Despite the fact that one of the company's staff is of the opinion that the iPhone is more powerful than the Wii, Telltale's design director has insisted that he thinks Nintendo's platform is a perfect fit for their games.
We think the Wii audience is perfect for the kinds of games we make, orientated towards story and characters and casual play - a sofa experience if you will - and WiiWare is an amazingly effective way to reach that audience.
Telltale have used the WiiWare service before for StrongBad and has more recently released Tales of Monkey Island, following the same formula by releasing it in 5 downloadable chunks of goodness.
Have you been pleased with Telltale's WiiWare games so far?
[source officialnintendomagazine.co.uk]
Comments (42)
I think Telltalle is confusing me with these staments. I enjoyed playing the first episode of Strong Bad. That's all I bought so far.
OMG First news in over 13 hour w00t
I remember when my sister first showed me the homestar runner site years ago, good times ,never Downloaded the Wiiware though.
Already made my mind up Tell Tale Games. That idiot of yours made a mockery of the Wii, when it was crappy programming and the decision to put it on WiiWare (as opposed to a disk), that made Monkey Island glitchy. Other companies manage to make 3D online shooters and other complex efforts on WW, and you can't even manage a point and click adventure with out putting the blame on the hardware. I'm really annoyed I downloaded Monkey Island on PC, I wish I hadn't now.
**** episodic gaming!!! Except Half Life 2 obv.
@Dicesukeinuzuka Sorry about the slow news on my part, my internet was stolen for 2 days, the cable quite literally ripped out of the ground.
@Giggsy ok I guess patience is a virtue lol
I've gotta think that the iPhone/Wii comment doesn't represent the company correctly. The fact of the matter is that TT screwed the pooch on MI Episode 1. I understand the WiiWare file size limit, but there have been too many successful complex games (Goo, LostWinds, My Life, Onslaught) to lay this only at Nintendo's feet.
Hopefully all the negative press and fan reactions will prompt TT to step their game up and fix the problems in time for Episode 2.
I can't wait for the rest of Monkey Island. I really hope that telltale games comment on improving the lag issues proves true.
I want more telltale games!
Definatly damage control. When you work for a company and make statements of any form even forums, you are making a public statement. The company noticed it and now are doing damage control.
The whole thing was blown out of proportion by gaming blogs, as expected, and now they are working to limit the damage as quickly as possible. The fact is that it was a horribly unfortunate quip by one of their programmers on the forum, and never represented the opinions of the lead developers and designers that are responsible for their platform decisions and games. It's always been clear that they appreciate WiiWare as a platform, based on their fantastic support to date.
ToMI episode 1 had some issues due to their need to stuff a whole lot of content into 40mb, but it was still a very playable and enjoyable experience (finally sat down with it again to finish the last bit yesterday). In their official response to the issues with the first episode, they've apologized and promised to work on smoothing things out for the next episode.
No reason for anyone to be upset with Telltale or refusing to buy their products--one person on their staff made a not-so-bright comment, but it's been clear all along where the larger company stands.
IS the iPhone more powerful than the Wii though? I don't think it really matters one way or the other as touch screen ONLY controls limit what you can do with the darn thing anyway.
maybe i am making a bigger deal out of this but screw them first they say wii is underpowered so don't blame them if the games frame rate is slow, now they say wii is pefect system for there games but they are only saying that because they were getting bashed by there fans on every web forum they are just bad developers and i wont support them when they lie and mess with wii owners
I don't get why people are so upset about facts.
(1) In some ways, the iPhone is more powerful than Wii. Fact.
(2) Wii audience is a prefect match for TellTale games. Fact.
(3) TellTale are better at designing games than building or porting efficient game engines. Fact.
(4) TellTale games are fun and (usually) worth playing, even though they have some technical problems getting things to run on Wii. Fact.
That said, I really really wish they could find a way to optimize the engine for Wii (Sam & Max) or downsize their games (Monkey Island) so that we could have a better overall experience.
I've only bought the first StrongBad game from them and it was meh
I have not bought ANY of there games and I do not plan on anytime soon.
So they like the platform but some of the dev team are just being realistic about it's power.
Seems pretty fair to me.
@Egg miester:
Actually, the right order is: First they say the Wii is perfect for their games (they've been saying so since even before releasing Strong Bad), then, they say is underpowered, and finally, they repeat their initial (and official) stance.
So yes, it's damage control, but it was necessary because of the huge coverage the gaming blogs have given to a post in a forum, while I haven't seen any blog talking about other posts on the same forum where they explain their decisions, apologize for the quality of the game and tell the measures they're taking to avoid it in the future. But, I guess flaming wars still sell more.
The Monkey Island series is not a perfect match for casual gamers. The first chapter, at least, was way too hard and gave no tutorial or prompting for how to progress in the game. You play it and get stuck and never want to go back. That is the opposite definition of a casual game. There have been so many great WiiWare releases for the casual gamer, but this is just not one of them.
SBCG4AP was nearly glitch-free on WiiWare (just that weird widescreen problem with Homestar Ruiner comes to mind), but I think that game was actually designed with WiiWare in mind and also released on PC. Tales of Monkey Island clearly went in the opposite direction, and the WiiWare version suffered for it.
