A trade name , trading name , or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name . Registering the fictitious name with a relevant government body is often required.
158-618: Telltale Incorporated ( trade name : Telltale Games ) was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California . The company was founded in July 2004 by former LucasArts developers Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, following LucasArts' decision to leave the adventure game genre. Telltale established itself to focus on adventure games using a novel episodic release schedule over digital distribution , creating its own game engine ,
316-470: A Sam & Max game required both development of tools to produce the game, and the license to make it. At the time of the studio's founding, the license for Sam & Max was still held by LucasArts, who refused to negotiate a deal nor license the work on Sam & Max: Freelance Police for Telltale to complete it. Telltale waited out the licensing period until around mid-2005, after which Steve Purcell , Sam & Max ' s creator, immediately offered
474-414: A class-action lawsuit was filed by former Telltale employee Vernie Roberts, representing about a total of 275 Telltale employees, alleging that Telltale violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act) and the more stringent requirements set by California of requiring at least 60 days notification before issuing mass layoffs. Telltale did not officially comment on
632-444: A $ 20 to $ 30 million franchise. Their The Walking Dead video game presented an alteration of Telltale's approach, as rather than a traditional adventure game where players would need to solve puzzles, The Walking Dead was more focused on providing a cinematic experience but presenting choices to the player, either through dialog trees or through quick time events, that would create "determinants" that would feed into latter parts of
790-466: A 3-episode mini-season and a final 4-episode season. The Walking Dead is considered to have revitalized the waning adventure game genre due to this more emotionally driven focus. Since The Walking Dead , nearly all of Telltale's games have used a similar approach of being built around the impacts of the player's choices as determinants in later episodes and seasons. Telltale has had several other licensing details from popular works, including Tales from
948-420: A DBA must be registered with a local or state government, or both, depending on the jurisdiction. For example, California, Texas and Virginia require a DBA to be registered with each county (or independent city in the case of Virginia) where the owner does business. Maryland and Colorado have DBAs registered with a state agency. Virginia also requires corporations and LLCs to file a copy of their registration with
1106-467: A DBA statement, though names including the first and last name of the owner may be accepted. This also reduces the possibility of two local businesses operating under the same name, although some jurisdictions do not provide exclusivity for a name, or may allow more than one party to register the same name. Note, though, that this is not a substitute for filing a trademark application. A DBA filing carries no legal weight in establishing trademark rights. In
1264-516: A businessperson writes a trade name on a contract, invoice, or cheque, they must also add the legal name of the business. Numbered companies will very often operate as something other than their legal name, which is unrecognizable to the public. In Chile , a trade name is known as a nombre de fantasía ('fantasy' or 'fiction' name), and the legal name of business is called a razón social (social name). In Ireland , businesses are legally required to register business names where these differ from
1422-474: A children's game developer, but they also developed titles aimed at more mature audiences under the Cavedog Entertainment label. Humongous created several series of point-and-click adventure games aimed at children, all of which used SCUMM until 2003. In the aftermath of Freelance Police ' s cancellation in 2004, LucasArts dismissed many of their designers who worked on adventure games. Most of
1580-461: A different composer coincidentally named Michael Land, Bajakian, McConnell, and Anna Karney. In addition to the Windows version, support was added for Mac OS 9 and a PlayStation 2 version was released in 2001. In July 2009, LucasArts released an enhanced remake of the 1990 title The Secret of Monkey Island , with the intent of bringing the old game to a new audience. According to LucasArts, this
1738-502: A game based on a different existing franchise in 1993 with Sam & Max Hit the Road . Designed by Sean Clark , Michael Stemmle , Steve Purcell and Collette Michaud, the game was based on comic book characters Sam and Max , which were created by Purcell. As with Day of the Tentacle , the game featured a full voice soundtrack upon release. The players' interaction with the game's environment
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#17328551719791896-509: A game's development across all departments within Telltale, and specifically helped to reduce memory use in some scenes, which had been identified as causing bugs in some consoles' versions. In mid-June 2018, Variety reported that Telltale was moving away from the Telltale Tool and instead toward the established Unity game engine. The Stranger Things game was expected to be the first to use
2054-477: A game's overall narration, often being summarized as "choices don't matter"; players may make choices to save a character from death early in a game, but only to have that character die later for the game to have a cohesive plot and making the player's effort to save the character meaningless, for example. Former employees of Telltale Games have gone on to adapt the narrative aspects of these games into their own products. Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin , co-writers of
