Alexander Monnéy: The first two episodes of Tales of Monkey Island are out right now for the PC and Wiiware. Are you guys looking at expanding to other platforms?
Mark Darin: We always want to expand to other platforms. We have relationships with Nintendo and Xbox. We are talking to anybody else and as many places as possible. But, right now we don’t have the manpower to develop simultaneously on different platforms. We’re going one step at a time. Sam & Max has been out for the PC and now it’s been brought to the Xbox and it’s on the Wii as well. We’re always trying to expand these games into new places, but it will take us some time.
AM: What do you feel is the importance of bringing back these point-and-click adventure games? A lot of people who I have shown Tales of Monkey Island just say, “well all you do is click?”
*Everybody laughs*
MD: It all depends on what kind of gamer you are. It’s kind of like what movie watcher you are. Maybe you like big action movies, but sometimes you just want a low budget comedy that is just fun. The same thing goes with point-and-click adventures. You can go out and play a Left4Dead, but if you want to sit back and relax, put in Tales of Monkey Island and have some laid back puzzle solving, comedy adventure. You can enjoy the experience without getting intense into like you would some of these other games. It’s a different kind of audience and the casual gamers really like to play those games. Also, the stories we tell draws people. The stories, puzzles and characters kind of bring people into it and give them a two or three hour experience playing through the game at a nice leisurely place.
AM: Was the casual gamer a key determinant to deciding to go after the Wii market prior to the other two consoles?
MD: I don’t really know if it was. I think it was just that Wiiware was being launched by Nintendo and we wanted to establish a relationship with Nintendo because we know that there was a large audience of people who had Wiis. It was a new digital distribution channel that we thought would be a great partnership opportunity with Nintendo. It would also help us get on their service during the launch of Wiiware and provide a different type of game than the initial games on the Wiiware. They wanted to have a broad scope of game, which included the Telltale point-and-click adventures.
AM: Telltale has been know to release episodic content. How is that development process different from releasing full fledged retail releases?
MD: It similar, but it’s faster.
AM: *laughs* A lot more longer nights?
MD: Actually, it’s not. We don’t have a big crunch period that you typically see in the larger games. We’re working on it pretty steadily and then you start to get closer to your release date and you have a couple of months of time that you crunch by working overtime, working late and working on weekends. It’s completely draining, but because the whole model is scaled back that two or three month’s time to a week. You put in a week’s time into, which is not nearly as draining as stretching that over a couple months. It does get very impact and intense, so it feels like it’s constantly going.
AM: Yeah, how many people are currently working at Telltale Games?
MD: I think there are around 55 right now. It keeps fluctuating. I know we’ve doubled since we started when I got there three years ago.
Aaron Peckler: Oh wow you guys really expanded in the last couple of years.
MD: Yeah we went from doing one or two projects at a time to doing at least four projects at a time simultaneously.
AP: How big is each team?
MD: It depends. There is a lot of overlap on each project. Typically we have a group of designers on Tales of Monkey Island and because of the schedule they kind of flip flop. One of them will kind of direct and take ownership of Episode 1, while the second designer takes on Episode 2. It is very much a television model, where you have different directors for each episode, so they can work simultaneously. We have artists that work on that and then move over to the Sam & Max team doing graphics there. It is always kind of in fluctuation. Maybe ten or fifteen people working on a single project at one time.
AM: We were speaking to a representative at Telltale at the expo hall and he was talking about Episode 3 coming out sometime soon this month. Any sort of previews, or sneak peeks that you can give us on this upcoming episode?
MD: Let’s see I haven’t thought about that episode in a while. I’m currently working on the last episode.
AP: So you’re already working on the fifth episode?
MD: We’re already working on the fifth episode. I’m in the design phase of that one right now. So, the puzzles are well designed and we’re starting the script right now. My heads mostly in that one. But, let’s see what’s going on in three. Last we saw Guybrush, eh was being attacked by Morgan and he was swallowed up a giant manatee. Without giving too much away, they are going to need to escape the manatee and meet some interesting characters along the way. At some point, Guybrush will be reunited with Murry the Demonic Talking Skull.
AM: So, without giving out too much, that’s the general gist of it.
MD: *laughs* Without giving too much, yeah. There are only four or five hours of gameplay, so giving away a little bit is giving away too much.
AM: I played a little bit of the first one and it is such a comedic relief. How did that comedy come about?
MD: It just carries over from the original Tales of Monkey Island games. They were designed by Ron Gilbert to be a pirate adventure with these comic overtones. The nice thing about Tales of Monkey Island is that they got a serious underlying plot and then layers of silliness on top of that. It was important for us to keep that vibe and make sure that we stay with a story that was serious with all the silliness layered on top of that.
AP: The Tales of Monkey Island that you guys created has a completely new storyline and Lucasarts is working on a remake of the original. Now are you co-working with them on anything?
