The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)

If you haven't played through Season 1, yet, do yourself the favor. This thread is for discussion of the game and how you played it. Make sure to use spoilers in your posts for anything story related.

Here's an article that I found to be perfectly in tune with everything I felt while playing through the game. Warning: Spoilers.: http://www.gamespot.com/features/beyond-good-and-evil-morality-and-consequence-in-the-walking-dead-6400562/

For those who haven't played the game yet, the following is most of the above article spoiler free. If you are wondering about this game and whether or not it interests you, read this.

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The best games extend the story beyond the role of a functional mechanic used to contextualise gameplay, and instead use it to create an emotional connection to the player, where they are confronted and compelled in equal measure. The Walking Dead is one of these games. It employs a decision-making system that forces its players to make difficult in-game choices, which in turn cause the gamer to confront their own morality, priorities, and sense of self.

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The Walking Dead isn't the first game I've played that offers up extensive player choice. I remember siding with the Imperial Legion in Skyrim for the good of Tamriel, and sacrificing my own life to save my son's in Heavy Rain. Those choices were clear; at least, they were to me, considering I believed that they were in line with my own sense of right and wrong. The choices in The Walking Dead are not clear; they are messy and devastating, with each difficult choice resulting in an often unpleasant consequence.

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The decision-making system in The Walking Dead is reminiscent of "Would You Rather" games that I played as a child. Two often unpleasant or downright awful options are offered up, and a choice must be made as to which would be more preferable.

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The Walking Dead is not a classic adventure game, as you don't have all the time in the world to play with puzzles or toy with dialogue options to make an informed decision. It is, in fact, quite the opposite. A menacing white time bar trickles down in the centre of the screen, forcing your decision to be impulsive and your actions to be permanent. The second I noticed the bar moving and realised my time was running out, I made a spontaneous decision that I wasn't aware I had even processed ... The result was confronting, so confronting, in fact, that I had to stop playing for a little while ... because I didn't know if I had made the right choice. I didn't know if there was even a right choice to make ... The Walking Dead seemed to not only force me to make impulsive decisions; it also subsequently left me considering what those decisions said about me as a person, my priorities, and moreover my personal sense of morality.

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The game doesn't make it easy to just be good or moral, because there's more at stake than getting Dark Side points or temporarily annoying a companion ... If you're cruel instead of comforting to an NPC in need, they will remember it, and it will factor in to their willingness to help when you inevitably need their help.

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... the characters are not under your control. Just because you step in doesn't mean the person in peril who you side with will be saved, or that the characters around you will go along with whatever you choose. The NPCs have their own families, concerns, priorities, and, yes, morality.

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This is a game that manages to confront the player beyond the mere act of telling a grisly story. Choice in games has generally been celebrated, but it is rarely taken beyond two paths. Here, it is transformed into a tangled web of spontaneous choices that drastically alter the player's experience ... Every episode left me lying awake, contemplating the results and feeling emotionally drained; each new option was accompanied by ramifications.

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Perhaps it's over-analysis, but I feel it would be remiss of me to deny the power of a game that can evoke so much emotion and contemplation that it makes me question my own beliefs. It is jarring to be faced with a reflection of yourself, particularly one you weren't expecting, and presented with a side you didn't think you had.

The Walking Dead is an unsettling game, and it tested my subconscious sense of self and priorities at every turn. It's fascinating to be able to connect with a video game in such a way that it pushes my own emotional boundaries to breaking point. Gameplay and story seldom come together in such a harmonious way as they do here, and, with such powerful results, my hope is that this season will provide a model of emotional resonance that other developers will also want to shoot for in their own games.

Personally, I think this game is a gem that everyone should experience.

Not a big fan of the show but I've heard endless good things about the game.

Sometimes I forget how much I love adventure games, definitely gonna play it as soon as I can.

It's definitely worth a play-through. It's easily worth the $20-25 price tag, but waiting for a sale might be a better option since the game is actually really short. I think i logged about 12 hours total, and replay value is debatable. Yes, it's a decision based game so you would think there's replay value to try things a different way, but i've found it's a general consensus among players to leave it at one playthrough because of the connection you establish with the game. I definitely feel as though the way i ended is my personal story, and that the results are canon within my game. Though i'm curious how things can pan out differently, i don't want to actually see things happen differently, and I don't want to go in with prior knowledge about events. The whole fun of the game was in the spontaneous, split decisions that really leave you questioning your own morals and being able to re-do those decisions would kill the charm of it.

Am I the only person here who's played the game through?

I'll wait for the inevitable disc release.

It's an XBLA/PSN game, so i doubt a disc release is coming ESPECIALLY since the game is made in episodes and there's more to come. Season 1 is complete, season 2 is on the way.

It can also be bought on Steam or Iphone/Ipad.

But Back to the Future was packaged into a retail release. I'm certain that the same will happen to The Walking Dead.

Good point. I didn't know that game was episodic as well.

Disc release confirmed for December 4th.

Disc release came out 4 days ago if anyone was waiting on that.

More importantly, Spike's Video Game Awards have concluded, and The Walking Dead won in quite a few categories:

Game of the Year

Studio of the Year (Telltale Games)
Best performance by a human female (Melissa Hutchison as Clementine)
Best adapted video game
Best downloadable game

why did they clarify that it was a "human" female
were people really incredulous as to whether or not it's actually a real girl voicing in a game or

As someone who has never seen the show, should I watch it before playing this, or is it good enough stand-alone.

I will watch the show eventually, I was just wondering if I can play the game first.

It takes place earlier in the timeline than the show or comic. If you read the comic, you'll get to see a few familiar locations and faces from an earlier time, but they aren't much more than cameos. The game can be played stand-alone and be almost exactly the same.

50% off on steam for the next 10 hours, community spotlight sale.