Telltale Is Giving Its Games The Jackbox Treatment

For most people, Telltale games aren’t a solo experience. They’re something you share with your family and friends, even if the input is strictly single-player only.

So at Comic Con on the weekend, Telltale confirmed that they were turning that social experience into a feature — for every Telltale game going forward.

In an interview with Shacknews, Telltale’s head of creative communications lifted the lid on what the company is calling “Crowd Play”. It’s an option not too dissimilar from the Jackbox games, where the game generates a link that people login to with via a browser.

You connect using a tablet, phone or computer — the same way you would with the Jackbox party games — and then players are given a choice of two modes. The first mode leaves every dialogue decision in the hands of the crowd, with live percentages appearing to show which choices are the most popular. The second mode lets the audience respond with a thumbs up or thumbs down to the controlling player’s actions, providing live feedback as to the direction of the story.

The Crowd Play voting figures will also be rolled into the statistics shown at the end of every chapter. It’s basically a way to make the Telltale games more of a social, streamable experience.

It’s an acknowledgement of how most people enjoy episodic games, and Telltale games in particular. It’s a democratic experience. You sit down with your partner, friends, family or the internet, and have a quickfire debates over which dialogue option to choose. You try and make your characters as unlikable as possible. You choose silence at every turn, and then you laugh over the consequences.

It’ll be implemented in every Telltale game going forward, starting with the first episode of the Batman: The Telltale Series on August 2. And if you didn’t see the launch trailer from earlier this morning, here it is again.


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