The Dream Machine (2010-2017)

I own chapters 1-5, it's just chapter 6 I'm missing. How weird, don't know why I'm missing that one - maybe because it came out 3 years after chapter 5 and I'd already got the others in a group by then.  This whole episodic gaming thing really sucks when they sell them individually. It's like finding a book series in a charity shop with one missing. We'll have to see if I get through all 5 chapters and want to buy the last one! 

Started. I'm going to leave it for today, as it's a (intentionally) directionless 'you're just futzing around the house' opening so it's not something to jump into and play the hi-octane opening sequence. It's really nicely presented so far - all the art is photographic so it looks unusual and really sharp, everything's nice and crisp and minimalist, and the dream sequence opening was a cool way to go. The only issue really is the weird choice to have some hotspots only show up when you wave an inventory item over them.

Finished the first chapter, and it's entirely mundane puzzles right up until a bit of intrigue at the end. Just reading letters, calling estate agents, having stilted conversations with your wife. But the puzzles are just silly stuff thrown together, like using baby oil on an elevator to get the doors to open all the way, or pissy little logic puzzles. Also, it was made in Flash and it can't quite handle the adventure game stuff. And it was really short, yet the chapters cost more than the BTDT+TGP bundle each. I'll have to see how it goes from here, though - maybe it's not really fair to judge the chapters individually despite the release schedule. The first two did get released together, for one thing.

I'm onto chapter 3 now. My definite overall impression of this is 'great presentation and atmosphere, bad game design and storytelling'. It all looks and sounds gorgeous and the dream worlds are really cool. But pretty much all the puzzles are either dull busywork or irritating logic puzzles and pixel hunts, the dialogue is really clunky, and the storytelling is out of whack - not only did it take far too long to get to anything interesting, the real world puzzles have all been wacky and the dream world puzzles have been mundane 'put the dishes in the sink please' stuff, plus there's no real differentiation between the presentation of the two realms, the real world feels pretty much as odd as the dream one.

Okay, I got partway into episode 5 and gave up. but frankly I was tempted to way before that. Nice presentation, bad puzzles, and very clunky dialogue (possibly because the devs are Swedish) which inexplicably gets praised in every review I've read. Destructoid's said "There’s a real believability to Victor and Alicia’s married life; at one point Alicia asks her husband if he would like “the truth or some appeasing bullshit” in relation to a simple question." That's not believable dialogue! No one talks like that! And the rest of it is the protagonist having incredibly didactic conversations with dream people about how he was scared of having a baby but now he's cool with it (peak video game dadification). If they'd got a better writer in to polish it up and they'd either replaced or removed most of the puzzles it might have been great. Apparently episode 6, which took years to arrive, did remove a lot of the puzzles and basically let the player click through to get the story resolution. I skimmed through a video and it looked like there was some cool stuff in there. Hilariously, it ends with a Radiohead quote but credits it to Thomas Edward Yorke so it looks more like they're quoting an 18th century poet! Like, guys, you've come off pretentious enough already, don't sweat it.

The Walking Dead S1 & S2 (2012-2014)

Season 1

I previously gave up on these games, about halfway through S1E2. I guessed the twist immediately, but apart from that I can't remember exactly what it was that turned me off. I remember being frustrated at my choices not reflecting the subsequent character action (that video game classic), and maybe also what would become the Telltale standard of 'visual novel interspersed with perfunctory adventure game puzzles', but I'll give it another go.

Hooray, the settings defaults are all correct, so no need to go in and change them at the start of every single episode because Telltale apparently couldn't get them to persist through the season, like with S&M and TOMI!