2212-472: A group of former LucasArts employees who worked on the studio's adventure games . In March 2004, LucasArts recognized that there were "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" that made adventure games too risky to release, and canceled work on two sequels of previous adventure games, Full Throttle 2 and Sam & Max: Freelance Police , as well as laying off many of those developers. Bruner, Connors and Molander were not among
2370-488: A layoff of 25% of the company's staff in November 2017, along with an emphasis to slow down game production to improve production quality, retire the Telltale Tool for a more standard game engine, and seek other lucrative properties to develop for. This resulted in an early 2018 deal with Netflix in which Telltale would adapt its Minecraft: Story Mode into an interactive program for the streaming service, and Netflix licensing
2528-500: A license in 2011 to develop a King's Quest adventure game based on the original Sierra games, but Activision took back the rights in 2013, which were subsequently used by The Odd Gentlemen to create their 2015 episodic King's Quest game. Telltale's breakthrough success came with the licenses of the comic book series The Walking Dead and Fables in association with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in 2011. Allison anticipated that The Walking Dead series could be
2686-447: A live orchestra. The original DOS CD version of the game was playable at any time with the press of a button. Following the success of the first special edition, LucasArts released the sequel, Monkey Island 2 Special Edition , in the summer of 2010. Like the original special edition, the second special edition used an updated engine that supported high resolution graphics, and utilized the original game's resource files. This time, since
2844-545: A more mature game, but eventually reworked this to a family-friendly title, while for their Guardians of the Galaxy game, the storywriters had written a story they felt more true to the humor and wit of the source material, but were told by management to make a darker story. Further, anonymous sources from Telltale stated that very few of the games were profitable, with only The Walking Dead: The First Season , Minecraft: Story Mode , and revenues from publishing 7 Days to Die turning
3002-408: A new series of episodic adventure games, Tales of Monkey Island . Development of this project was led by Dave Grossman , with Michael Stemmle assisting with design and story production. The development team also included members with past experience from both The Curse of Monkey Island and Escape from Monkey Island . In addition, series creator Ron Gilbert was involved in the early design of
3160-667: A new studio in 2019, Skunkape Games, made up of himself and former Telltale employees Jake Rodkin, Randy Tudor, and Jonathan Sgro. Between 2020 and 2024, the studio released remasters of Telltale's Sam & Max games with assistance from other members of the original development team. In 2021, Telltale co-founder Kevin Bruner created a new studio Dramatic Labs with more than twenty former Telltale employees, including former lead writer and creative director Andrew Grant, former lead writer Dan Martin, former creative director Kent Mudle, and former executive producer and creative director Brett Tosti. Dramatic Labs' first game, Star Trek: Resurgence ,
3318-407: A one-time " season pass " purchase for the game's season when the first episode of the season was released, with the user then entitled to all planned episodes for that season. For digital purchases, this entitlement was handled through the digital storefront. In retail, Telltale published complete seasons after the season's digital release was over, but also adopted a model where they could publish, at
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#17328551719793476-419: A portion of his shares in the company. Telltale stated the claims were "meritless". In its response to Bruner's lawsuit, Telltale stated that the company "is now working to turn around the decline that it experienced under [Bruner]'s stewardship". Kent Mudle, the creative director for The Walking Dead: The Final Season , stated that the new management had shown a great deal of effort to turn the studio around from
3634-652: A portrait of a publisher that is constantly releasing buggy and even outright broken games", seemingly lacking the resources to fix or even monitor most of them. Telltale moved to an improved version of their engine around early 2016, partially implemented first in The Walking Dead: Michonne and completed for the release of Batman: The Telltale Series . The updated Telltale Tool provided direct support for DirectX 11 features, including physics-based models, texture mapping and blending, and dynamic lighting and shadows. The changes also helped automate and integrate
3792-441: A profit. Batman: The Telltale Series , released in 2016 was said to be one of the worst commercial failures for the company. On March 15, 2017, Bruner announced he had stepped down as CEO of Telltale, though Variety reported that he had been voted out of this position by the board of directors. Bruner turned the day-to-day operations to Connors, while still remaining on the board of directors. Bruner said "The time has come to pass
3950-511: A puzzle-solving game in collaboration with Graham Annable , was released in June 2010, while Poker Night at the Inventory , a crossover poker game featuring characters from Sam and Max , Homestar Runner , Valve's Team Fortress 2 , and the webcomic Penny Arcade , was released late in 2010. Telltale followed up Puzzle Agent with a sequel, Puzzle Agent 2 , in 2011. In 2013, Telltale continued
4108-458: A registered legal name and a fictitious business name, or trade name, is important because fictitious business names do not always identify the entity that is legally responsible . Legal agreements (such as contracts ) are normally made using the registered legal name of the business. If a corporation fails to consistently adhere to such important legal formalities like using its registered legal name in contracts, it may be subject to piercing of
