It’s been around 4 years since Telltale’s Walking Dead episodic adventure was released. I have a lot of great memories with this game, and it is still one of the first games that engrossed me in an interactive-story experience.

I remember being fully immersed within 10 minutes of the game. I was presented with choices from the get-go which affected the world and how others perceived me. This was and still is one of the best and most lovingly-designed experiences Telltale has given us.

And no, this is not nostalgia speaking. I’ve recently gone back and replayed the game, I still feel bad for choosing to save Duck over Shawn. These moral quandaries stick with you and that is part of what makes this game so good.

The other reason I love this game is because of its gameplay. No, the gameplay isn’t amazing but it helped made this game feel like a GAME as well as an interactive story. The various puzzles and linear exploration sections of the game break up the story. These sections aided the story. It made you feel like you were actually in the show exploring and interacting with areas like Hershel’s farm.

Now here’s my biggest problem with their newer games like their Game of Thrones and Minecraft series. WHERE THE HELL IS THE GAME.

These games still retain the great writing of the Walking Dead and Back to the Future (which nobody seems to have played), and they all mimic the writing and feel of the content its based off perfectly.

But I can’t help but feel that Telltale has shifted the direction of their games to appeal to a much younger audience, or maybe to appeal to their mobile audience. The “games” do not feel like games at all, but rather a 3-hour long cutscene with a quick time event every now and then.

There is no doubt that gameplay has been watered down in the years following the Walking Dead. They have completely branched from their point-and-click roots and simplified their games to the point where there is no game. There is nothing to break up the story apart from those pesky QTE’s.

There were only very few times in Game of Thrones where I got a chance to explore an area, even then, they are restricted to tiny, unimaginative courtyards. They even somehow managed to make exploration of Castle Black boring and restrictive. There were only about 3-4 things I could actually interact with in the courtyard at the wall, this was a huge missed opportunity.

As I stated earlier, I loved the mix between gameplay and story because I felt like I was exploring landmarks of the show. However, I didn’t feel the weight of exploring Castle Black. I didn’t feel anything because Telltale didn’t do anything to make you feel like you were in part of this world.

It is no secret that Telltale is attempting to move away from the PC and onto our phones. Telltale makes no effort in making their games a great PC experience. They have made no attempt to update the quality of the games textures, it has exactly the same graphical quality of a 4 year game. The texture quality is barely noticeable on the phone, but on a 16-inch screen, you can really see the lack of detail. This is only one of many flaws on the PC version of the game. Another which is immediately noticeable is the QTE’s. They are very clearly made for the smartphone first and the PC second. It just feels to me like they are neglecting the audience that made them who they were, they dropped what originally made them great in favour of gameplay more accessible to mobile users.

Telltale games have gone from amazing and revolutionary gaming experiences down to fun stories. Well anyway, that’s my two cents. And that is the reason why I will no longer be playing anymore Telltale games.

It's probably because their attempts at "gameplay" in The Walking Dead were kinda terrible and everyone complained about it, so they just shied away from it entirely.

On the one hand I do kinda miss their more point and click style earlier games like Sam and Max. On the other hand, Tales from the Borderlands ended up being their best game to date, so they've still got some magic left in the bottle.

(Btw, typing your title in all caps is extremely obnoxious and unnecessary.)

Hate is a strong word but I see where your coming from. For me it's more of an issue of not having any interest in the franchises they are deciding to cover. I would have said the same thing about The Walking Dead at the time (and now since I still haven't seen the show and don't care to) but since what they did with that game was so well done and fresh it didn't require me to be a fan of the thing it was based on. Where as these new games seems to rely so much on "doing the thing those games do" I have no interest in those things so I have no interest in those games. It's less of a game play issue and more of a "innovation" issue for me.

@zeik: Borderlands was the one game that i skipped so I should give that a go.

@fatalbanana: Great point. Also, I don't actually HATE Telltale, I did it for the purposes of a good title and to exaggerate my point. I actually enjoyed Game of Thrones to an extent.

The early gameplay sections of the walking dead were awful. Once they embraced the interactive storytelling genre and stopped worrying about gameplay they hit their stride, and I loved the game of thrones from start to finish, because of the interactions between characters. Expecting to explore castle black is a bit unrealistic imo

I was down on Telltale but then Tales From The Borderlands happened and whilst it certainly wasnt as impactful as Walking Dead I maintain that its the best game they've put out. As a character focused story it works so well because every character is so damn likable, the first half of the first episode isn't great but things really get going once it becomes about the core group of characters. It's the only telltale game I've played multiple times, not because I wanted to see how my choices affected the story, but because it was a really fun adventure with characters I enjoyed spending time with.

