The International House of Mojo

On their continuing quest for the awesome, Telltale Games has issued a sort of challenge to their fan community: Properly work together to interview Telltale. The rules were laid out in a forum post by Telltale gameplay designer Heather Logas:

Amongst yourselves choose a moderator for this project. I don't care how you do it, it's completely up to you. I would recommend someone who works well with others. Use the bulletin board to discuss which questions you would like to ask. They could be about anything related to Telltale and our staff members, Bone, Hold Em, Dank, donuts -- anything.

You get 20 questions. (Multi-part questions will be disqualified). Once you are satisfied, the moderator is in charge of making sure the questions are what everyone is expecting and then posting them.

So if you've got a burning question for Telltale, now's your chance to join in the interview assembly process and (if everyone likes it) get it asked. Online Community managers of the world take note: these guys know what's up.

A new interview has appeared on the internet. This one is about Bone and features three Telltale employees: Dan Conners, CEO of Telltale; Graham Anable, Creative Director; and Heather Logas, Designer.

I don't really know what to say about it other than it's worth reading, since it's the first Q&A with Telltale folks to scratch the surface of their development on Bone - well, the first to scratch deeper than "we're making a Bone game, and it's an adventure game." Also some new concept art is featured. Check it out.

Bone!

PS: Also if you missed it (I did) there was an interview/profile of Telltale game designer Heather Logas posted the other day which is also worth reading.

Looks like our friends over at Telltale Games are expanding their horizon, at least if the news post from the sexy beast known as Adventure Gamers is anything to go by. A new game called Ankh is apparently being developed by deck13 and Telltale, and you can see a preview of it over at Adventure-Archiv.

It's sort of unclear what role Telltale is playing in the development, though Adventure Gamers speculates that it might be as an advisor. Make sure you check out the Ankh preview; it's "a sure thing that they are aiming at the Monkey Island-community" with it. So you might like it.

Source: Adventure Gamers

According to a new interview with Telltale CEO Dan Connors at Computer Games magazine the first Bone game is slated for a Fall (3rd Quarter 2005) release. Also a bit more is revealed about any divergence between comic and game storywise;

Dan Connors - We plan on executing the story as it is told in the comics. There will be added interactivity and we will take some license, but we are trying to stay true to the comic... For our first design meeting we just sat down and started walking through the compendium. The first book "Out From Boneville" just seemed the perfect size for our first game. It's a good introduction to the characters and the world, and has plenty of elements that make for interesting gameplay. Going forward into the rest of the story we will take the same approach

Source: Computer Games magazine

As Udvarnoky points out on the forums, Telltale Games has published a short animation from Bone on their website. It's not much (and you have to sit through a Telltale Texas Hold 'em pitch first), but it sure looks nice.

Go view it.

Accompanying a short interview that sheds some more light on Telltale Games' forthcoming adventure Bone are a couple of early screenshots.

Dan: First, we have made the solemn adventure game vow that the puzzles need to make sense in the context of the story. Second, we are focused on improving our dialog system to make it more flexible and varied than what people are used to. Third, we are working on ways for the player to solve puzzles in a more active way... We want our game worlds to really come alive for the players. That means that the world continues to move around them and doesn't just wait for players to interact with it. Ideally, we would like our puzzles to not only make sense within the context of the game world, but also within the pacing of the story.

Source: Quandry

Telltale Games has sent out a press release which includes pretty much no new information what-so-ever, but hey... Here it is anyway. <:MORENEWS:>

Telltale Announces Bone PC Game Title

Game based on the popular comic book recently re-launched in full-color by Scholastic.

SAN RAFAEL, CA, February 21, 2005 ? Cartoon Books and Telltale, today announced that Jeff Smith's comic masterpiece Bone is coming to a computer near you. Long a popular independent comic, the award winning Bone was described by Publishers Weekly as ?Charming, character driven fantasy with an elegant design and masterful storytelling.? And now Telltale, a company that takes you to the worlds where characters like Bone play and invites you to play with them, will be creating new episodes for PC gaming.

"Detailed rich characters and incredibly immersive story telling are everything to us," said Telltale's CEO Dan Connors. "We are proud that Jeff Smith and Cartoon Books have decided that we are the best partners to bring Bone to life in a series of PC games. The Bone world has so much texture and depth and combines a unique blend of superb adventure, mystery and humor ? it is a great first license for Telltale."

