content: lovely, amount of content: not so much

[Sajomir]

I'm really happy that TSL is finally off the ground, and considering all the things I've read the team went through, I feel like kind of a jerk, but... well, this is my feedback, I guess.

Everything is beautiful. The character redesigns are all cool, (I actually love the new Alexander, by the way), the voicework is amazing (GREAT job, Graham!), and the flavor of the writing is right up the alley of old KQ games. The music is awesome. The track playing in the castle when the player gets control is beautiful.

I did not care for how short it was. The first thoughts in my head were literally "it took how many years.... for this?" I expected Graham to at least get to work on his first task before it ended. However, I like where the story is heading and can't wait to see the next part.

The female narrator surprised me. It could work, though. While I loved a lot of the snippy lines, it seemed like a LOT of them just dragged on and on longer than they needed. For example,

Spoiler (mouse over to reveal):

Yes, let's go tip over the statue and break it. That would make everyone feel better about the current situation.

The first sentence made me laugh. The delivery was great for that much. But the second sentence felt like it went on forever, and I lost interest. I think the line as a whole could have worked if it was delivered quicker and in one breath, though.
Anyway, it felt like a lot of the Narrator's lines were like that, unfortunately.

Best wishes to Episode 2! I hope you can work freely now that the legal issues have been resolved.

[B'rrr]

I did not care for how short it was. The first thoughts in my head were literally "it took how many years.... for this?" I expected Graham to at least get to work on his first task before it ended. However, I like where the story is heading and can't wait to see the next part.

I think the issue most people have is that they compare this part (and especially the length of it) with other games, but they forget this isn't a complete game but only the first part. If you are comparing length you should wait till all parts are finished and you've played through them all.

Also they didn't spend all the time on only chapter 1, they said elsewhere that the other parts were like 90% complete.

[Alyse]

I did not care for how short it was. The first thoughts in my head were literally "it took how many years.... for this?" I expected Graham to at least get to work on his first task before it ended. However, I like where the story is heading and can't wait to see the next part.

I think the issue most people have is that they compare this part (and especially the length of it) with other games, but they forget this isn't a complete game but only the first part. If you are comparing length you should wait till all parts are finished and you've played through them all.

Also they didn't spend all the time on only chapter 1, they said elsewhere that the other parts were like 90% complete.

I agree with your points! When I reviewed this episode, I left the amount of gameplay out of it for two reasons:

1.) Have you ever played the beginning of a game? There's always a billion cinematic scenes, and it's all very easy.
2.) This was only part 1 of 5 for the game, meaning it was the beginning. I think that this episode is spot-on for what you should expect when beginning a game these days.

[MangoMercury]

http://www.postudios.com/blog/forum/index.php?topic=8733.0

Also, something to keep in mind for the whole "I've waited x amount of years and all I get to play is this?" stance:

They've not just been working for eight years on this one little part.  There are five episodes, all in production, all near enough to completion that they can be released within months of one another.  It's not going to take another eight years to see episode 2 - a few months at the most.  The game itself has gone through a lot of changes and has been stopped twice now, and these people aren't doing this full-time as a job; this is something they're working on alongside their real life jobs.

Personally, I think it's an amazing accomplishment that a team can get together and, through their spare time, create something that could easily rival a lot of current games.

[Alyse]

Also, to add to Mango's point... If these are people with real-life jobs, are they in the same area, or all around the globe? How the (insert exploitative) did they coordinate all this? I can just imagine my e-friends and me trying to collaborate on a drawing, much less this piece-of-art-of-a-game and failing miserably. xD

[KatieHal]

We are located all over the place, and yes, that has posed some challenges over the years! We communicate through email, skype, shared FTPs, etc, and a few years ago found a really good project management system that was a huge help with coordinating assignments.

[kindofdoon]

I actually agree with Sajomir's gripes about the narrator.

The humor was altogether too frequent, and not subtle at all. And many descriptions did feel too long or irrelevant.

[Kimmie]

I completely agree with Mango, when you think of a normal day job and how much time that takes from your day already and then you imagine going home and working on another project which is HUGE it makes you realise how hard these guys have worked!

