Telltale Games + King's Quest

[LordHoto]

I just don't share your or others' opinions that the games don't offer enough hints as to why you're stuck. I will admit there are some unwinnable scenarios that weren't intentional, but not all of them. And the ones that are intentional usually end in death and with that comes a death message with a hint as to what you're missing.

Well a death is not a dead end though. A death means it's over, while in a dead end you still play, but have no chance of winning( and usually you don't really have a clue what you are missing :-P).

[MusicallyInspired]

Oh yeah. Duh. I guess I'm contradicting myself. Oh well. I still personally like dead ends. Most of the time you know what you missed. With me anyway.

[scoriae]

I agree with musicallyinspired on many of his points, although I think sierra fans (me included) often gloss over some of the more ridiculous sierra tendencies. For example, the unicorn bridle in KQ4. That "puzzle" is absolutely ridiculous, and I once read that it single handedly led to more calls to the sierra hintline than any other puzzle. Whats worse - they designed it that way on purpose. When a game designs a section to try and force users to call a hotline, that is simply not a section meant to benefit anyone but their bottom line.

KQ3 had the damned feather that randomly fell. I once wandered around for over an hour (repeatedly having to go back up to the house and back down the cliff) waiting for that damned feather to fall. I dislike the fact I had to look up a hint for that, since there was no way to know it was random.

KQ2 had the bridge you could only cross 5 times.... I had to replay the whole game when I got the third key and went to unlock the door only to end up dying.

KQ1 had the giant who wouldn't die if you typed most combinations of sling, kill, and giant.

Jumping back forward in time, KQ5 had the ridiculous desert maze - but much worse was things like the fish hidden in the tiny barrel in the town, and a myriad of other sections that one could easily get stuck.

KQ6 was the best designed in the series imho, but as such a big fan I may be glossing over some glaring issues it had as well? A few pixel hunting puzzles maybe.

All that said, I also don't want a KQ game that follows the Sam and Max episode style (only played season 1 so far, so maybe the later seasons got better?). S&M season 1 relied on humor to keep things going, but most puzzles were very simple - and there weren't very many of the either. I spent more time driving back and forth between Boscos and some location that I did thinking of how to solve puzzles.

KQ always had a bit of humor, but it relied more on danger, sneaking, and puzzles.

My bigger concern is that with the acquisition of Fables, Walking Dead, KQ, and some Hector series - combined with their development of Back to the Future and Jurassic Park worries me about the quality of all of these games.

BttF, JP, and KQ would have been called dead series a year ago. The resurrection of these in game form has brought their die hard fans out of the woodwork. I hope telltale realizes these are older fans who care about these IP's and keeps these true fans in mind. Taking something like KQ and transforming it into a casual adventure games is absolutely pointless as it alienates the core and new gamers are less likely to try a series they feel like they are jumping in after several iterations.

Vivendi Universal screwed that up with their sierra collections, when they put out a crappy disc in a paper sleeve running on old versions of dosbox requiring patches (Thanks Collector) and missing several versions. Did they really think there was a contingent of players out there who had never played a KQ game that composed the core audience of this collection? Of course there wasn't, primarily old KQ fans bought it looking for a newer collection or possibly a modern compatible release of the amazing KQ Collections put out by Sierra that included all versions, multiple languages, and tons of extras like King grahams games, behind the scenes videos, etc etc etc.

And thus, ends my rant

[Bluddy]

Adding my 2 cents, I think the reason for Sierra having so many badly designed games is that they had some bad game designers. They took people off the street (almost literally) and let them design games. Those designers barely wrote a coherent script, let alone a game design. Pretty much the only good designers they had were Jane Jensen, Christy Marx, the Quest for Glory couple, and perhaps also Al Lowe.

Regardless, I have a lot of nostalgia for their games. And while LucasArts'd designers were nearly impeccable, Sierra ultimately experimented with more innovative game mechanics.

[scoriae]

I think that statement is a bit over the top. You don't get to be one of the two most famous adventure developers by taking people off the street and letting them make games.

Roberta Williams and Ken Willaims founded Sierra, and designed many games. Al Lowe worked on tons of games before they let him create the LL series. Mark and Scott (SQ series) likely had the least amount of game design knowledge, although the SQ series is one of the better written series 9as far as the early games go).

I am not intimately familiar with the prior experience of the Coles (QfG series), but that series was also extremely popular and I'd argue the a story line, mythology, and preplanned nature of the whole set makes it one of the better planned series Sierra had.

To state Roberta Williams was not a good game designer is a fairly wild statement. just because one may not like the KQ series does not mean it was badly designed. To this day the KQ series remains one of my favorite adventure game series, along with Monkey Island. very different game styles, but both were thoroughly enjoyable.

[Collector]

Adding my 2 cents, I think the reason for Sierra having so many badly designed games is that they had some bad game designers. They took people off the street (almost literally) and let them design games. Those designers barely wrote a coherent script, let alone a game design. Pretty much the only good designers they had were Jane Jensen, Christy Marx, the Quest for Glory couple, and perhaps also Al Lowe.

Regardless, I have a lot of nostalgia for their games. And while LucasArts'd designers were nearly impeccable, Sierra ultimately experimented with more innovative game mechanics.

