Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

[MusicallyInspired]

http://pc.ign.com/articles/115/1150947p1.html

I'm not looking forward to this. Unless they preserve death sequences and work with the original designers CLOSELY this will fail miserably. Part of what made the original Sierra games successful was Ken William's method of having ONE person in charge of a game's design. Not to mention that Telltale's style is no where near close to that of classic Sierra's. This is almost an automatic write off for me. Almost. I'll wait to see what comes of it but I am not optimistic. In fact I'm very pessimistic.

You know, I think this will be the deciding factor on whether I'm going to continue to be a Telltale fan or not. I've been wavering lately. Not knowing what I should do; give them the benefit of a doubt and hold out or just call it quits. If they don't get King's Quest right I'm straight giving up on them.

Also, it says King's Quest REBOOT as opposed to sequel. Are they changing everything? Time will tell, I suppose.

[Marten]

I raced over here to post this as soon as I saw it... and you beat me to the punch

I am not reading as much into the word 'reboot' as you are.  Look at the quote.

Much like we did with Tales of Monkey Island, we're rebooting King's Quest with all new episodic games and multiple series.

Edit Ahah.  That quote wasn't in your article.  Hopefully http://www.joystiq.com/2011/02/18/kings-quest-reboot-coming-courtesy-of-telltale/ will put you more at ease.

Did you feel that Tales of Monkey Island was a reboot of the Monkey Island series?  I certainly don't.  I'm really expecting this will be more about fleshing out the world in which Daventry exists, telling some smaller tales interwoven in the existing history.  But, we shall see.

TellTale is already trying to demonstrate that they can break out of their format with the Jurassic Park episodes.  And it seems unfair to me that we should typecast them so early as only being able to produce certain types of adventures.

I wonder what effect the licensing deal between Activision and TellTale has had or will have on fan groups' remakes and plot extensions.

[MusicallyInspired]

What I'm worried about mainly is this quote by Dave Grossman early on:

"Sure, I've played a few old-schoolies. The first adventure game I ever played is the one that the genre is named after, "Adventure", which I came across in the late 1970s. Later, while I was working at LucasArts, I played some of the Sierra titles, and others, you know, checking out the competition. I found those games interesting and challenging, but ultimately very frustrating. They tended to punish curiosity with death, and they had all these puzzles where the solutions were amusing but often arbitrary and more or less impossible to figure out. It was like no one was thinking about what it would actually be like to PLAY the game. I claim no personal innocence on this point, by the way; I did write and design some games at that time which, while somewhat friendlier, are decidedly old school with some of their puzzles. I'm still apologizing to random strangers on the street for expecting them to think of hypnotizing a monkey as a rational way to turn him into a monkey wrench."

"As for where it's going now, I see a shift from puzzle games with story to story games with puzzles, if that makes sense? The story and characters, which were probably always the most compelling part of the experience anyway, take center stage, and the challenge offered to the player is whatever best supports the moment and the scene at hand, instead of whatever makes the designer look clever. The games are also often being made less lengthy and more accessible, to fit with the busy lives of modern players."

This is a vastly different mindset from what the original Sierra always did with their games. At Sierra the game came first before the story. At Telltale it's the other way around. Regardless of what they're planning to do, they'd have to completely recant this philosophy to do a proper King's Quest. I'll wait it out to see what happens, but I'm not optimistic. We'll see.

[Marten]

This is a vastly different mindset from what the original Sierra always did with their games. At Sierra the game came first before the story. At Telltale it's the other way around. Regardless of what they're planning to do, they'd have to completely recant this philosophy to do a proper King's Quest. I'll wait it out to see what happens, but I'm not optimistic. We'll see.

That's interesting.  What you're saying was certainly true for Sierra's earliest works, but I don't think you can accurately say that of the King's Quest games beyond the first two.  If you stick by that, then KQ3 and onward also were not "proper King's Quest."

The original King's Quest, and King's Quest II, were certainly thin on story. Early PC and mainframe games were like that... consider Colossal Adventure, or Zork, or many of the text games, you were typically thrown into a chaotic world, and the basic rules were to pick up everything you could, and try to fit every object together with another object, and eventually you would make it to the "end" of the game.  It's very primitive.  That is the heritage and inspiration of King's Quest.  And these earliest worlds are places that I haven't found much interest in revisiting.

I really liked what AGDI did with their KQ2 remake; AGDI really fleshed out the story, and their changes led to the development of new puzzles... I doubt they developed the new puzzles, then tried to wrap the story around the new game.  Was their reboot of KQ2 unworthy of being considered a true King's Quest?  For me, they hit the mark far better than Mask of Eternity did.

With King's Quest III, Sierra started to weave more story into the game from the start.  Of course, there were still things that made no sense (Why is the oracle in a dark cave covered by a giant spider?  Was the oracle un-fond of visitors?  Was the spider a test to ensure only that only Neo, I mean, Gwydion, could reach the Oracle?).  But the items you could pick up in the game have greater purpose, and fit together more logically, so that as you put your inventory to use you reveal the tale of Daventry's heir, stolen away and forced into a life of slave labor under a cruel wizard, and his triumphant discovery of his destiny, his return to the kingdom, and the rescue of his sister in great distress.  It's no longer a random collection of puzzles and fairy tales thrown together with a bit of story added as decoration.

[MusicallyInspired]

I think you're taking me the wrong way here a little bit. Yes, Sierra's games started to focus more on story as time went on and the puzzles started to make sense to the story, but the point was that the gameplay always came first before story. Because at the end of the day it's a game not a movie (paraphrasing Roberta Williams herself). Telltale games completely disregard this, and thus they are unchallenging and fruitless. In a Sierra game you were "the audience, director, and the actor all at the same time" (taken from the KQ6 behind the scenes video feature), in a Telltale game you're just the audience.