They also make Handsome Jack a compelling character as opposed to a meme factory, and for that alone they deserve props

@zeik will remember what you said

Meh, I'm totally fine with the lack of gameplay. The presence of choices alone makes it different than a movie or whatever. I think Telltale's doing great work.

The dialogue choices IS the game play in Telltale games. Tales from the Borderlands is fucking awesome.

Everything from TellTale is rather bad. Like, a poor product in some form or another. Whether it's performance, save corruption issues, broken gameplay, there is always something. On top of that, I really didn't enjoy The Walking Dead as much as people on these forums did. I thought it was godawful. It had tremendous potential, but the execution was just so terrible. I will never understand why people thought shooting Duck was that powerful of an emotional moment. Prior to that happening you were forced in several decisions, none of which I wanted to take, because there were always better options, the game just didn't let me choose them.

I forget any specific examples, but it always seemed to come down to: 'Do you want to kill this person or chop his leg off?' -'Eh, well... why not just kill the four zombies that are approaching? I just got done killing six zombies by myself and now we're with the three of us so it should be easy to...' -'You're running out of time! Kill him or chop his leg off!?' -'Why am I running out of time? There's just four zombies, we can easily take them and there aren't any more around as far as I can tell, there is also no bomb that's about to explode; no reason to have a timer of any sorts at all really, so...' -'KILL HIM OR CHOP HIS LEG OFF!?' -'Christ, fine, just kill him then, dumb game'.

Which just kept going and going until you had to kill Duck. At that point I was like: Alright, whatever, just kill him and get this over with.

My question with these kind of criticisms is always: Why does it have to be a game? Movies and TV shows provide long periods of story and cinematography with nothing to break them up and we don't see them as any lesser than gameplay-focused media because of it. Some Telltale games also seem like they benefit from including adventure game tropes much more than others. In The Walking Dead wandering around and observing random objects in the environment provided important time to feel the heavy atmosphere of the game and objects around the game world could give an insight into the situation the characters had found themselves in. In other Telltale games however these ideas don't apply nearly as much. I'm playing through Tales of the Borderlands at the moment and personally finding that the moments where it remains story and cutscene-focused are the times where it's at its best. The "gameplay" sections have a tendency to devolve into QTEs that are both shallow and repetitive.

Additionally, while there are certainly aspects of Telltales graphics you can criticise, I don't think they're in a situation where more detail in the graphics is going to make them better by default. Minecraft: Story Mode is going for a 3D pixel art look, while games like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us are using a cel-shaded style that is going to be reliant on large, flat sections of colour. That doesn't mean that there's not room for some form of detail in these kinds of experiences, but it's generally going to be in filling out the environments and animating the characters, rather than in just making sure textures are higher res.

You can look at this from the other perspective though. Why IS it a game? Movies and books will always have certain storytelling advantages over games. They have better characterization because they don't have to account for player agency. They have better pacing because Indiana Jones, unlike Nathan Drake, is never going to spend half an hour scouring an environment for a collectible or fail to make a jump 7 times in a row. Movies have better visual storytelling because they don't need their camera angles to be 'playable' so they can use fragmentation and montage much better.

Games have immersion and choice.

Choice alone is generally not enough to make up for the deficits (there's a reason choose your own adventure books and movies were niche products.) Gameplay tends to be necessary for immersion (a non-interactive environment is not that immersive.)

Now maybe Telltale has enough cool art and dialog to be a really cool choose your own adventure type experience*, and that's fine, but let's not pretend gameplay isn't a big part of what helps games tell stories that games are best equipped to tell. And I would add that this is amplified by the fact that telltale choices tend not to be real choices anyway. It's the illusion of choice for the most part. At least when you solve a (good) puzzle to advance you actually DID solve that puzzle and you get a sense of accomplishment and buy in.

*I would tend to agree with this. I would prefer if Telltale tried to do things with gameplay but I still like their games. I also liked Firewatch, which didn't have gameplay OR choices for the most part, so I am not agreeing with OP that the Telltale games are BAD games per se.

I'm not here to discuss what makes a game a game because that is pointless. I will say Telltale found a formula that worked in their Walking Dead game and have been milking it for all its worth. I think it was evident the well ran dry around the second season of The Walking Dead. Personally I preferred their older more traditional adventure games like Sam and Max, Back to the Future, and Monkey Island.

I really think they need to change up their formula or it's eventually going to end in disaster for Telltale and people are going to lose their jobs. No license be it Batman or Marvel will change this unless they change up their games.

You say that, but then look at Traveler's Tales with Lego and how long they've been going. Formulas can work, even if they're repetitive and a little boring. Plus at this point the TellTale games have to be VERY cheap to make, except for the license.