Got started. So yeah, looks nice, the presentation is slicker and more cinematic, good acting, generally good writing. The comic-style engine works nicely. There's some minor jank but at a level to be expected from an AA indie. But those design issues are definitely still there. The game opens with a big title card telling you how your choices matter and the game will change due to them, and it's constantly giving you "[character] will remember that" notifications, so Sean Vanaman saying that actually the fact that it let you choose something even if it has no effect is the important thing doesn't wash. But regardless of the game's messaging, I don't agree - this game leans a lot more towards visual novel than point and click adventure, and in those games branching is key otherwise you're just clicking through a book. Having a line of dialogue change slightly depending on a choice you made here and there doesn't really cut it - and even then it gets stuff wrong a fair amount.  It has that theme park ride feel, where you're funnelled along, you get told which characters to talk to and when, and occasionally something scary pops out at you. Plus yeah the choice/result discrepancies, the QTEs, and the way that there's urgency in every single conversation you have but when you're in a danger situation suddenly the game comes to a halt and refuses to continue until you get through some mundane, pared down linear puzzle.

And to top it all off, it ends with a 'Next Episode On' which I'm not sure if I'm safe to quit out of without losing game data so I just have to mute and look away from!

Again, it's a shame, because I appreciate what they were going for, and there are some improvements on past Telltale stuff, but there are some fundamental design choices that I just am not a fan of.

Anyway, Steam still has my savegame from ten years ago on there, and yes I did give up in episode 2! I'll try to accept what kind of game it is and get further along this time...

Finished episode 3. I can see why people like this game, there's lots of cool ideas and moments, and I genuinely like Clem and Lee and have opinions on the other characters (even if some of them are cartoons whom I'm happy to kill as soon as I get the chance). It's just, there always feels like this big disconnect between what I want to do and what I can do or what happens. Plus a lot of the puzzle stuff is really fiddly and out of place old-school adventure game stuff (like - get this train carriage uncoupled, there are three tools a minute's walk and ten mouse clicks away and you can only carry one, so the solution is... just walk back and forth trying each one until you get it). I'll be interested to look into how much branching there actually is, whether I could have a completely different group of characters with me by this point, whether any actual events would change.

Finished it, and I was definitely enjoying it more by the end. I don't know if they were doing less of the annoying stuff or I was just getting used to it or better at navigating it as quickly as possible, but it distracted me less from the storytelling. I was really involved by the end, every death and decision was gut-wrenching. At the same time, though, the reveal of the radio stranger served as a reminder that the game surely couldn't have been branching that much, plus I set Clem to meet up with the young couple at the train and apparently that just... didn't happen. I do have season 2, though (assuming it would read my S1 savegame data) I have no idea how much stuff that will carry over anyway and how much they'll just wipe the slate clean - the cliffhanger made it seem like 100%, which is a shame.

Season 2

Played the first episode, and very much the same issues as S1, especially the QTEs which are just such a shit execution of the idea I cannot believe they haven't done anything about it. Same with the way they constantly ask you to walk a character down a path but then have the path askew to the camera so you have to keep tapping the character to the side every few steps. How did someone not immediately say "this is shit, just make it so the camera always lines up so all they have to do is hold down W"? I guess now they're all in on the late-Telltale formula and just constantly laying the track directly in front of them, no time to stop and polish or change things up.
It made a big deal of keeping my S1 savegame and then wiped the slate clean as quickly as possible, which I thought was pretty funny. Otherwise, the same 'theme park ride' feel and disconnect between what I want to do and what happens. But it did take me a few episodes to get into it last season, and it is nicely presented and at least just lets you flow through it for an hour or so then ends. I think I will play other games in between, though, so I don't get Telltale fatigue - I've also got Borderlands and Batman on the list, assuming I can still get into the Prime account that has the former on it, and that my vague memories of having played the latter are either false or just of a demo or a freeware episode 1 or something.

