The Future Will be Episodic

If games are to become heavily concerned with narrative, then no genre has already proved its salt as abundantly as the point-and-click adventure. Stories laden with rich characters, comedy, romance and some swashbuckling to boot once helped to create a thriving genre, with big names ranging from Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island, to King's Quest and Leisure Suit Larry. Somewhere along the line, though, people lost interest and even Broken Sword creator Charles Cecil was saying the point-and-click genre was dead.

But in May 2004 in San Rafael, California, two guys had a dream of a new type of game. Disheartened by the near-collapse of their favourite genre, Kevin Bruner and Dan Connors decided to pummel at its heart and get it going again. They wanted titles that focused on stories and characters instead of shooting and fighting, but they also wanted to get away from the neatly packaged games of old that went on for hours and hours in a bid to have solid, involving beginnings, middles and ends. Their vision was to take a cue from soap operas and serial dramas. They craved an opportunity to work on episodic games and be more fast-paced.

“The vast majority of people who start a game don't see it to the end,” says Connors. “In fact, most play the first couple of levels and then give up and go off and do something else. But that just doesn't add up. If people don't finish a game, then the appetite for a sequel is lessened and so there isn't any economic sense in trying to satisfy core gamers. There aren't that many people who will want, never mind be able, to spend 40 hours or so on a single title.”

Despite his feeling about more involved games, he is at pains to ensure he's not dismissing core gamers: “They're influential and important, certainly, but why spend ages producing levels many just won't see? That's why we decided to produce games broken down into smaller chunks or episodes. Since each episode is short and can be finished in a few hours, there is a greater chance the gamer wants to carry on and play more.”

Connors and Bruner worked at LucasArts and had been working on a sequel to the popular Sam & Max franchise. The game, Sam & Max Freelance Police was cancelled, however, and so a group of six employees ended up leaving, heading for Connors and Bruner's newly formed Telltale Games. At around the same time, the rights for the Sam & Max games had reverted back to Steve Purcell since his agreement with LucasArts was that they had to produce the games within a certain timeframe.

It was then that Connors decided to change the way they approached the game and, instead of releasing a full standalone title, Telltale produced Sam & Max: Season One as a series of six smaller, downloadable episodes that could be bought direct from Telltale, or via Steam or GameTap. The new game used a fresh 3D engine to Freelance Police (“we like 3D because it lends games a cinematic feel,” says Connors) and the titles were released in quick succession from October 2006 to April 2007. Telltale included 15 machinima shorts in batches of three following each release bridging the story gaps. Later, a CD compilation of all six games was released.

“I always felt Sam & Max would work well as an episodic game,” says Connors. “The stories are fast-paced and short and they lend themselves well to being broken up into smaller chunks. What we wanted was to make each episode a self-contained game that could, if the player so desired, be played on its own without ever having seen the other episodes.”

Episodic content meant Telltale Games was able to experiment with a more fluid method of development. It had already had experience of making games as episodes, having produced Bone: Out From Boneville and Bone: The Great Cow Race, which allowed Telltale to hone its production skills and to cotton on to the benefit of gamer suggestions. When the first Sam & Max episodic game was released, the team was already developing the second game. But Telltale was only in the writing stage of the third game and it was just starting to design the fourth. The fifth and sixth hadn't begun. So any critical analysis of the first few games could be carried into subsequent titles and it allowed any design changes to be made for the good of the series.

“We soon figured that what people looked for in our games was great writing and good design,” says Connors. “You had all of these point-and-click games that were built on stump and reward – you know, frustrating a player by throwing a difficult puzzle at them or making them think 'what next', before they suddenly figured what they had to do and then got to move on. But we had to change that, simplifying the user interface, having an in-built hint system and giving the gamer a feeling of progression all the time. You can only be frustrated for so long and it's a limited audience who likes that stop-start nature of old point-and-click games today.”

Although Sam & Max was given a console release – Season One was renamed Sam & Max Save The World this year and it has appeared on the Wii and the Xbox 360 – Telltale is a strong supporter of the PC. Connors believes the PC will play a major role in the future of gaming and it was no surprise to see Season Two, the five-episode Sam & Max Beyond Time And Space, released on our favourite machine. A third season is due for release this year.

But of course it's not all about Sam & Max. Telltale has been successful with Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People and it hopes to achieve greatness with Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, both on PC and consoles. Telltale is committed to producing for the PC first, however. “It's just easier and it remains very profitable. You can do more with the PC than you can on a platform like WiiWare, but it's important to have a presence on consoles because there are sales to be had there, too.”

He adds: “The PC is still the dominant platform for digital distribution and people have come to trust it for e-commerce. A lot of people say PC gaming is not happening, it's not moving on, but of course it is. It is innovative and it's so easy to tap in to the energy of the PC scene. People are using their computers all the time to connect online, which is why we see everyone on Facebook and YouTube. They're looking for entertainment and the PC delivers that.”

He says the PC is far from dead, that it is leading the way in online gaming and that it is still the most effective platform on which to promote games. He says it's easy to hit the forums and social networks and market titles that can then be just a click away from a sale. Connors calls the download services on consoles ‘storefronts’ and says the PC is a far more open marketplace with a wider demographic of users.

He also says gamers will increasingly want and prefer digital distribution due to its ease of use. “From a user perspective, sitting in a living room and getting games to you over the net is the best way. Having to go into a shop and buy a boxed copy of a game seems dated when you look at music, and yet gaming is supposed to be at the forefront of technology. There probably will be a place for box copies – we produced a compilation disc of the Sam & Max series, for instance – but they'll be for collectors in the main.”

Connors says the PC has only won the war in the office and bedroom, but has yet to make it in the living room where he feels people want their entertainment. “What's going to replace television?” he asks. “There's a big hardware battle to take over what is traditional television by producing greater interactivity and control. At some stage something – and I hope it's games – will replace the whole trend of sitting down to watch the BBC as an activity. Maybe houses will have home central servers and entertainment beamed into different rooms so that the kids can play a few hardcore games upstairs, one parent can be playing a casual game and another can be watching an on-demand movie. We're making big investments in entertainment systems and spending a fortune on couches so that when we sit down on them and watch our large-screen televisions, we want something special.”