Yeah, the Minecraft had a few “freestyle” occasions where you could kind of build what you want. In a limited kind of way.
So, like getting a small Lego box…
Pretty good article looking back at Telltale -
I forget that Campo Santo, who made Firewatch, and Night School, who made Oxenfree, were studios created by former Telltale writers. And while I think they’ve earned the criticism and Life Is Strange did a lot of things better, I have to wonder if the game would even exist without Telltale blazing the trail.
I quite enjoyed the Telltale games. TWD was a great game and something I considered for GotY when it was released because it had a powerful emotional impact. But they spread themselves too thin and never were able to replicate that level of emotional involvement for me. It was not the somewhat stale mechanics that stopped me from buying the latest TWD series. It was that the quality had continually declined since the first one.
I do think Telltale’s stuff was proof of concept and marketability for episodic games. Before that we had abortive stuff like Sin Episodes and the infamously unfinished Half Life 2 Episodes. (shakes fist) VAAAAAALVE!
I’m lamenting this a bit. Been playing their games since Sam & Max.
I thought the Sam & Max games were all pretty good adventure games, in the traditional sense. Pretty much a straight line between where LucasArts left off to that whole phase of Telltale’s output.
Besides Sam & Max, I really enjoyed their Strongbad game. Wallace & Gromit was okay. I liked their Monkey Island game. I enjoyed the Puzzle Agent games, too, but I came to those as a Grickle fan. I even played around a little bit with their Poker Night at the Inventory games. They lost me with Back to the Future, though - didn’t like it much and I took a break from their games, when they released Jurassic Park.
Of their second-wave cinematic games, I did pick up the Walking Dead, but played just one episode and didn’t touch it again for years. I’m three episodes in to the first season. What brought me back was Tales from the Borderlands. The trailer looked fun, and it didn’t disappoint. From there I backtracked to Wolf Among Us, which was also really good. I played Minecraft - they hooked me with the free first episode. There were some things that bugged me about it, too much inter-personal friction amongst the characters, but the season pass was a real hoot.
At this point, as they shut down, I’m a bit off of their games again. The Minecraft follow-up wasn’t as good as the first. Guardian’s of the Galaxy focused on character conflict (like a bad reality-tv show) and I found it’s humor flat and the experience unpleasant for the most part. Then there are the other licenses I didn’t play, like Game of Thrones and Batman, and the continuing Walking Dead stuff. There are just more of these games than I can play, especially with the varying quality.
I’ve been reading about Telltale over the last couple years from talent who have left and started other companies, and it’s hard not to think employee retention wasn’t a factor in the quality of their work. Sometime around 2010 or so, I was at a party and chatted a little bit with a Telltale employee. Didn’t seem happy to be working there, and was talking about leaving. Tempered my enthusiasm a bit for the company.
Telltale did some really great work, and I’m watching all these teams that former employees put together. And I’ve played some their games, and I like them, too. It doesn’t really feel like gaming is losing much with Telltale’s closing. They were a good incubator for talent in the narrative gaming space, but these days I’m not sure the industry still needs one - this stuff is here to stay. But I do hope all their employees find new jobs and get to do good work elsewhere.
I think Game of Thrones was my least favorite of their games, it was even more misery porn-y than Walking Dead, and neither the characters or story were all that interesting. You could tell they were kind of treading water plot wise because they couldn’t shake up established lore from the books or TV show.
And if any of you were holding out for the Stranger Things game Telltale was working on, there may be hope:
Walking Dead : Season One was one of the most unique game experiences I’ve ever had in nearly 40 years of video gaming. There were moments in that game, such as the kid and his dog, and the ending with Clem and Lee, that made me feel raw emotion in ways most video games just can’t accomplish.
However, like so many others in this thread, I felt like Telltale was oversaturating their own little niche market. It seemed like they teamed up with a new franchise every 6 months, and some of them were kind of head scratching (Minecraft?). I bought Walking Dead : Season Two on sale, and added Game of Thrones and Borderlands later via bundles…but those purchases were based mostly on the nostalgia I had for Walking Dead Season One, and I have yet to play any of them, even Walking Dead Season Two.
