One of the things I love about Telltale Games is their ability to create a game using the simple mechanic of the classic point and click adventure to present a great story. This has been done to near perfection with their latest episodic series based on Robert Kirkman’s comic series, The Walking Dead. This simple yet elegant approach allows the story to take center stage while allowing the player to interact with their environment and those around them. A wonderful side benefit to this game style is the ability to produce an almost identical gameplay experience on mobile devices as the player would get on PC or console. From what I understand it is only the detail of the game’s background graphics that are simplified to accommodate the smaller processors and screens. It is the closest to a universal gaming experience as I have found.
Telltale Games has just released the first episode of The Walking Dead for iOS. This means that owners of iPhones and iPads can enjoy the same torment as I have experienced on both PC and Xbox 360. It is a torment of being forced to make impossibly awful survival decisions and living or dying by the consequences of what I have done. It is a torment of choosing who I want to live or die under the ever-watchful eyes of a young girl by the name of Clementine.
Point and click is a match made in heaven for a touch screen mobile device and players will most likely experience little, if any, device limitation on their journey. I played previous TellTale Adventures on PC and iOs with very positive results. The only concern I have is the price tag. The iOs community has managed to put a stranglehold on “acceptable” pricing for iTunes games The $4.99 USD per episode price point is not only the exact same price as its more graphically detailed PC and Console counterparts, but it is solidly $3 over the “acceptable” pricing model. They may be setting their product up for the obligatory “99 cent sale” that so many games have. It is honestly not a matter of whether the game is worth the money, I believe it is. Telltale has so far managed to keep even the “sale” prices at $2.99 USD for the most part. It will be interesting to see if this pricing model will survive the brutal price wars of the iTunes store.