I wouldn't say that TellTale can't port their games in general, because unlike the horrid Wii version of Sam & Max, the game runs just fine on Xbox 360 (I could only suffer through two episodes on Wii, but have happily completed season 1 on Live Arcade)! So really, they have trouble porting games made for higher-tech systems to the Wii. To be fair, pretty much everybody has that problem.
I'll wait to see the reaction to Monkey Island episode 2 on WiiWare before I download it. If it's still poor, I'll just put the game off until I can manage to get a computer.
they just make crap games and cant port games worth s***!
@15.ejamer- Do you think everything is a fact? " TellTale games are fun and (usually) worth playing..." is an opinion. Technically, reasons 2 and 3 are too, but I quess I can see where you are coming from on those.
WiiWare might be perfect for Telltale's games, but that doesn't mean that their games are prefect for WiiWare.
Let them get the developers back on the reservation, and I'll tune in next time. Strongbad and Monkey Island don't interest me in the least anyhow.
BEEP BEEP THIS VEHICLE IS REVERSING BEEP BEEP
I have all Strong Bad`s and ToMI 1. I liked SB so much that I bought all episodes. ToMI was good too, but not that good.
Yeah, lets get this straight, TellTale Games. You may think the audience is perfect for you, but personally, you are not perfect for me.
Also, have they released anything that is neither episodic nor based on an already existing IP?
This isn't a reversal, it's a clarification of a misconception. Somehow rabid fanboys twisted "the Wii is underpowered" (which we've known since the beginning) into "the Wii sucks and everyone who owns one is stupid." Was it a lame excuse for the framerate issues? I think it's likely. But a programmer venting some frustration with hardware limitations he isn't used to dealing with is nothing to take PERSONAL OFFENSE at.
He's back tracking. Its so obvious. They should concentrate on making decent, non-ultra-niche games then coming out with crap.
A bit pathetic tbh
I'm glad to hear that from them actually, the first guy that spoke was clearly frustrated about the deadline, though I still think he made a good point, just spoke in the wrong context.
They only said the lack of storage was a problem. i don't know where the idea they're wii haters came in. they were just being honest from a development perspective. If they're used to PC development, of course they'd have problems with wiiware.
"(just that weird widescreen problem with Homestar Ruiner comes to mind)"
The problem was with 480p, but yeah, to avoid having the game freeze up on you in a particular spot you need to change your system's settings around. I seem to remember it having this problem in one or two of the other games in the series as well.
ToMI1 wouldn't happen to run any better in 480i, would it? Has anyone tested it?
@MuljoStpho
I run everything in 480i, including this game, and it certainly stuttered in certain situations but overall ran pretty well if you ask me. I don't have any comparison, though, as I haven't run it in 480p at all.
@brandonbwii "i don't know where the idea they're wii haters came in."
By irresposible journalism, and fanboys jumping on the bandwagon, unfortunatly. I don't recall anywhere that this 'story' broke making sure the original thread was linked to so the comments could be seen in context. And as you say, even taken out of context the engineer was just stating a personal fact/opinion in a messageoard discussion, And people reacted like he's just been caught having an affair with their Mom.
I have Strongbad episode 1 and the first season of Sam and Max. They're all good. I'm not really interested in Monkey Island though. I do intend to get the rest of the Strongbad series at some point.
I bought all of StrongBad, season one of Sam & Max (the second one isn't out here yet) and episode of one of Monkey Island. I will continue to buy all of Telltale's Wii releases because they make fantastic games. I can put up with a little chugging.
well at least telltale is going for the wii instead of the other consoles. I am a really big fan of Homestar Runner and i think that a video game series is good. I have downloaded the 5'th episode. And it kept me entertained for at least a day. Could somebody tell me if the games are more entertaining if you play them in order?
To be fair, Zak and Wiki, Another Code R and Monkey Island are good games. What worries me is his ignorance, that's all.
Another thing I didn't understand about Telltale, why do they need to make these games 3D? 2D works great for these types of games, and there'd be no lag, I heard complaints of lag on the PC versions too :/
I have to stay, most sites blew ONE man's opinion out of proportion making it seem that was the company's idea. Not really.
And stop talking about the iPhone, you can only play it with a touch screen. No buttons. It's really annoying trying to play the Mega Man II trial. And Mega Man II is my favorite game.
Strong Bad is a good game. Some lag, but not enough to make me frustrated. Monkey Island has a lot of lag. What I find funny is that they are pretty close in the size department. 300 or so blocks.
Well, it makes sense to like something even though you acknowledge its flaws. There is a difference between acknowledging then announcing them to the world in a comparison that is misleading in a wa, however. And yes, the iphone may have more power than a wii, but that is because it needs more to manage all of the things it does at once. The wii only needs to play games for the most part. So his comparison was unfair in a way. But that doesnt mean he cant like the wii, and like to develop for it. We all know that the Nintendo have less power than its competition, but we still like them due to their other reasons. It may be that this guy shoudnt have said what he said, but we shoudnt bash him for it.
These always make me laugh...
Whenever an employee of a company makes fun of something Wii related (the system itself, the fanbase), a bunch of people flame them on the web, and they're all "Oh no we were just kidding Hahahahaha!"
Classy...
Psh. They fixed that well. "Your hardware sucks, but it's perfect."
Too little too late Telltale, no sale.
Strong Bad, fine. Not the developers, the web toon.
Count me out of anything else though. :]
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