By now you'll have heard the sad news that Telltale Games looks to be closing down.
It's always sad to hear of any game studio closing, but this one does feel a bit like the "end of an era" as everyone's saying. That said, I don't think it's the end of a genre. Telltale revived the adventure game in a clever way that hearkened back to the roots of their founders from LucasArts. An amazing development studio itself which innovated and created all manner of iconic, unforgettable games like Monkey Island, Full Throttle, Sam & Max (Telltale made their own sequel, Sam & Max Save the World)
Slightly damaged tandee of Full Throttle gracing the
wall that was salvaged from a dumpster at Lucas
The first games I ever worked on way back at Core Design (Tomb Raider) were point-and-click adventures. We were basically trying to copy our favourite classics like the King Quest and Space Quest games, Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and so on. Ours were Curse of Enchantia and Universe.
So after many years working in the industry from small indies to giant AAA multi-studio projects it was exciting for me to return to the genre. And despite some of the negative press that has emerged recently, I found the team generally to be extremely warm and welcoming, with 'flat management' and relatively little politics and so on. I'm sure this is partly due to the particular department I was in (Art departments are always the most civilized ;) ) but also the company had already been making efforts to sort things about by the time I joined. I worked on both Batman series and a bit on Guardians of the Galaxy, and I have to say it was a fun experience all round!
Sam & Max Telltale t-shirt
It's real shame they just couldn't quite sustain the business model long enough to turn it around eventually. But now that Telltale has come to an end, others are doing great things in a similar vein, with Life Is Strange and some notable others.
It was a privilege to have worked albeit briefly alongside some of the most talented people I have ever known who would easily hold their own in "Triple A" development - and no doubt will do so in the near future.
Onwards and Upwards!
A poster of Nixon in the bathroom.
Never quite got to the bottom of this, suffice
to say Lebowskifest.com at the bottom.
