Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

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MusicallyInspired
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Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#1 Post by MusicallyInspired » Fri Feb 18, 2011 9:12 pm

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.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#2 Post by cyberdalekyeti » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:01 pm

I wonder how this will effect IA King's Quest Sorrow of Kingdom game and Magic Mirrors King's Quest 4 remake?

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#3 Post by Blackthorne519 » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:52 pm

If you think Magic Mirror's KQ4 will ever see the light of day, you're far more optimistic than you should be.


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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#4 Post by Lambonius » Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:56 pm

Blackthorne519 wrote:If you think Magic Mirror's KQ4 will ever see the light of day, you're far more optimistic than you should be.


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Hahaha....BT, you kill me.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#5 Post by MusicallyInspired » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:29 pm

A quote by Dave Grossman of Telltale Games which is most of the cause of my alarm:
"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."

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#6 Post by Blackthorne519 » Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:55 pm

Lambonius wrote:
Blackthorne519 wrote:If you think Magic Mirror's KQ4 will ever see the light of day, you're far more optimistic than you should be.


Bt

Hahaha....BT, you kill me.

Seriously, people talk about that game like it's a real entity..... people, that game is dead. "Magic Mirror Games" is about as real a game company as Spishak is a real company. They'll never finish that game. If they do, I'll eat my hat, live, on a YouTube video.


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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#7 Post by aozgolo » Sat Feb 19, 2011 1:51 am

MusicallyInspired wrote:A quote by Dave Grossman of Telltale Games which is most of the cause of my alarm:
"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."
That is quite a cause for alarm, he obviously is out of touch with the Adventure Gamer clique, we don't WANT less lengthy or more accessible (granted most of us don't want parsers that lacks common synonyms either). This is the number one thing I have against gaming industry at large, companies inherit prized franchises and attempt to make them more accessible to a larger player base. I honestly don't understand why companies don't see that they can make money by targeting niche demographics. In adventure games, most of us don't need high production value, we're satisfied with 2D, we just want compelling gameplay and great story!

The dumbing down of games is really disheartening, and you would think someone would take notice that there's been a huge rise in Indie games not only due to better resource availability, but also as a backlash to the mainstream games that assume that everyone is a casual gamer who only puts in 10 hours a week into gaming.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#8 Post by MusicallyInspired » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:09 am

I don't want to cast Telltale in a bad light. They've definitely done more for the adventure genre than others have, I just wish they'd give a little more quality content than just story alone.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#9 Post by pbpb33 » Sat Feb 19, 2011 2:40 am

I agree totally with MI and aozgolo's concerns. I don't want only light, little "accessible" sitcom-like games with a few straightforward few puzzles thrown in. I prefer the lengthy, epic adventure stuff with fun, quirky and creative puzzles! I like the death! :o Well, you know what I mean. The constant risk of death while playing keeps me alert and on the edge of my mouse pad. I like the danger, the challenge, the struggle... and the occasional frustration. I don't want a small diversion that can be finished over a lunch break... I want a game that, when finished, gives me some sense of accomplishment.

However, one good thing about Telltale's KQ "rebooting" is that it could result in new fans being introduced to other KQ-related games, such as the AGDI games. If they're helping keep the old series alive (even if mostly in name only :( ), then perhaps this could be a very good thing for AGDI!

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#10 Post by Aristocles » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:03 am

Telltale has proven it can work with a variety of games, including diverse titles like Homestar Runner.

I'm also fairly positive that Activision and/or Telltale has been watching the progress of the remakes and fan-made sequel. Who knows?

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#11 Post by MusicallyInspired » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:24 am

pbpb33 wrote:However, one good thing about Telltale's KQ "rebooting" is that it could result in new fans being introduced to other KQ-related games, such as the AGDI games. If they're helping keep the old series alive (even if mostly in name only :( ), then perhaps this could be a very good thing for AGDI!
That's true!

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#12 Post by MusicallyInspired » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:34 am

Something I never thought I'd see. :)

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#13 Post by DarkJaguar » Sat Feb 19, 2011 6:08 am

Hmm... While I was excited about Sam and Max, and the Homestar Runner games, in the long run they were more about the jokes than the gameplay. With each new episode I was a bit more disappointed. The puzzles were, as you say, way too straight forward, and from that quote it seems this is intentional. It didn't help that the "worlds" you explored felt... tiny.

I did enjoy the games, but I do wish they'd take things in a bit of a different direction and really make something grand in scope. So far this hasn't happened.

Hey BT, why do you "sign" all your posts with your initials? Afraid someone's going to forget who posted it between seeing your name and reading your post? ;)

Seriously though, you have a lot of doubts about MM don't ya? I gotta admit I get wary as well, but then again Silver Lining was delayed for a massive length of time with few updates for a while before it eventually came out. I'll give them this. A movie with a few screens and some screen shots are more than a lot of vaporware companies have to show for.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#14 Post by Blackthorne519 » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:26 am

DarkJaguar wrote: Hey BT, why do you "sign" all your posts with your initials? Afraid someone's going to forget who posted it between seeing your name and reading your post? ;)
Just something I do out of habit; I've been doing it so long - since I used modems on BBS's, and sometimes the ole ANSI boards didn't have clear delineations between who was posting.