MD: Not so much. We initially sat down with them and pitched the idea. We had a back and forth on what the game is going to be. They had some initial input because it is a Lucasarts property and get final approval over everything. Beyond that, a lot of the people at Telltale worked on the original Tales of Monkey Island, so they know what it kind of is. They [Lucasarts] were like, “go ahead and see where it goes.” As long as we are not doing anything crazy to destroy the whole franchise, like teaming them up and putting them into space or something like that.
AM: Are there any updates on your other franchises? Like Sam & Max or Wallace & Gromit?
MD: Sam & Max Season 3 is in production and we have started the design phase on that, so that will be coming out shortly. I don’t have any dates, but we’re working hard on that. For Wallace & Gromit, the news on that is that the remaining episodes will be coming to Xbox Live soon. They are looking to have them out by the end of the year, since we were delayed by the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade. Now, we are back on schedule to get the rest of those games out there.
AP: Is there any new content coming to Wallace & Gromit?
MD: I don’t have anything new to report on that right now. I think we are kind of focused right now on getting Sam & Max Season 3 finished up and tested. Then we are doing another CSI game. We did CSI: Hard Evidence, so we are doing CSI: Deadly Intent that should be coming also for the holiday season.
AM: What about Strong Bad? Anything going on there?
MD: Not at the moment. The Chapmans are still resting up from the last time. We really worked them hard. Unlike other partners that we work with, generally we just got to sign a licensing agreement with them, but with the Chapmans were on board the whole time. Matt did a year’s worth of voicing that he would have done for the show. It was a big strain on them and they were helping with game design and helped edited scripts. They even helped with some of the graphic assets. So, they were working really hard and want to take it easy for now. We definitely have a great relationship, but nothing is in paper yet. It’s still possible though.
AM: Have you seen anything hear that you are really looking forward to?
MD: Right now everything is blur. I was trying to check out Scribblenauts, which looks amazing. Also, I want to check out Shank.
AP: You like more of the independent content?
MD: Not really. I’ve been checking out Dante’s Inferno, which looks amazing. I just can’t think of them right now.
AP: Definitely check out Borderlands or Torchlight.
MD: I haven’t checked out Borderlands, but I have been following up with some screenshots and it looks awesome.
AP: It’s kind of like Fallout 3 mixed with Half-Life with the Prince of Persia's art style and mixed with Diablo’s loot system.
AM: Well, thank you for your time.
MD: Definitely it was nice talking to you.
~yetweallfalldown
Mark Darin: We always want to expand to other platforms. We have relationships with Nintendo and Xbox. We are talking to anybody else and as many places as possible. But, right now we don’t have the manpower to develop simultaneously on different platforms. We’re going one step at a time. Sam & Max has been out for the PC and now it’s been brought to the Xbox and it’s on the Wii as well. We’re always trying to expand these games into new places, but it will take us some time.
AM: What do you feel is the importance of bringing back these point-and-click adventure games? A lot of people who I have shown Tales of Monkey Island just say, “well all you do is click?”
*Everybody laughs*
MD: It all depends on what kind of gamer you are. It’s kind of like what movie watcher you are. Maybe you like big action movies, but sometimes you just want a low budget comedy that is just fun. The same thing goes with point-and-click adventures. You can go out and play a Left4Dead, but if you want to sit back and relax, put in Tales of Monkey Island and have some laid back puzzle solving, comedy adventure. You can enjoy the experience without getting intense into like you would some of these other games. It’s a different kind of audience and the casual gamers really like to play those games. Also, the stories we tell draws people. The stories, puzzles and characters kind of bring people into it and give them a two or three hour experience playing through the game at a nice leisurely place.
AM: Was the casual gamer a key determinant to deciding to go after the Wii market prior to the other two consoles?
MD: I don’t really know if it was. I think it was just that Wiiware was being launched by Nintendo and we wanted to establish a relationship with Nintendo because we know that there was a large audience of people who had Wiis. It was a new digital distribution channel that we thought would be a great partnership opportunity with Nintendo. It would also help us get on their service during the launch of Wiiware and provide a different type of game than the initial games on the Wiiware. They wanted to have a broad scope of game, which included the Telltale point-and-click adventures.
AM: Telltale has been know to release episodic content. How is that development process different from releasing full fledged retail releases?
MD: It similar, but it’s faster.
AM: *laughs* A lot more longer nights?
MD: Actually, it’s not. We don’t have a big crunch period that you typically see in the larger games. We’re working on it pretty steadily and then you start to get closer to your release date and you have a couple of months of time that you crunch by working overtime, working late and working on weekends. It’s completely draining, but because the whole model is scaled back that two or three month’s time to a week. You put in a week’s time into, which is not nearly as draining as stretching that over a couple months. It does get very impact and intense, so it feels like it’s constantly going.