"We are very impressed with the work the Telltale team has done in the past. We?re confident they can bring the fun and adventure of the Bone story to life. Bone has been a big hit with comic book lovers everywhere and reaching the PC market will allow even more people to boldly go where no Bone has gone before." commented Cartoon Books' publisher, Vijaya Iyer.

Bone is also the flagship title for Scholastic's new graphic novel imprint Graphix, which launched in February. "We are thrilled to launch our exciting new imprint with this adventurous, funny and unforgettable series" added Jean Feiwel, Scholastic's publisher and editor in chief, "Scholastic's unique distribution network of bookstores, school book clubs and book fairs will send Bone out to a vast, new multi-generational audience." Telltale Games will compliment this with their first Bone PC episode.

In the current climate of highly successful comic book franchises, Telltale, Scholastic and Cartoon Books expect to work closely together over the coming months to make 2005 Bone's most successful year.

More information about the game can be found at www.telltalegames.com.

This is the first in a series of announcements from Telltale; stay tuned.

We're assuming the game will be episodic, and from the look of the game's webpage, the first part will be based on "Out from Boneville". The book was recently re-colored and re-issued by Scholastic, and is really quite good. In fact, if you really want to get to know Bone you should possibly check out Bone: One Volume Edition, a 1,300 compilation containing all the adventures of the Bone cousins.

Telltale Games, the group of independent ex-LucasArts gamemakers descended from the Sam & Max Freelance Police team, have announced their first adventure title - Bone, based on the popular comic book series.<:MORENEWS:>

Lost in the desert and dying of thirst, the Bone cousins are separated by an angry swarm of locusts. Now Fone Bone, armed only with a mysterious map and his well-loved copy of Moby Dick, searches a strange valley to try and find his lost relatives. Along the way he will come face to face with its unusual denizens and begin to be drawn into the greater intrigues that surround the valley.

Telltale Games brings you all the humor, charm and mystery of Jeff Smith's acclaimed comic book series Bone. Fans of the comic and adventure gamers alike will find a new home in the valley, as they explore familiar locations and interact with its residents in this character driven adventure.

The Telltale site offers a tiny bit more about Bone in the form of one heavily cropped screenshot, and some art from the comics. What exactly is Bone, the comic book? Well, here are a couple of helpful pages from the Bone website dedicated to a rough outline of the plot of the comics, and the characters involved!

Though I don't know much about the world of Bone, the characters, setting, and universe (episodic adventurous tales laced with comedy, clever scenarios etc) sound very fitting for Telltale. We wish them the best of luck, and will of course be following the developments of Bone closely.


Update: From the short description and image posted by Telltale it appears that the game will be based on the latest Bone comicbook called "Out from Boneville".

Telltale games has just announced the release of their first game. A few months back they claimed that before the announcement of their first big adventure game they'd probably be releasing a mini title or two. This is one of them. Telltale Texas Hold'em is the name of the game - a poker game that might be more about the characters than the cards. It's available both at Telltale's website, and the newly opened Adventure Gamers store for a fan community discount of $14.99.

Dan Connors, CEO of TellTale, told Adventure Gamers a little bit about the game, and why they - an "adventure company" are starting with a poker game...<:MORENEWS:>

Telltale Games is about great characters and stories; Telltale Texas Hold Em is about characters. The reason this is the first product released by Telltale Games is because it is much more straightforward then launching a full adventure game based on a license. All the work we are doing on characters now will definitely benefit the quality of our adventure games.

...

The Telltale Engine and Toolset will be used to build all of our products. It is focused on elements required for 3d storytelling and character presentation. The reason why we chose Texas Hold Em as a game mechanic is that poker is all about nuances in the players. Everything we have done with the engine for Telltale Texas Hold Em will be iterated on in our future games.

As for Adventure Gamers opening a store, who knew? To be honest, an adventure site selling adventure games has been a long time coming. There are casual games portals across the net, but why nothing specifically for us adventure fans? "Wait, but what are you getting at? Adventure Gamers' store only sells a poker game!" That very question is answered on the main page of the store itself:

Adventure Gamers is partnering with Telltale Games to sell Texas Hold ?Em, a casual game they made while negotiating their first big adventure contract. We want to raise awareness of this promising team of ex-LucasArts developers, but this isn't yet another casual games portal. In the future we also hope to add all sorts of web-distributed genuine adventure games to this store ? from Telltale Games and from other developers.