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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#15 Post by rugged » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:00 am

Wow this really is massive news. Like MI I don't think of telltales games as your traditional adventures. Interesting they are calling it a reboot, usually telltale go to great lengths to be true (At least from a story POV) to the original license, will the fact that it is a reboot give them some wriggle roomor do you think this will stay true to the spirit of the series?

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#16 Post by Oz » Sat Feb 19, 2011 10:31 am

Blackthorne519 wrote:
DarkJaguar wrote: Hey BT, why do you "sign" all your posts with your initials? Afraid someone's going to forget who posted it between seeing your name and reading your post? ;)
Just something I do out of habit; I've been doing it so long - since I used modems on BBS's, and sometimes the ole ANSI boards didn't have clear delineations between who was posting.


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Ahhh the glory days of BBS's, 2400 baud the screen crawling at the pace of a snail...especially with the animated ANSI login screens. Those were the days.

Anyways yeah I remember reading at least a couple members on that KQ4 team had actually been members of finished projects, not that it means they will finish. But certainly when I first read it, I put more stock in the project completing than I would have without. I hope someday they do although it looks close to dead.

What really bummed me out was that several attempts at Police Quest 2 (one of, if not my favorite game out of all the Sierra games, aside from maybe KQ6) seemed to crash and burn. I sure wish that one someday gets done.

As for the topic I hope that telltale does KQ justice, not like these cheesy new adventure games of late, that are about as hard as my 4 year olds Barbie games.
I did play Syberia with my older daughter and we loved it, but I have to say not being in any actual danger in the game sucked.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#17 Post by Erpy » Sat Feb 19, 2011 11:18 am

Interesting they are calling it a reboot, usually telltale go to great lengths to be true (At least from a story POV) to the original license, will the fact that it is a reboot give them some wriggle roomor do you think this will stay true to the spirit of the series?
I think the reboot idea is probably the smartest thing they could do...with TSL intended to wrap up the series, a straight sequel would have been tricky, even if it wasn't canon...it's still there in the minds of a lot of fans.

About the spirit of the series, who knows. The "spirit of the series" is kinda subjective to begin with. I just hope they realize a Sierra adventure can't be poured into a Lucasarts mold. Many Sierra fans don't see the inability to die as something positive (though KQ7 did a great job at inserting amusing deaths and still throw the player right back into the game afterwards) and while there's room for humor in KQ-games you can't put gags in a central role, like you can for a Sam and Max game.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#18 Post by Lambonius » Sat Feb 19, 2011 3:24 pm

The game first and foremost needs to be fun. And for that to happen, it needs to be CHALLENGING. Adventure game players want to wrack their brains and solve PUZZLES, not click through scripted events.

I could even see the game working without deaths (well, not really, but I'd be willing to give it a shot) IF they could just challenge me and actually make it into a GAME.

I enjoy playing Telltale games, but they don't touch the same level of quality and enjoyability as the older games--even the older Lucasarts games--which, though you couldn't die, actually had CHALLENGING PUZZLES.

I've pretty much never felt the desire to play any Telltale game more than once, whereas I still enjoy going through even the most archaic of Sierra and Lucasarts games.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#19 Post by Angelus3K » Sat Feb 19, 2011 5:37 pm

Man this is gonna get weird!

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#20 Post by DrJones » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:39 pm

They should reboot the Larry Francheese instead. :p

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#21 Post by Erpy » Sat Feb 19, 2011 8:42 pm

Except Leisure Suit Larry isn't owned by Activision anymore. Codemasters owns the rights these days.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#22 Post by Anonymous Game Creator 2 » Sun Feb 20, 2011 12:29 am

I don't comprehend why they wouldn't pursue more popular and fitting LucasArts IP that was canceled, like the Full Throttle sequel. It seems to make little sense that Telltale should want to delve into the one Sierra franchise that has the amount of fan-remake baggage that KQ has. It seems equally odd for them to attempt a gameplay style that runs counter to the entire LucasArts/Telltale game-design rules, and for which they have no previous track record.

I'd really like to see more variety and different companies being given opportunities to make new games in the adventure world, instead of seeing this endless repetitive formula of telltale acquiring and re-branding any IP they can acquire to their own gameplay formula. The worst part is, once they've acquired it, nobody else can create a new sequel either. If they want a real challenge, they should try making an original game based on their own IP, not delve into Sierra territory just to prove how diverse they can be. I can't help but feel that this isn't the fitting end the KQ series should have. It feels so anticlimatic.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#23 Post by cyberdalekyeti » Sun Feb 20, 2011 1:26 am

I think they should reboot the Police Quest series with Sonny Bonds character.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#24 Post by DarkJaguar » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:02 am

While Full Throttle is a good Lucasarts title, I think King's Quest is more recognized and well known. I can see why they'd go after it.

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Re: Telltale to Reboot King's Quest

#25 Post by MusicallyInspired » Sun Feb 20, 2011 5:34 am

The Full Throttle sequel (both of them) was nothing like adventures and not sanctioned by Full Throttle creator Tim Schafer. It was going to be a tremendous let down and disappointment. If Telltale did do a Full Throttle game it's be completely different to what those were going to be.

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