AM: Yeah, how many people are currently working at Telltale Games?
MD: I think there are around 55 right now. It keeps fluctuating. I know we’ve doubled since we started when I got there three years ago.
Aaron Peckler: Oh wow you guys really expanded in the last couple of years.
MD: Yeah we went from doing one or two projects at a time to doing at least four projects at a time simultaneously.
AP: How big is each team?
MD: It depends. There is a lot of overlap on each project. Typically we have a group of designers on Tales of Monkey Island and because of the schedule they kind of flip flop. One of them will kind of direct and take ownership of Episode 1, while the second designer takes on Episode 2. It is very much a television model, where you have different directors for each episode, so they can work simultaneously. We have artists that work on that and then move over to the Sam & Max team doing graphics there. It is always kind of in fluctuation. Maybe ten or fifteen people working on a single project at one time.
AM: We were speaking to a representative at Telltale at the expo hall and he was talking about Episode 3 coming out sometime soon this month. Any sort of previews, or sneak peeks that you can give us on this upcoming episode?
MD: Let’s see I haven’t thought about that episode in a while. I’m currently working on the last episode.
AP: So you’re already working on the fifth episode?
MD: We’re already working on the fifth episode. I’m in the design phase of that one right now. So, the puzzles are well designed and we’re starting the script right now. My heads mostly in that one. But, let’s see what’s going on in three. Last we saw Guybrush, eh was being attacked by Morgan and he was swallowed up a giant manatee. Without giving too much away, they are going to need to escape the manatee and meet some interesting characters along the way. At some point, Guybrush will be reunited with Murry the Demonic Talking Skull.
AM: So, without giving out too much, that’s the general gist of it.
MD: *laughs* Without giving too much, yeah. There are only four or five hours of gameplay, so giving away a little bit is giving away too much.
AM: I played a little bit of the first one and it is such a comedic relief. How did that comedy come about?
MD: It just carries over from the original Tales of Monkey Island games. They were designed by Ron Gilbert to be a pirate adventure with these comic overtones. The nice thing about Tales of Monkey Island is that they got a serious underlying plot and then layers of silliness on top of that. It was important for us to keep that vibe and make sure that we stay with a story that was serious with all the silliness layered on top of that.
AP: The Tales of Monkey Island that you guys created has a completely new storyline and Lucasarts is working on a remake of the original. Now are you co-working with them on anything?
MD: Not so much. We initially sat down with them and pitched the idea. We had a back and forth on what the game is going to be. They had some initial input because it is a Lucasarts property and get final approval over everything. Beyond that, a lot of the people at Telltale worked on the original Tales of Monkey Island, so they know what it kind of is. They [Lucasarts] were like, “go ahead and see where it goes.” As long as we are not doing anything crazy to destroy the whole franchise, like teaming them up and putting them into space or something like that.
AM: Are there any updates on your other franchises? Like Sam & Max or Wallace & Gromit?
MD: Sam & Max Season 3 is in production and we have started the design phase on that, so that will be coming out shortly. I don’t have any dates, but we’re working hard on that. For Wallace & Gromit, the news on that is that the remaining episodes will be coming to Xbox Live soon. They are looking to have them out by the end of the year, since we were delayed by the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade. Now, we are back on schedule to get the rest of those games out there.
AP: Is there any new content coming to Wallace & Gromit?
MD: I don’t have anything new to report on that right now. I think we are kind of focused right now on getting Sam & Max Season 3 finished up and tested. Then we are doing another CSI game. We did CSI: Hard Evidence, so we are doing CSI: Deadly Intent that should be coming also for the holiday season.
AM: What about Strong Bad? Anything going on there?
MD: Not at the moment. The Chapmans are still resting up from the last time. We really worked them hard. Unlike other partners that we work with, generally we just got to sign a licensing agreement with them, but with the Chapmans were on board the whole time. Matt did a year’s worth of voicing that he would have done for the show. It was a big strain on them and they were helping with game design and helped edited scripts. They even helped with some of the graphic assets. So, they were working really hard and want to take it easy for now. We definitely have a great relationship, but nothing is in paper yet. It’s still possible though.
AM: Have you seen anything hear that you are really looking forward to?
MD: Right now everything is blur. I was trying to check out Scribblenauts, which looks amazing. Also, I want to check out Shank.
AP: You like more of the independent content?
MD: Not really. I’ve been checking out Dante’s Inferno, which looks amazing. I just can’t think of them right now.
AP: Definitely check out Borderlands or Torchlight.
MD: I haven’t checked out Borderlands, but I have been following up with some screenshots and it looks awesome.
AP: It’s kind of like Fallout 3 mixed with Half-Life with the Prince of Persia's art style and mixed with Diablo’s loot system.
AM: Well, thank you for your time.
MD: Definitely it was nice talking to you.
~yetweallfalldown