I mostly have positive feelings for Telltale. I've liked everything I've played by them, which is only Monkey Island, Back to the Future, and Wolf Among Us. All three of those were pretty good. I'm weirdly looking forward to this Batman game. Tell you what though, they have got to learn how to optimize their games. A glorified point and click with not very technically impressive graphics should not chug on a PS3. Drives me nuts.

I mean The Wold Among Us is fantastic

I never liked any of their games. Way too little in ways of player agency. None of the choices you make actually matter; Telltale is just there to give you their version of the story, whether you like it or not.

And yeah, having nothing in terms of traditional gameplay (no puzzles, action, strategy, etc.) is just way too boring for me.

I never thought Telltale had "gameplay" as you seem to think of it, in their games since The Walking Dead. So, I've just been basing my dis/like of their games around how the story is. That said, I have not played Minecraft or GoT, those could change my mind on this but I doubt it.

Even though we aren't quite there yet, this seems a bit too close to the "what's a real game?" argument, and I want none of that.

As far as my opinion goes, Telltale seems to have the normal amount of "bombs" compared to hits as any other dev, so whatever.

They made Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People and that thing is alright.

I think people tend to be way too rigid about what a game "should be". I lean towards games that focus on gameplay myself, but I also think it's great that Telltale/Quantic Dream/The Until Dawn peopl etc are experimenting with the medium in a wholly different way.

I think it's pretty neat they can churn out new stories this quickly, it kinda of reminds me of a monthly comic book. It's new way to tell stories that has a lot of potential for new kinds of stories.

So when someones asks where the gameplay is, I think they are missing the point of what these games are trying to achieve. Certainly it's your prerogative if it isn't your thing, but I do think it's unfair to criticize these kinds of games for not doing something they never intended to do.

definitely agree though TT's graphical and texture work of late has been pretty underwhleming.

I think this is a really interesting problem you have. You are not wrong because it is really a taste thing. I have been wondering a lot lately about how much moving around a space, even with very simple or rough gameplay, matters to players as a feeling. Making you feel like a character and have some exploration to the environments you're in. Here you seem to link it to pacing and feeling interactive. I have been working on a game and it's an issue I think about as I use menu based navigation but wonder if it wasn't better to have, even with a simple rough gameplay style, a character move around the environment to to do those things.

Ultimately it is a taste thing but I wonder if more people don't feel as you do. I really haven't kept up with their games past Walking Dead but should check them out.

I definitely miss the "original" Telltale, when their games were much more in the vein of old-school point n' clicks (although even then, their writing was far stronger than their puzzle design) and they really got their dedicated fans involved in shaping their product. Once they got the Universal deal, that all changed.

But honestly, I don't think it's a bad thing, just different. Sure, I miss the Sam and Max days, but I wouldn't give up TWD 1 and 2 or Borderlands for anything either. I think there's plenty of room in gamedom for "interactive movies" like these or Until Dawn, or even Quantic Dreams' stuff, with or without the often questionable "gameplay" sections. TFTB and Life Is Strange are honestly two of my favorite games I've played this year.

But yeah, for real, their game engine needs a serious overhaul. There's no excuse for the continued severity of their performance issues and bugs after all these years.

I'm so into storytelling, that the modern Telltale games are up my alley. I loved The Walking Dead season 1, and Game of Thrones. I still have Borderlands, TWD 2, and The Wolf Among Us to play through once I can get to them. But, I'm looking forward to making time for them. And I'm really looking forward to the upcoming Batman Telltale game.

I mean, this seems to be what people want for the most part. I feel like the games that leaned into the Adventure game aspects were not well received at all. Like Back To The Future, Jurassic Park, and the last release of Sam and Max. I just remember those were badly received, and lots of complaints. Whereas the games where they lean into the storytelling, and away from the adventure game stuff that probably makes it more of a "videogame" have been much more well received. I think part of it, as well, people like Jeff who loved the old school adventure games but don't actually want more of it because they've moved on.

I do think there's room for alot of improvement, though. I think they need to do something about creating more diversity in art style. I liked the painterly style of Game of Thrones, but they're making so many titles at this point that I think they need to figure out a way to make the art styles more individualized. The teaser trailer for the Batman game has me hoping they do something drastic, because there was art in that trailer that looked like Jim Lee's Batman art (but it was original to that trailer, because it wasn't ripped out of any comics I'm aware of). I mean, if they could give us a Batman Telltale game that has a Jim Lee art style...that would be cool.

They definitely need to work out the kinks in meeting deadlines, too. They'd be better served to have a few episodes in the can before they even launch to avoid problems. The hate that Game of Thrones got didn't seem to have anything to do with the quality of the game or the story, but how massive the gaps were in between releases.