I am sad to see the studio close, and I wish they had been better managed and more successful. My condolences go out to all who have lost their jobs, and my sincere best wishes for a quick return to employment. I’m dismayed to hear there was no severance, and that people may not even be paid what they’re owed for work completed. That is inexcusable, especially since the company was apparently still hiring new employees right up until the end. I feel terrible for the person who just completed a cross country move to one of the most expensive cities in the country only to have the studio close ONE WEEK later. I mean come on, the people in charge HAD to know what was happening, and they couldn’t have held off hiring this person and effectively ruining their life? WTF?
The rationale for failing to pay out severance provided by Hawley, according to Kotaku ’s source, was that this was a business closure rather than partial layoffs, like the 25% downsizing that hit the studio last November. (A California law, the Cal-WARN Act, requires employees provide 60 day notice for mass layoffs but allows some exceptions that could have applied to Telltale.) That wasn’t much consolation, however, to the people who had been working long days leading up to Friday. While the source knew the company’s future was in question, they never suspected the end was so close at hand. By the time they got back to their desks, their work Google accounts had already been disabled.
“None of my sleepless nights or long hours on weekends trying to ship a game on time got me severance today,” tweeted now-former Telltale character artist Brandon Cebenka in the hours following the meeting. “Don’t work overtime unless you’re paid for it, y’all. Protect your health. Companies don’t care about you.” Another ex-employee said that they’d wished they taken more vacation time while they still had a job. “All I want right now is to REST for a couple of days,” they tweeted. “But since we got no severance and our insurance expires at the end of the month, I don’t have that luxury.” Neither employee provided further comment.
Their stuff was not for me, but I think it’s important to read this again for everyone here unless you are self-employed.
“Don’t work overtime unless you’re paid for it, y’all. Protect your health. Companies don’t care about you.”
Even if you’re self-employed, there’s no reason to work yourself to the bone. Make time to relax, spend time with family and friends, and so on.
I think Telltale was maybe less a proof of concept for episodic games (which, as so many folks here have posted, resulted in lots of us waiting for the last episode and then buying in at reduced sale rates.)
I do think they were a proof of concept that narrative-heavy “adventure” style gaming still had a strong place with a more updated set of gameplay tools. And games like Firewatch, Oxenfree, What Remains Of Edith Finch, The Vanishing of Ethan Carter, and a host of other “walking sim” style games have iterated on that successfully. In many ways, they’ve advanced out of some of the Telltale formula, and I’m not sure Telltale in the end was agile enough – with their heavy licensed property shackles – to keep up.
The second Batman game was scheduled for release on the Switch on Oct. 2. Does the fact that they still have skeleton crew running things mean something that close to release might still happen, or is that totally dead?
My money’s on dead. We’re not even sure if the second episode of the last season of Walking Dead is releasing tomorrow.
Leaked footage from Telltale’s Stranger Things game (scary eyes alert):
Monster looks cool though:
Maybe there’s hope for Walking Dead’s last season after all -
I think EG put it well:
Whoever feels entitled to the end of the last season should remember that Telltale let people go without severance. And now they are thinking of getting people in to finish the season?
They should take care of the ex-employees first rather than try and put money into the rest of the season. It won’t suddenly enjoy massive sales given the current situation anyway.
Regarding the headline, it has always been like that. Most people (even here) don’t have any idea who the people are that made their games, not even the top producers and directors.
That’s why people continue, even in 2018, to get burned by games from publishers who they equate with creation instead of the actual people who make the great games.
It’s always been disappointing. Those who pay attention to the people and follow them even from place to place are few and far between.
I don’t know about “entitled” but I know there is a non-zero number of customers out there who paid for a game that they’ll no longer be getting. If the answer to these problems is that Telltale really should have made better decisions, well obviously. But that ship has kinda already sailed.