And it is exactly this kind of attitude from LA creators/fans that has Sierra fans leery about TellTale doing any Sierra games. Statements from Dave Grossman suggests that he would have them "fixed" to fit his notion of what the games should have been like. Would LA fans be eagerly looking forward to new games of the LA titles by those that have shown this kind of childish view of their beloved games and state that they should be made in the image of Sierra games? I'm not that fond of many of the LA games. I find them un-challenging with a juvenile sense of humor and unappealing graphics. But I recognize that this is my personal tastes and don't go around constantly making blanket statements about what I find wrong with the LA games. I say this not to tear anyone down, but to illustrate the why of reservation that many traditional Sierra fans have of TellTale doing it. That and I am always suspicious of "reboots".

[LordHoto]

To state Roberta Williams was not a good game designer is a fairly wild statement. just because one may not like the KQ series does not mean it was badly designed. To this day the KQ series remains one of my favorite adventure game series, along with Monkey Island. very different game styles, but both were thoroughly enjoyable.

Well just that you like the KQ series doesn't mean it's well designed either. I personally like Kyrandia 1 too, but it had some very annoying dead ends (like you forgot to pick up an item which you need later, but that's not obvious, and of course there's no way to get back), which IMHO show a bad design.

Anyway I can't say much about the early KQ games, but I liked KQ6 and KQ7 (when I played it like >10 years ago). I actually didn't even consider KQ8 a bad game, but maybe that's because I was no hardcore KQ fan... Then again I never could get myself into playing KQ1-5, even years ago and sometimes I think even less these days.

I find them un-challenging with a juvenile sense of humor and unappealing graphics. But I recognize that this is my personal tastes and don't go around constantly making blanket statements about what I find wrong with the LA games.

I am not sure how you can like early Sierra games, when you say all LEC games have unappealing graphics...</sarcasm>
Seriously, I guess each to his own on these points. Anyway I don't have the feeling that there's tons of people, who are making blanket statements about what's wrong with Sierra's games all the time.

[MusicallyInspired]

Perhaps not here, but for the few that DO post like that here there are ten times as many elsewhere (such as the Telltale forums) who constantly are slamming King's Quest and over-exaggerating its minor downfalls.

[KuroShiro]

The whole LucasArts/Sierra rivalry thing strikes me as incredibly silly. Both companies made fantastic games, I don't see why people can't just enjoy them for what they are.

[MusicallyInspired]

Totally. The animosity always seems to come from the LucasArts-fan side rather than the Sierra side. I love Sierra and LucasArts games. I like Sierra games better but not because the LucasArts games suck. It's not like LucasArts games are perfect by comparison, though.

[LordHoto]

Totally. The animosity always seems to come from the LucasArts-fan side rather than the Sierra side. I love Sierra and LucasArts games. I like Sierra games better but not because the LucasArts games suck. It's not like LucasArts games are perfect by comparison, though.

I am not sure, but in this thread you actually *claimed* that all the bashing is coming from LEC fans, not that clone2727 who started to joke about Roberta in the first place, said LEC games are superior, nor did he out himself as a silent LEC fanboi.

Bluddy on the other hand said he likes Sierra games (or at least that's what his baseline seems to be to me), but doesn't think their designers were the best...

So before you guys now start to get lost in a LEC vs Sierra flamewar, I would say, it's pretty baseless to accuse the "evil" LEC fans of bashing Sierra games.

[scoriae]

L.A. vs Sierra wars aside, the greater concern for me is simply that telltale has taken on a ton of licenses at the same time. And details surrounding JP that are leaking are pointing to a quicktime event bonanza with no character movement, just quick travel. Sounds like Myst meets Heavy Rain.

[LordHoto]

L.A. vs Sierra wars aside, the greater concern for me is simply that telltale has taken on a ton of licenses at the same time. And details surrounding JP that are leaking are pointing to a quicktime event bonanza with no character movement, just quick travel. Sounds like Myst meets Heavy Rain.

To be honest I am not too much a fan of the Telltale games myself. I think they are fine when you have some time spare, the jokes were ok to fine, sometimes overused though. Then again it was enjoyable playing them, but I am not sure if I would play them again soon, the story in the games I played, was not the best IMHO.

[MusicallyInspired]

Totally. The animosity always seems to come from the LucasArts-fan side rather than the Sierra side. I love Sierra and LucasArts games. I like Sierra games better but not because the LucasArts games suck. It's not like LucasArts games are perfect by comparison, though.

I am not sure, but in this thread you actually *claimed* that all the bashing is coming from LEC fans, not that clone2727 who started to joke about Roberta in the first place, said LEC games are superior, nor did he out himself as a silent LEC fanboi.

Bluddy on the other hand said he likes Sierra games (or at least that's what his baseline seems to be to me), but doesn't think their designers were the best...

So before you guys now start to get lost in a LEC vs Sierra flamewar, I would say, it's pretty baseless to accuse the "evil" LEC fans of bashing Sierra games.

I didn't mean here. I just mean that whenever there is a debate it starts on the LEC side. Like I said, elsewhere the Sierra bashing gets pretty bad.

[Collector]

I didn't mean to start or feed a flame war, my whole point was there are reasons for Sierra fans to be more wary and less than enthusiastic about the news. Time will tell.