would affect the story down the line. Now they are telling you that Clementine will remember your advice after you're dead.

My favorite 'She Will Remember That' moment was when Carly 'Would Remember' I sided with her at the RV. That lasted about 20 seconds before Lilly killed her.

This is in my opinion the best TWD property, marginally better than the comics and quite a bit better than the show (which I actually like a lot). Based solely on the strength of the characters and your connection to them. I would love to see Lee and Clementine somehow make it into the TV show, though I'm not sure they would do them justice, it'd be nice to see...

@redeuxx said:

tl;dr! Would be awesome if you guys could have interview on the BombCast. Maybe even extra special episodes between main episodes.

Reading is so hard!

@Humanity said:

Only for me it completely didn't work because I didn't really do anything wrong that entire game. I didn't feed Clem the human meat, I hurried as fast as I could and yelled for her to stop and the game showed her spitting it out - only later did they retcon the moment to say she swallowed it - I had no control over that. Choosing Carly over the nerdy kid also wasn't some vile decision, it was one or the other and I chose her, it's a lose/lose situation. I refused to take anything from the guys broken down car, and couldn't influence the entire group to also leave it. One by one he mentioned these things that I didn't do which just made him an insane person in my playthrough.

This. The scene with Clem later on kind of saved the game for me, but I was really disappointed with the whole stranger thing. Episode 5 is by far the worst for me.

In the future can you do these on Video or Podcast format please

Sorry Bruner, somebody already invented the genre of head games.

Don't be afraid.

I'm surprised that my rational for not cutting off the arm has not been mentioned.

After the leg chop moment of Episode 2, we saw that severing a limb with a dire lack of medical supplies resulted in that guy dying and then becoming a zombie. And that happens even though Katjaa is there. She is not a doctor, but she has much more medical training that any of the possible survivors who are with you during the arm cutting option. She still could not do anything to help the guy from bleeding out.

In my (real-world) logic, no one in that room was going to be able to keep me from bleeding out if the arm was cut.

@Xeirus: Yeah Krabonq's comment felt like something you'd hear from one of those obnoxious people who can't wait to tell everyone how he predicted the ending of a story five minutes into a movie after watching the whole thing.

Nothing about Season 2? No nugget of info, not even asking about it? I'm a little surprised they aren't being absolutely concrete about the release or lay out a map of the next season granted how well Season 1 went over.

thanks for doing this series Patrick, I've really enjoyed reading it.

This is great, must go back and check out the articles about the other episodes. Only got around to playing The Walking Dead in early December because I wanted to wait until they all came out

I cut off Lee's arm. I wanted to believe!!! And that Lee would survive and escape with Clem. In the final scene. When Clem started going "Noooo Lee, you can't leave meee." Oh man.. so close to crying. I had Clem leave me in the end. (; A;)

The full article is only marginally better than the demo version on the beta site xD

@patrickklepek I want to let you know that after reading these articles, they are probably my favourite pieces of writing that I've ever read in regards to the game industry. You really knocked it out of the park and I'll be waiting to see whatever it is you're planning for the future. Great work.

Only for me it completely didn't work because I didn't really do anything wrong that entire game. I didn't feed Clem the human meat, I hurried as fast as I could and yelled for her to stop and the game showed her spitting it out - only later did they retcon the moment to say she swallowed it - I had no control over that. Choosing Carly over the nerdy kid also wasn't some vile decision, it was one or the other and I chose her, it's a lose/lose situation. I refused to take anything from the guys broken down car, and couldn't influence the entire group to also leave it. One by one he mentioned these things that I didn't do which just made him an insane person in my playthrough.

To me it worked precisely because I didn't do anything I regretted in the end - I saw the stranger as a broken man who tries to lay blame on Lee only because he knows that they are similar, but he's talking to a man who managed to keep his sanity and humanity despite all this hardship. That moment was less about the game forcing you to feel like a bastard, but about making you think about your actions. If you believe that you were out of control in most of the bad situations and you did the most moral, best thing you could, then it's completely okay. That's why I liked it so much - throughout the game, your decisions are questioned all the time, no matter if you actually did something questionable and that was the moment were I could reinforce my belief that yes, I did the best I could.

@Humanity: i guess call me naiive or easily manipulated or stupid. he really got under my skin and made me feel, despite most of my actions to the contrary, that i was doing a pretty terrible job of taking care of clem. i didnt have her eat the meat, i didnt take the guy's things, but from how i dealt with her in a few conversation options i didnt feel like i was giving appropriate responses, and just making things worse for her in her fragile emotional and mental state. guess i shouldve seen it as doing the best i could given the circumstances. in any case it affected me pretty deeply and i consider it successful on that alone.

I loved the choices in that game. Almost every one of them was difficult, and the ones that weren't, had major unforeseen circumstances that made me re-think my approach.

And the final one was fairly obvious to me, I asked her to shoot. I didn't want her to see Lee like that, and I certainly didn't want to risk him going after her. I can totally understand why some people decided otherwise though.

I don't get why you would cut off the arm. I think that is the actual choice where the player is in denial in thinking that removing the arm would stop the infection.

