Anyone who knows me relatively well could probably tell you that I have an irrational love for adventure games. To be fair, I should add the qualifier that I love good adventure games. I’ve always been a fan of the deep storylines, interesting characters and immersive environments. I was virtually raised with the old classic adventure titles such as Full Throttle, the Monkey Island games, Myst, the list goes on and on ad nauseam. So you can imagine the complete and total glee that seized me when I heard about a group of ex-LucasArts employees coming together to create a new company, Telltale Games, that focuses mainly on adventure games. To me, this was a dream come true. To my dismay, I’ve seen disaster after disaster in this genre lately. The creation of this new company, fueled by the great minds behind games like Escape from Monkey Island, was bound to bear succulent gaming fruit. I’ve been enthusiastically watching the actions of this new company for some time now, taking joy in the new directions they plan on taking, such as episodic content. I’ve also been reguarly reading the Telltale Blog, which very often contains spectacular insights into the direction the company is taking. This post in particular caught my interest, where one of the Telltale designers directly confronted what I believe is one of the greatest issues and weaknesses of adventure games today. As you can imagine, I was quite stoked when I read this.

When I was out at the Game Developer’s Conference this year, an amazing coincidence occured. While waiting to meet with a friend, I turned to find myself standing in front of none other than Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale games. I quickly seized the opportunity and pounced! Or rather, I professionally approached the good man and after a brief exchange of business cards, he agreed to later take some time for an interview. Later, we had a brief correspondence that provides some insight for not only the kinds of games they will make but also some specific information on their upcoming game, Bone - which is currently slated for a Fall ‘05 release. Also, in the meantime, you can try out their recently released game, Telltale Texas Hold’em, which is a Texas Hold’em Poker game with animated and interactive characters.

Alan: First, could you please tell us a little bit about yourself, your background in gaming and what it is you do for TellTale?

Dan: My name is Dan Connors I am the CEO at Telltale Inc. I have been in the game industry since 1993. I started in the test department at LucasArts working on Day of The Tentacle and Sam and Max. Those were definitely the days, the test pit was a hilarious place to work, full of all kinds of characters. Eventually I became the QA supervisor from 94-98 which is a time when LucasArts was just nailing every title. I then moved into Production on Roque Squadron, Xwing Alliance, Battle for Naboo and Obi Wan my career at LucasArts sadly ended with the Sam and Max Freelance Police Project.

At Telltale I am responsible for pulling everything together and getting the word out about our team.

Alan: Many TellTale employees are actually ex-LucasArts employees. Now that you’ve come together to form a new company of which you have complete control, do you find yourselves pursuing a new, or different direction with adventure games as a whole?

Dan: We are interested in innovative ways to tell stories, and to create characters that are more then just cannon fodder. That being said, we are building on many of the lessons we learned about story telling and character working on adventure games at LucasArts. Every person on the team has worked on adventure games during their career, this is very valuable to us.

Alan: You say on your website that you plan on releasing several game “episodes” per year. Does this mean you plan on continuing your current games with episodic sequels, or do you plan on introducing many new games that may be in smaller, episode sized packages?

Dan: Smaller games are definitely necessary because of the economics of game production and distribution. The talk around the industry is that the next generation of games is going to cost in the 15 million dollar range. With this amount of money on the line the model is getting closer to the blockbuster film model. At Telltale we would like to be on the cutting edge of a television production style model, with episodes and ongoing story lines and favorite characters.

Alan: If you are utilizing a more “television production” stylized model, this ultimately means shorter games. How much play time do you expect your episodic games will have on average, in comparison to a full length game?

Dan: The feedback we have gotten from many of the gamers that we have talked to is that shorter is actually better. It’s a rare person that has sixty hours to put into a game. We haven’t completed an episode yet, but we are targeting 4-6 hours.

Alan: Since these episodic games are smaller, does this also mean a smaller price point? Do you have a rough ballpark figure for the price of these types of games?

Dan: Price point is something we are currently doing research on. There are a few very distinct game audiences on the net that have very different expectations for their money.

Alan: You have an upcoming game in the works named Bone, based on the Jeff Smith comic book series of the same name. Is this upcoming game also going to be an “episode” or is it planned to be a full length game? If it’s an episode sized game, do you currently have plans for sequels?

Dan: Yes we definitely have plans to build more games based on Bone.

Alan: What features make Bone stand out from other adventure games?

Dan: Most importantly it is the attention to detail on the story side. Jeff Smith is a great story teller and has fleshed out all the details and sown up the lose ends. This really focuses the team’s effort on executing the story.

Game developers often want to make their great original concept, but in many cases don’t really have the story telling skills to make it happen. When you create a new world there are so many details that get figured out along the way that the story tends to lose its cohesiveness.

Alan: Does Jeff Smith contribute to the writing and the art for the game, or other aspects of development?

Dan: Jeff has been working really closely with our art staff to get the right feel. Also he has helped on the design, by making it clear what the story motivations are in the different scenes.

Alan: What made you decide to make a Bone game as one of TellTale’s first projects?

Dan: Coming off of Sam and Max we definitely wanted to do a game based on a comic book, and Bone is one of the most popular comic book licenses out there. As we started to talk to Jeff and Vijaya, and heard more about what was in store for Bone with Scholastic, it was obvious it was the right license for a company like ours to do.

Alan: As adventure game experts, where do you see the future of the adventure game genre headed?

Dan: It’s obvious that story telling in games is on everyone’s mind in the development world. Coming out of GDC its all anybody is talking about. To me this is good news for adventure game fans, because it means companies are going to focus their technologies on better storytelling. As a result, I think there will be elements from adventure games introduced into more games and greatly enhanced. At the same time some elements from adventure games will go the way of first person jumping puzzles.

Alan: Are there any specific aspects of conventional adventure games that you think may be phased out in the next generation of adventure titles?

Dan: I think every adventure game person will readily admit, that using every item with every thing to get past a puzzle, and move through the story, is seldom fun. So in trying to solve that, and make the genre more accessible, I think you will see interfaces and puzzles continue to be more straightforward and less complex.