The big adventure game news this week has been the announcement that Telltale Games will be producing a series of games featuring Wallace and Gromit. You can read the official press release,
here.
The thing that struck me as really odd is that nowhere in the whole press release is there a mention of Nick Park, the man who created the wonderful characters to begin with. While I appreciate the role of Ardman in the success of the films, the true creative star is Nick Park and it's a pity they didn't mention him.
I'm sure that Telltale will do an excellent job, particularly as the trailer on
this page already holds great promise. However, my first reaction was that it's a real shame that a British company couldn't have been chosen to make the games.
Then I thought about it some more and realised that there is no one here that could do it. Quality adventure development in the UK is pretty much non-existent.
Even if we look to Europe, where we regularly see adventures being developed, I don't think that there is one of them who would do maximum justice to a license like W&G.
Telltale Games really is the best choice for this project.
Not only has the company proved they can deliver to a regular schedule with two seasons of Sam and Max, what they've shown of W&G so far looks incredibly promising and as a fan of the films I can't wait for the games to come out.
What I find a little scary in all of this, is that when you look around for studios capable of creating humorous, fun adventure games capable of extending beyond the core fan market, there really aren't many around.
Good luck, Telltale. My god, how we need you to succeed.
Labels: Game Development