Okay, I actually ended up playing the next two episodes as well, I have to admit it's pretty addictive. If they could just fix the QTEs and stop constantly pretending that my choices are doing much, it'd be amazing. I like that they're flexing a little now, too, with a different commissioned song over the credits of each episode, and relatively big name VAs like Michael Madsen and Kumail Nanjiani. I'm thinking about why I've enjoyed TWD more than TWAU, and I think it's really down to the basic zombie apocalypse setting being perfectly suited to this structure. Or rather, they developed this structure for this setting, and applying it to different IPs and story types without changing it just doesn't work. The regular life or death decisions and simple moral or pragmatic choices of a zombiepocalypse are at just the right pitch for these games.
I actually googled to see if there's a debug key or something to skip QTEs. All I got was a thread on the old TT forums where someone asks if there could be an option for them to auto-succeed and gets two pages of 'git gud' bullshit in response, including from the mods. Doesn't make me feel any more sympathetic towards old Telltale tbh. 

Back to the grim world of Walking Dead! I decided to let Clem go a little dark at the end of the previous episode - she said they should shoot the Sadistic Asshole Community Leader character and then stayed to watch him get his face caved in with a crowbar - so I'm looking forward to getting a load of nervous side-eye from all my friends now!

Phew, finished! As with season 1, I got less irritated and more involved with this as it went on. By episode 3 I was engrossed. Also, I swear they make the QTEs less annoying as the season goes on, but maybe that's because I'm more willing to put up with them. And I do wish they'd just not bother selling the whole "your choices" thing, but I just blank that out too after a while. Hopefully I can find an illustration of just how much branching was possible somewhere, like I did with season 1.
I've never cried playing these games (I guess I might have done in S1 if I hadn't known exactly what was going to happen), but I did well up at one line of dialogue in this season. Just a totally inconspicuous, basic line, something like "You don't have anything to apologise for, I know you didn't mean it", but the great acting and all the character investment from the surrounding scene and episode and season(s), suddenly made this older-than-her-years kid comforting a broken man so powerful. There really is some very good writing and acting in these games, and the direction and animation and stuff can often overcome the technical and budgetary limitations to do some really nice stuff.
I've put season 3 on my wishlist. It's £17 and I've got a lot of other games to play still, so I won't get it now, but I'd definitely be up for playing it at some point. I was thinking while playing this season, it'd be great to follow Clem through her whole life as she becomes different zombpocalypse archetypes - the kickass loner who helps out some folks against a threat and then disappears off into the wilderness (will she be a benevolent Mad Max type or more of a Shane?); the barricaded community leader (will she be a peaceful democratic type who inevitably loses to chaos, or a benevolent dictator who turns into a Sadistic Asshole Community Leader?); maybe she tries to find a cure at one point, maybe she does her own Lone Wolf And Cub thing except now she's the Lee/Logan/Mando/Theo Faron type (will she live or die?). They'd have to change things up a bit each time, I don't think I'd want 4 more seasons of the exact same thing, but it would have been incredibly cool if they pulled it off.

Rating: choices don't matter, there's some jank, and the QTEs are infuriating, but otherwise well-written, affecting and addictive.

Gemini Rue (2011)

I played this briefly years ago, I vaguely remember finding the action systems too frustrating - you have to do shootouts and stuff, and I just couldn't get past them after a certain point iirc. So, I'll give it another go, but I may hit the same wall.

Okay, started. It looks great (about as good as a 320x200 16bit game can get, I reckon), and it's very atmospheric. It starts with you waking up halfway through a memory wipe procedure in some sort of facility then cuts to a different character, a police detective on a colonised planet following a lead to track down his missing brother. It's all very Bladerunner/noir, and extremely pulpy - the detective is named Azrael Odin and sounds like he gargles gravel. You get to a certain point and then it's back to the memory-wiped guy in the facility getting given a food slip and told to go get food. The puzzles can be a little fiddly - to climb from one balcony to another it insists on making you click on every railing and ledge, and rather than a verb coin it has a pop-up window so that doubles the clicks. There was also a timed sequence where I had to run back out the way I came within a matter of seconds to avoid getting shot. It autosaves right before, so it's not a big hassle, but it also feels more like a QTE than a puzzle. The PDA/database stuff is slick so far - drag names from one to the other, or drag them into the search box, it all works surprisingly well and hopefully won't become a hindrance or a bore. I got a shootout tutorial at the facility, and it's fairly complicated - taking cover, reloading, taking a breath, timing your shot with a little UI bar. I've set it to easy and hopefully won't be forced to quit the game because of it again. 