I just said fuck it and kept it because if I was going to die anyways I might as well keep them both.

These features were such a good compliment to the game. Good JOB.

@Patrick You've said you record these interviews and I get why you like the written form.... but why not offer the mp3 of the audio recording as well? I'd get a lot more out of hearing the people speak and their emotions when they're saying these things.

Still, read the whole series and loved this feature! Thanks for the great content.

Definitely one of the more moving games I played this year (last year). Not my pick for GOTY but I can honestly say I was pleasantly surprised by this game and did not expect it to be as good as it is.

@ChrisTaran said:

@Patrick You've said you record these interviews and I get why you like the written form.... but why not offer the mp3 of the audio recording as well? I'd get a lot more out of hearing the people speak and their emotions when they're saying these things.

Still, read the whole series and loved this feature! Thanks for the great content.

The new site will have an ongoing feature where I publish some (not all) of my interviews.

I would love to see more write-ups like this on the site. Maybe it just works so well because of the episodic format, or maybe it's just because I loved The Walking Dead so much, but every one of these interviews was fascinating to me.

"The really exciting thing is the notoriety of The Walking Dead certainly is making it so we're having a lot more conversations with a lot of other TV shows and movies and books and things that would be really awesome to make games out of. That's super, super exciting."

Oh boy, this got me sperging out with excitement. TV series I'd love to see Telltale's take on (warning: imminent overdose of wishful thinking and probably not very good ideas)

BSG - Plenty of scope for desperate situations & tough moral choices here, you could play the part of some random survivor on one of the other ships in the fleet as the cannon storyline goes on in the background.

Mad Men - You play a Peggy Olson character equivalent, having just left Sterling Cooper or whatever that other company is called, as she tries to make it on her own in the world of 1960s advertising. Will she work for another company or try and set up her own? You tailor how she networks and forms relationships, chooses corporate strategies, all the while as a young woman coping with the challenges of office politics, the changing social landscape and inherent sexism of the period.

24/Nikita - A more action based spy-thriller adventure where you play as a CTU/Division agent, perhaps with a hidden past (secretly defected terrorist with faked US citizenship documents, I dunno), think Alpha Protocol-like branching storylines.

Jericho - Similar to TWD but a lot more grounded. You could play someone from that other town (or any smalltown still standing after the attack), and it be the story of how they survive the ensuing collapse and re-building of civilisation.

The Good Wife - The courtroom drama would fit the adventure game genre quite well I think. You could play as a lawyer, or an investigator like Kalinder perhaps. Did your client do it? If you think or know they did, should you still take the case? How should they plead? How will the outcome of the case affect your firm, your colleagues, your friends and family vs your career?

Breaking Bad - Turns out BB was not just the story of the rise and fall of Walter White. It was the origin story of Jesse Pinkman. With Mr.White dead and gone, he now has control of his drug empire. A few years have passed and Jesse is older, wiser. His street smarts and humility have got him further than Walter's naivety and hubris ever got him. But the DEA are closing in. Rival gangs threaten his empire. Having recently reconciled with his family, ironically due to Jesse's younger brother becoming addicted to the very product Jesse's dealers have been pedalling, he faces a constant struggle to keep what he does hidden from them. Not to mention the familiar themes of the morality of what he does and the things he did to get there, the impossibility of getting out of the game, the danger it now puts those close to him in etc.

Think of the possibilities! With the level of maturity they have displayed in their storytelling, Telltale could totally pull any of these off, and much, much better than how I've described here.

These are so awesome! Great work Patrick!

It's ok @patrickklepek, I also shed a tear or two at the end of Lost.

It was a long wait for this final part, but it was worth the wait. I loved these and felt they really added to the enjoyment I got from playing the game these past few months.

Also, if Telltale's reading this...make a game about The Wire. Please?

telltale and chris roberts need to collaborate and make the best damn BSG game ever

At first I liked sitting down with the stranger. Though corny, I thought it was cool they tried to make decisions come back to haunt you. But in my play-through I didn't take the food which after a while caused the whole sequence to be really off putting. Instead of accepting how they decided to pull it all together I sat and wondered how they could have altered his motivations. The stranger who would have had at least a reason to blame you was just reduced to "Oh, well, he's crazy that why he blames you."

I just finished the series and this was a great read. I really enjoyed the Stranger scene - I had hoped it would go for a bit longer and go through a bit more of your choices you've made. The Stranger really gave me a Elusive Man vibe. Loved the game, loved the article @patrickklepek

@ItBeStefYo said:

Did the guy say I was an ass for forcing clem to shoot lee?

No, he was saying you're an ass if you don't tell Clementine either "shoot Lee" or "leave Lee". If you wait long enough, Clem has to just make the decision on her own because Lee is just being silent for no reason, and putting that big of a decision on a 9-year-old is asking a lot of her (which is why the guy said it would make you an ass).

As long as Lee tells her to do something, at least he is giving her one last bit of advice/instruction before sending her out into the world by herself. Instead of Clem choosing to shoot or abandon Lee (which would make her feel terrible), it is Lee's dying wish that she shoot/abandon Lee.