[Marten]

...The point was that the gameplay always came first before story. Because at the end of the day it's a game not a movie (paraphrasing Roberta Williams herself). Telltale games completely disregard this, and thus they are unchallenging and fruitless.

Maybe if you could give an example I would understand better, but I'm not following the above; I played through Sam & Max Season 1, found it very enjoyable, and not at all "unchallenging."  I guess we have different ideas about what makes a game interesting and at an appropriate difficulty level.

[MusicallyInspired]

I guess so lol. I don't find any Telltale games challenging at all. I just beat BTTF episode 2 last night. It only took me two days and that's only because I had other obligations. I didn't even have hints on. Everything was quite streamlined and just super easy. Granted BTTF has been the easiest Telltale game so far, but their other games aren't far behind. They all follow the same "don't defeat the player" design philosophy.

[Great Hierophant]

Because at the end of the day it's a game not a movie (paraphrasing Roberta Williams herself).

So sayeth the designer of King's Quest VII and Phantasmagoria. 

[Mau1wurf1977]

I guess so lol. I don't find any Telltale games challenging at all.

OT, but have you played the two Secret Files and Event Horizon? These are very traditional point and click Adventures and should please any fan of Adventure games.

[MusicallyInspired]

No. Are they Telltale games?

[Mau1wurf1977]

No. Are they Telltale games?

No, and that's why I recommend them to you!

They can be purchased on Steam. There should be free demo versions available for some of the titles...

[Caliburn]

I can understand where MI is coming from here, but I have a few things to add that may be a sign of some hope.  Yes, Telltale's games from the start have been made less challenging than old school adventures, but it seems like they are taking into account the audience for each particular game before they decide what the interface will be like, how hard it will be, and how much narrative connection there will be between episodes.

So although it may look like the trend is that Telltale games are becoming even easier with their more recent releases, I think it's important to keep in mind that Wallace and Gromit and Back to the Future are aimed at a broader, more casual audience and thus have broader, more casual gameplay.  (Note that Wallace and Gromit made it to stores as a boxed release.  Tales of Monkey Island did not.)  I just saw the Back to the Future games mentioned on The Digital Bits (a website about movies on disc) -- it is quite possible that many of the people playing these are new to adventure games.

Sam and Max and TOMI, while certainly not identical in approach or in challenge to old school LucasArts games, are more in line with what old school adventure gamers are looking for.  (I know these games don't satisfy everyone, but I trust that what I'm saying still makes sense in its broad strokes.)

I also note that Telltale correctly felt that Monkey Island needed to have a more cohesive plot than Sam and Max to be successful.  (A certain degree of randomness makes Sam and Max what it is, but the original Secret of Monkey Island, goofy and offbeat as it is, is basically a coming of age story.)  And they're using Quick Time Events (a la Heavy Rain) for Jurassic Park.  To me, this suggests a company that will first take a look at what King's Quest has been, and only then decide how to design, rather than assuming that the franchise must be designed in the exact same way as past Telltale games.

The perception of a formula or straightjacket to Telltale games is, I think, just a recognition that there's only so much Telltale can do given their business model.  I think Telltale's business model is one of the smartest around for downloadable content, and their design decisions (balance of gameplay challenge vs. story, reuse of art assets) are basically the essence of that business model.  It's artistically limiting, but so is every business model, except perhaps failed ones.

So, yes, there's absolutely a chance that Telltale won't have enough of the Sierra design philosophy to make a King's Quest that feels like a worthy successor to the franchise.  But I think it's also quite possible that Telltale will find a way to make King's Quest work within their business model and will pleasantly surprise us with their ability to diversify in style and approach.

At any rate, the fact that we are even having this discussion is a new and wonderful luxury.  This is the first time in more than ten years that I can approach an official product based on Sierra On-Line adventure licenses with cautious optimism.  That's pretty amazing in and of itself, and also shows what a terrific job all the unofficial games have done of keeping the flame.  Old school Sierra could have faded into irrelevance, but it didn't.  The flame still burns.

-Luke

[BlueMax]

Wish the game came with a free Tandy1000 

[Caliburn]

Best tchotchke ever. 

[Alistair]

Luke,

I was going to post, but I think you summed my sentiments up and then some. Great post.

And while the Telltale idea is a little concerning, I think it's more the previous poor attempted use of Sierra IP by other companies that has a lot of people cynical and probably a bit jaded. We have to look at this with the glass half full, at least in the initial outset, it is surely as Luke said, the best (potential) use of Sierra's IP in a very very long time, since the mid 90's probably (and Sierra was Sierra then ). QFG5 maybe?

- Alistair

[MusicallyInspired]

I can't look at the glass half full where Telltale is concerned anymore. I've been let down too many times. I have no choice but to be skeptical because I can't kid myself anymore. They'll just have to prove me wrong. I hope they do, but I'm not holding my breath.

[Alistair]

I guess the other thing is, and I know you and I differ on this MI, but I feel King's Quest is the easiest of the Sierra series. As far as KQ5-7 goes anyway, which is what I figure they're going to be emulating rather than 1-4.

I wonder how much easier it can be?

- Alistair

[WildmanCAL]

Because at the end of the day it's a game not a movie (paraphrasing Roberta Williams herself).

So sayeth the designer of King's Quest VII and Phantasmagoria. 

I was thinking the same thing.

[MusicallyInspired]

I guess the other thing is, and I know you and I differ on this MI, but I feel King's Quest is the easiest of the Sierra series. As far as KQ5-7 goes anyway, which is what I figure they're going to be emulating rather than 1-4.

I wonder how much easier it can be?

- Alistair

They'll find a way.