I'm usually shattered by the time I get in from work, the last thing I'd want to do is more work in my free time, so these guys are like superheroes!

They aren't paid, it's done for the love of the game! They aren't asking for you to pay either...all they want is patience and support

We owe them a lot more!

[Shmargin]

Nah, I've got to agree with the original post, I mean, all episodic games are shorter than a full length adventure, and I completely knew that going in, and in no way even expect the final product, when all the episodes are out, to be anywhere near as long as previous games in the series, but I didn't even feel like I solved any puzzles.

I walked around, picked up some stuff that I didn't have to work for, got guided right to where I had to go, and then it was over, even looking at everything in every room, I beat the episode in about 20 minutes or less.

Like I said, I have been playing all the episodic adventures that are coming out now a days, and I am fully aware that this is a free fan made project, BUT, they could have cut the number of episodes down, to make them feel a little longer, rather than having episode one be done so quickly. If I was someone that didnt bother looking around at all, this episode probably could have been over in 10 minutes or less.

I already said, but I'll say it again so no one wastes too much time getting mad at me, I know its fan made, and free, and it looks and plays absolutely incredible, better in my opinion than some of the ways TellTale is doing stuff. But  it was still super short, I think a couple more puzzles, just to make it longer, maybe you could have made it so you had to find the hat first (not find it in plain sight I mean) before you left, or something.

It looked and played incredible, but the 10-20 minute complete time, left me thinking I would have rather waited another couple months to just get this one combined with the next one at least.

[rugged]

I really enjoyed ep 1 but I thought if they were going to release something that short, then I would have called it prologue or introduction rather then an actual episode

[Haids1987]

http://www.postudios.com/blog/forum/index.php?topic=8733.0

 

[crayauchtin]

Twenty minutes? You clearly didn't look at everything or go everywhere! Play it again, Sam!

[Tawmis]

For the gripe about the narrator... and the length... I disagree. I enjoyed the long bits of dialogue that filled me in on things. If you wanted to "pass" it - it's just like old Sierra games - click the mouse and it will "skip" to the next part of the dialogue (if there is a next part) or just stop her talking. I did it a few times where I clicked something more than once, just to see if I'd get the same dialogue - and would mouse click to pass the dialogue the second time. Absolutely no big deal to me.

[Sajomir]

I completely understand these are people doing their stuff in spare time. I follow tons of independent games under the same situation. I have also never seen a "demo" or "Act 1" or whatever this short out of any of them.
This is not a diss to the TSL developers. This is not a demand that they work faster. This much is simply fact.
My opinion on the matter is the first release after all that press should have been something more. Lotta hype for a 20 minute showpiece that's mostly video.

I really do hope we see Episode 2 within a few months, if they're all really that close to completion. Regardless of when or how much/little it contains, I will play through Episode 2 with a huge smile on my face.

Regarding the narrator, I like the comments to be short and to the point. In my opinion, the narrator comments are great distractions from the gameplay, and are fun places to hide easter eggs. I love them, but I like to find them, get my laughs, and move on with the story.

The point about reading the subtitles is a good one. I often do this in games that have both text and voiceovers, whether they're RPGs or Visual Novels. However, I'm playing at 1900x1200, and I didn't even notice the subtitles in TSL because they were so small on the bottom of the screen. I couldn't read it to see what was there before I decided to click through or not. Heck, I didn't notice text on the bottom of the screen until making choices in conversation. Perhaps if the size of these subtitles is addressed, it will help.

[Baggins]

I think the issue most people have is that they compare this part (and especially the length of it) with other games, but they forget this isn't a complete game but only the first part. If you are comparing length you should wait till all parts are finished and you've played through them all.

Actually if they just compre it with say the first chapter of KQ7, it would have issues by their standards. They seem to compare it with other episodic style games, where if we got something like this for say the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island, they still would have raised hell (as that's how they review these new types of eposidic games since like Telltale's first episodic series).

Its a pretty, and artistic semi-interactive movie/tech demo, but not much of a game episode as of yet.

You might gotten away with it, a bit better, if you had actually just named it "prologue", and not made it one of the main game chapters. So that the reviewers had a clear idea that it wasn't the main game.

