A Telling Tale with Telltale Games

Sunday, the last day of PAX, I managed to find some time to sit down with the company behind remastering some of my favorite games of all times.

Such as The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, The Curse of Monkey Island, and Escape from Monkey Island; and releasing an episodic new adventure, Tales of Monkey Island. The company I’m talking about is Telltale Games and the person I spoke with was Mark Darin, their lead designer.

A bit about Telltale Games, from their Web site. Telltale is the first and only studio to release interactive episodic content on a monthly schedule. The studio’s landmark Sam & Max series, based on the independent comics by Steve Purcell, paved the way for episodic gaming with two award-winning seasons available on PC and Wii, and coming soon to Xbox LIVE Arcade. Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People, based on the Homestarrunner.com web cartoons, soon followed as the first episodic series for WiiWare. Telltale’s latest series, Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures, is releasing on PC and Xbox LIVE Arcade.

Telltale’s other games include two installments in Ubisoft’s CSI series, based on the most popular television franchise in the United States, and two games based on the best-selling Bone comics by Jeff Smith. Telltale’s games have won numerous awards, including Adventure Game of the Year accolades from publications such as IGN, PC Gamer, GameSpy, and Adventure Gamers, and have been recognized by mainstream outlets ranging from The New York Times to Variety to Playboy. USA Today ranked Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Adventures among five downloadable games to watch for in 2009.

My 10 year old son just got through the first three games in the Monkey Island Series when we heard that Telltale Games was in the process of remastering and creating a new game for the series. Reliving the games through my son made talking with Mark interesting and brought about questions that let us hear what is going on behind the scenes

Kayhynn: So the first question is, why, after all these years are you guys remaking the games and creating a new one?

Mark: In general, it was a good time to bring it back to appeal to this generation of gamers by remaking it for consoles as well as the PC. In addition to the remaking, we’re offering brand new episodes that follow the fourth game. We have released two episodes so far, with three more coming at the rate of one per month.

Kayhynn: What are you doing to make the game appeal to the younger generations, those that didn’t grow up with the MSDOS prompt game The Secrets of Monkey Island?

Mark: First and foremost the games are centered on stories and the characters within the story to make it more accessible. Even though it looks new, it’s the same storyline, the same characters we know and love. Once you play the game, the story and characters and follow you in through all of the games. As a player, are drawn into the game, what happens to the characters and become a part of it, which is something modern players and original players enjoy. The biggest change to the game is, like for the Wii, you can use the Wii nun chuck to move around the game and you don’t feel you’re outside the game as much. You are sorta become Guybrush moving around the game.

Kayhynn: What challenges did you face in keeping the feeling of the game when changing it to appeal to the modern game world?

Mark: One of the biggest challenges we faced involved making sure the remade games still felt like Monkey Island. We went back and looked at the game big fans consider iconic for Monkey Island. For most fans, games 2 and 3 are the iconic games, depending on when they got into the game. What we did then is put a fresh coat of paint on it, added more cinematic features with camera angles and cinema effects to bring it to life. Then we added in key points– the iconic things that make the game unique: the swirly clouds you saw from Monkey Island 3, Guybrush’s Coat and other iconic graphics were all brought into the new episodes as well.

Kayhynn: Any plans right now for another game or redos of other games?

Mark: Right now, we have been very focused on getting this game done. No telling what the future holds

Kayhynn: What are the fans of the classic Monkey Island Games saying about the episodes?

Mark: The feedback we received has been very good on the episodes. People who are fans are very passionate about the game and they will let us know if we got it right or got it wrong. Feedback says: We got it right. That made me very proud.

Kayhynn: What is a challenge you guys faced when creating the episodic releases for Tales of Monkey Island?

Mark: From a design standpoint, it is always a challenge to match the puzzle design with the stories. We don’t want puzzles where you stumble upon things that don’t fit. The puzzles need to fit the story and fit into the pirate world we’ve created. That’s always the biggest design challenge.

Kayhynn: What is your most memorable moment working on the game?

Mark: My favorite takes place in Chapter 2 where Guybrush and LeChuck’s roles were reversed. They have to work together to reverse what has happened and it is a comedy of errors. It was very fun to write and design the concepts behind it.

Kayhynn: What, if any, games are you playing now?

Mark: I was playing World of Warcraft for a while. Lately, I’ve been trying to catch up on action-adventure PS3 games. I am really looking forward to Dante’s Inferno.

Kayhynn: What games influenced the current projects you are working on?

Mark: Games have had a huge influence on designing puzzles for Monkey Island. For a while I was refernencing the opening puzzle you come across in the first Gods of War game. There’s a puzzle in that game that is quite involved in order to take down the environment. That definitely influenced some of the puzzles for Monkey Island.

Kayhynn: Anything you’d like to add?

Mark: We’re planning releasing 3rd episode for Tales of Monkey

Island at the end of this month, so keep an eye out for it. There are several promotions going on for the game that folks should keep an eye out for.

I’d like to thank Mark for taking time out of his schedule at PAX to sit down with me and do this interview. Keep up the awesome work on Monkey Island!

Below is a picture gallery of their booth at PAX.