So, until then, check out the game over at AG's new store - give it a go and let them know what you think. It's definitely something to tide us all over until Telltale's formal adventure announcement.

Now, to go download the demo myself and give it a shot...

Telltale Games, the new game development studio made up of Ex-LucasArts employees (including a fair chunk of the Sam & Max 2 team), announced the other day (was it yesterday?) that they have hired a couple new artists, Graham Annable and Kim Lyons, "effectively tripling the Telltale art team."

Graham Annable you all might know from Tim Schafer's repeated ramblings about two comic books of his, Hickee (a collaborative comic between Annable and a bunch of other San Francisco-area artists including some Double Fine and LucasArts employees), and Grickle (two solo books by Annable), all of which are really good and should be read. Annable also worked on Sam & Max 2 in some art capacity that I don't really know to be honest. Animator? Art ... guy? A mystery of the ages. Lead Animator.

Kim Lyons, I don't know! MobyGames reveals nothing, and Tim Schafer hasn't ever claimed that Kim Lyons is some sort of triple secret to happiness in the world, so I'm drawing a blank. I guess your one option for information on Kim Lyons is to constantly refresh the newly redesigned Telltale website until some more information appears.

While it's inevitible that Dank the Caveman who peers down from the Telltale site and who featured on the screen in a recent Marin Independent Journal Telltale piece will be in a game sooner or later, there may well be a new kid on the block who could be appearing in Telltale's first original adventure game (Telltale Games is made up predominantly from staffers laid off at LucasArts who were working on the much anticipated Sam & Max sequel).

Not so long ago on the Telltale forums "apignarb" tipped the world off about the "surfy" site; dudebrough.com. In it "Blades of Stenchtar II" is reviewed (those who read the telltale blogs will be familiar).

The site is a "home-made" webpage by surfer dude Ted Dudebrough. And a whois lookup puts it all beyond doubt. Gnarly!

Source: Telltale Games Forums

Everyone's favourite (or near favourite) ex-LucasArts game developers Telltale Games have just made live their long promised Discussion Forum, despite web-programmer Troy's broken toes.

So now you don't need to feel shoehorned into responding to the blog-of-the-moment, you can discuss just whatever it may be that's on your mind.

Oh, and you can now buy Telltale merchandise to assist the cause.

Source: Telltale Games

Everone's new favourite developer with no actual releases yet, Telltale Games, has just been interviewed at Total Video Games. While those charting every move these ex-LucasArts employees make may find little new information, any news is good news.

"In general I?m excited about recent developments in the adventure genre, the merger of cool licenses with the point and click mechanic makes total sense. The mechanic is so elegantly simple and accessible; it?s a great way to introduce the mass audience to the genre and gaming in general. There is also this feeling of, lets stop complaining about the state of adventure games and instead let?s solve the freakin problem.

Check out the full interview with Tellale's Dan Connors.

Source: Total Video Games

Over at Adventure Gamers is a new article about the new adventure developer that's all the rage, Telltale Games. Formed by some key members of the ex-Sam & Max Freelance Police team, Telltale games is out to make their own twist on the episodic adventure game, in the classic story-driven style of LucasArts. Take a look for more.

Gamespot has a brief Q&A with Dan Connors of Telltale Games, the new adventure game company formed from some key members of the Sam & Max Freelance Police team. What does Gamespot say about Telltale?

But what about the question on everyone's mind--is a new Sam and Max title coming? Although Telltale Games hasn't specifically said anything, the upcoming first press release from the company does reference the game three times, then ends by saying that Telltale is currently "in the design phase on a well-loved license." Could it be? We'll just have to wait and see what Telltale Games has up their sleeves.

And here's a quick question from the Q&A:

GS: How do you see your approach affecting the overall health of the genre? IOW, what will you bring to the genre that may have been missing?

DC: Telltale is all about story telling and character. Kevin Bruner, our CTO, is a huge fan of Infocom games because of their ability to immerse a player in an unfolding story. The work he has done since then, including a major stint on Grim Fandango, has continued to inspire that vision. It's very easy, as an adventure game developer, to focus on just wiring the puzzles and making them work. At Telltale, our focus is on filling out the world and story around the puzzles. I definitely agree with Steven Spielberg when he points to interactive storytelling as a place for huge growth in the industry.

Take a look at the whole article over at Gamespot. I'm sure we'll be hearing more about Telltale in the near future. For those who haven't taken a look, it's also worth checking out the Telltale Blog on their recently redone website.

Source: Idle Forums