[sahara]

http://www.postudios.com/blog/forum/index.php?topic=8733.0

Also, something to keep in mind for the whole "I've waited x amount of years and all I get to play is this?" stance:

They've not just been working for eight years on this one little part.  There are five episodes, all in production, all near enough to completion that they can be released within months of one another.  It's not going to take another eight years to see episode 2 - a few months at the most.  The game itself has gone through a lot of changes and has been stopped twice now, and these people aren't doing this full-time as a job; this is something they're working on alongside their real life jobs.

Personally, I think it's an amazing accomplishment that a team can get together and, through their spare time, create something that could easily rival a lot of current games.

Apologizing for them or making excuses is not going to help them be taken seriously.  I think 90% of the criticisms posted about the game here have been valid.  I'm sure all the Sierra designers back in the day got all kinds of feedback, and imagine what they would have gotten today with people on the internet.  Basically, the team needs to man up, develop a thick skin (some have already responded well to criticism on these forums, and good for them).  Anyone who puts out work for public judgement will face the same thing.  Hopefully, the team will be able to make use of some of the criticism here to better their work in the future, instead of resenting suggestions from people who are interested in seeing them succeed.

[Baggins]

Yes sierra received a lot of criticism back in the day for many of there games. KQ3, KQ4, KQ7, and the 8th game all garnered a little controversery, and there were "fans" who claimed they weren't really "King's Quest Games", or didn't feel like "King's Quest", for various reasons.

[B'rrr]

of course they aren't real kings quest games! Surely a kings quest game has to involve a person that is either a king or going to be a king. It is not prince or princess quest! So that leaves only KQ1, KQ2, KQ5 and KQ6 to be real Kings Quest games!

oww, but wait a minute, as a true hardcore quester the only way to play an adventure game is through the text parser, all this point and click shizzle is for softies! back to basic! So that leaves only KQ1 and KQ2 as true King Quest games.

and so on... basically for everything people can say something about TSL not feeling to be a Kings Quest games you can say something about all the other games aswell (except ofcourse KQ1(not the VGA version ofcourse!), that is where it all started  ).  You can say things about puzzles, narrating, storyline, etc, etc.

Yet most people see all the Kings Quest games as Kings Quest games even though they are quite different from eachother if you choose to see it. Same with TSL, if you choose to see it there is lots of things you can argue about that are not Kings Quest like. If you do, I do wonder if you think you are playing a 'true' kings quest game when playing for example KQ7, while you are actually not 

[sahara]

Yeah, I don't think PO should worry too much about making a "true" KQ game if that ever gets in the way of making the best game possible.  Trying to please everyone by aiming to make a game "truly KQ" (whatever that would mean) is fighting a battle they can never totally win.

I have no problem whatsoever with directions PO takes away from the original games, as long as the changes improve the overall gaming experience.  That should be their #1 goal.

The change in tone from previous games is a welcome change, as far as I'm concerned.  However, I think they'd do themselves a favor if they stressed a bit more (in promoting their product) the fact that they aren't trying to continue the series so much as they are offering a new interpretation of a KQ adventure with familiar characters.

The rubicon has been crossed!  The team made a creative decision to go with the new tone, so I say they should go whole hog and do whatever else it takes (different style narration, character style change, more gritty feel, etc.) to make the gaming experience as good as it can be, even if some of the changes don't exactly mirror the original games from the 80's and the 90's.  Make a game that will be judged well as a stand alone game, not merely a game that will be judged well because it was a close approximation of a previous product.  Think of the success that the new Star Trek movie had.  Star Trek fans and non-Trek fans alike loved it.  Don't simply try to replicate the older KQ games, which had many flaws themselves.  Remember that Jane Jensen saw fit to tweak with the traditional Sierra interface for GK1 because she thought it would make a better game.  

I keep hearing people say, in response to criticisms of TSL, that the original KQ games had the same issues  (e.g., random object placement, certain kinds of narration, etc.).  That seems like a weak response to me.  The point is, don't be afraid to improve upon some shortcomings of the previous games.  

[Baggins]

I think they ahve gone whole hog with character redesigns at least for some characters, I mean Alexander looks sorta like an anime character with the spiky hair.