Fuck this game. I got a little further on both storylines, I was enjoying how it kept switching me over and dolloping on the intrigue, and then I got into my first proper gunfight and they are shit. Just no skill to them at all, boring and frustrating. Then I got into another bunch of QTEs - they just don't work with this game's fussy controls (use NPC on box, use NPC on wall, use box, tap A to move box to the left, use pipe to pull self over wall etc) and they're never going to be that exciting anyway in a tiny little AGS game, plus the autosaves are way too far back so you have to try to sneak your own saves in, which adds a bunch of clicks every time you fuck up, which is often because it's making you solve adventure game puzzles on extremely strict time limits. It's a real shame because I was enjoying the general vibe, even if it was all fairly cheesy and derivative.

Blackwell Deception (2011)

Some biggish changes with this one. Firstly, there's volume control, and it's even got separate main and voice sliders! The art style is a bit different, I think it's Ben Chandler. The main art is a bit more simple and cartoony, while the portraits feel about the same as they were, perhaps a little less stylised than before. It all looks very nice, though it's an interesting shift for the franchise art to get more simplified - my immediate gut response is that it feels less serious. But I've only played through one room, so it's a bit early to know. The audio seems improved - the VO is immediately a lot crisper and it seems like there's more sound effects too - footsteps and the like. The internet functions have moved to Rosa's smartphone, which is a great idea - no more trekking back to the apartment. I'm trying to remember how common smartphones were in 2011 - I guess this is right around the time that they started to become the standard, so in 2009 it might not have felt like a natural design choice. It's really interesting to play a franchise that goes through those cultural milestones, like watching The Simpsons and seeing them get their first computer, flatscreen tv etc. The game starts off in media res, with a haunted yacht case, which is a fun way to kick things off. Hopefully it'll keep the adrenaline up for a little longer than the previous one. Sadly, the portraits and the ever-present cursor are still present, and Joey's still being a prick (the first thing he says is to criticise Rosa for using the phrase "I'm coming aboard", I have no idea why). Hope we get to condemn him to Hell by the end of the last game.

Got a bit further with this. The storytelling is definitely slicker - the opening ends in a (very low-budget!) action scene, then it segues really smoothly from that to the titles to a tv news story to Rosa in her apartment. There was also a nice little twist that completely caught me out. There are more snazzy effects as well, like rippling river water and undulating portals, plus the backgrounds have a bit more pizazz to them, with reflective surfaces, more interesting lighting schemes and stuff. I do think the character sprites are a bit too cartoony, and it looks like Ben added more detail to them for the final game. Also, apparently the portraits originally were a lot more cartoony too but they got changed to match previous styles in a later update - definitely a good idea because, doing an image search, the originals feel really out of place.

Alright, putting it down for now. It definitely does feel like the best one yet, although it still has some of the same issues - despite the promise of the 'Rosa goes into business as a spiritualist' set-up, that gets dropped straight away as the story just falls into her lap again, and there are still big chunks of 'walk across town from one character to another over and over, unlocking one new dialogue option at a time'.

Finished! So, turns out the sprites were done by Ben but the backgrounds weren't, which explains the discrepancy. So, this one felt a lot meatier than the rest. It's There are some puzzles that I found a little unfair but at least there's a good mix of them, it's not all dialogue-tree/clue based. The game is longer, and the story got into psychic conspiracy stuff as well, setting it up for the final game, which is cool. (Doesn't look like Joey will be evil after all, and in fact the last puzzle of the game is to save the day as Joey by negging Rosa as much as possible!)