For better or worse, Telltale has mined a rich vein of success from its point n’ click-lite formula. The Walking Dead was obviously the defining moment, the point where the chosen I.P. matched the Telltale Tool perfectly, producing one of 2012’s best games.
Before Robert Kirkman’s zombie opus found its gaming soulmate, Telltale had been subject to differing results. A solid pair of Sam and Max seasons, a fairly decent Back To The Future series and a frankly risible Jurassic Park disaster all flew largely under the radar, but since The Walking Dead there have been some interesting choices for the formula. The Wolf Among Us was an intriguing slice of the Fables comic book that sadly dragged in the middle episodes before greatly improving for its finale. A more brutal second season of The Walking Dead quietly impressed and Borderlands and Game of Thrones have both shown promise in their opening episodes.
TellTale appears to go off on tangent with Minecraft. But, it could be a genius move.
Recently however, many were left perplexed by the company’s latest project announcement. A narrative driven Minecraft adventure. Is this a step too far? A risk too great for Telltale? Perhaps a sign they need to sit back and take stock before they find themselves making a point n’ click Gran Turismo? Probably none of those in all honesty. Borderlands seemed an odd choice at first too and TellTale seem to have twisted that into a funny subversion of its own formula, so Minecraft may yet pan out for the studio. The real question should be ‘’why do this ahead of any number of more fitting potential franchises?’’. That had me thinking of what other media left out there would provide not only a perfect foil for the Telltale Tool, but maybe even offer some fresh ideas for it?
The first name that came to mind was Doctor Who. An entirely unique narrative-driven adventure that weaves into established lore for the Doctor would be right at home with the Telltale philosophy. It’d balance talk-heavy negotiation sequences with on-the-fly puzzle solving if it were to be done right and, while playing as the Doctor would be cool, the story would be better told in the shoes of a previously unknown companion if a sense of peril is to be achieved. The problem the Wolf Among Us had was being in the shoes of an established character in Bigby and not truly being able to imprint your own personality into his choices left you feeling more distant from him. The same would ring true here. You already know far too much about the renegade Time Lord himself that you couldn’t possibly invest in the story in the correct manner by looking through his eyes.
A longshot idea came to me after that. Something that would fit just fine on a base level, but would also make the Minecraft announcement seem sane. A Curb Your Enthusiasm Telltale game. For anyone who doesn’t know Curb, it follows Seinfeld co-creator Larry David through his (fictitious) everyday life as his socially destructive ways threaten to anger and annoy the world around him. This would be the exception regarding the use of an established character to tell a story because you need to be Larry to get the purest Curb experience. Choosing the right thing to say as Larry David would be near-on impossible, instead, your story would branch off in different embarrassing and awkward ways depending on which degree of awful you chose to handle the social situations thrown at you. It could also be a painfully funny game, a stretch in terms of possibility sure, but Curb is a HBO show and TT already have a relationship with them thanks to Game of Thrones so a man can dream.
The next idea was a Batman game, told from the perspective of regular criminals. Each episode would have a criminal recalling an encounter with the Dark Knight, with all stories connecting in some way. If you’ve ever seen Batman: The Animated series you may remember an episode where several villains share war stories from their last encounter with Batman round a card table. The format would be something like that. It’d be interesting to see the caped-crusader from the perspective of the very people he haunts.
Then I pondered aloud, to nobody in particular, that if Minecraft – a game with no real story – could be made into a TT game, then why not something even less narrative driven like FIFA? Naturally, you would have to be a sleazy football agent, using your snake-like charm to persuade talented young players to give you a grossly undeserved percentage of their future undeserved earnings while messing with their personal life to ensure you get an even bigger cut next time. It’d likely end with a tragic fall from grace for the player as you move onto the next hot talent for Season Two.
I started to struggle for ideas after that to be honest and went back to where I jokingly suggested Telltale would end up making a Gran Turismo spin-off. I imagine you’d play as a grouchy retired racer who tries to mentor his young protege whilst the excitingly gleeful prospect of being a stinking-rich race car driver is counterbalanced by the realisation of how dull it actually is to race in Gran Turismo. It’d probably have Pit-stop Q.T.E.s or something equally banal and would be certain to have an abnormally large gap between the fourth and fifth episode save for a brief playable trailer
Maybe don’t try that last one just yet Telltale, I’m not sure the world’s ready for it.