4266-417: A resurgence in the adventure game genre, which had been languishing since about 2000. Dontnod Entertainment found the episodic approach to storytelling to be an ideal way to present Life Is Strange , and it has allowed them to release supplementary stories within the series in smaller pieces. Telltale's approach to branching stories has often been criticized, with choices ultimately having little effect on
4424-503: A second season for Sam & Max , and found additional niche intellectual property areas, including Wallace & Gromit and Homestar Runner , to continue the episodic adventure game format. When Darrell Rodriguez became CEO of LucasArts in 2008, he wanted to see the old LucasArts adventure properties flourish, leading to a license for Telltale to create a new game in the Monkey Island series, Tales of Monkey Island . Telltale
4582-456: A strong experience that pays homage to the original film or franchise. In a September 2017 interview, Job Stauffer called Telltale's role as "an interactive TV network and a studio", able to produce content across a wide range of genres on a regular basis. He considered their studio something between a video game developer and a cable or streaming network with production capabilities like HBO or Netflix . In general, Telltale offered its games as
4740-507: A three-hour timeframe to gather any belongings they did not manage to collect in the 30 minutes following the majority closure decision. The suddenness of the closure, along with the lack of post-layoff support for the employees, led to renewed discussions about the need for video game developers to unionize, with the Game Workers Unite grassroots movement calling the treatment of the Telltale employees "exploitative". On September 24, 2018,
4898-513: A trademark of Lucasarts' adventure games. Gilbert stated an example of a game taking place in Los Angeles where one needed a pencil but that pencil was located in New York: "It's kind of silly to think that there are no pencils in L.A., but in many adventure games, that is how the world seems to be. Using humor lets you turn a weakness into an advantage. You can use crazy ideas to solve puzzles, and when
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5056-420: Is LucasArts' first video game adaptation of a film. It is the only adventure game not published by LucasArts, as Labyrinth was published and distributed by Activision . Labyrinth was followed in 1987 by Maniac Mansion . Maniac Mansion was the creation of Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, and marked the debut of SCUMM , the game engine that powered all but two of LucasArts later adventure games. The game
5214-454: Is also sometimes used. A company typically uses a trade name to conduct business using a simpler name rather than using their formal and often lengthier name. Trade names are also used when a preferred name cannot be registered, often because it may already be registered or is too similar to a name that is already registered. Using one or more fictitious business names does not create additional separate legal entities. The distinction between
5372-422: Is called a razón social . LucasArts adventure games From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, LucasArts was well known for their point-and-click graphic adventure games , nearly all of which received high scoring reviews at the time of their release. Their style tended towards the humorous, often irreverent or slapstick humor , with the exceptions of Loom and The Dig . Their game design philosophy
5530-526: The Freelance Police development team, including Brendan Q. Ferguson , Dave Grossman and Chuck Jordan , formed Telltale Games in 2005, to continue the development of graphic adventures. Michael Stemmle, the lead designer of Freelance Police , joined the company in 2008. In 2005, LucasArts' license with Steve Purcell concerning the Sam & Max franchise expired. Purcell, who had left LucasArts in 1997, moved
5688-665: The Minecraft: Story Mode project porting to Netflix. Telltale Games filed for assignment in October 2018. Many assets were later acquired by LCG Entertainment, which revived the Telltale Games name as part of its business in August 2019, retaining many of the company's previous licenses and offering former staff freelance positions. Telltale Games was founded in San Rafael, California , by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander,
5846-459: The United Kingdom , there is no filing requirement for a "business name", defined as "any name under which someone carries on business" that, for a company or limited liability partnership, "is not its registered name", but there are requirements for disclosure of the owner's true name and some restrictions on the use of certain names. A minority of U.S. states, including Washington , still use
6004-454: The eighth generation of video game consoles emerged, and while the Telltale Tool was ported to these platforms, it showed its age in graphics quality, which also diminished Telltale's products. There was also a new trend of major AAA titles focusing more on emotional story-telling, such as God of War , which Telltale would not easily be able to compete with. The company was also hobbled by working with established IP, and inconsistencies in
6162-402: The 1990s, suggesting that should the renewed endeavour be successful, the developers would be keen to continue with further adventure titles. The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition ran in an engine updated for high definition graphics that utilized the original game's resources, including the original SCUMM scripts. The special edition featured new high definition art and music played by
6320-452: The 2017 layoffs. According to narrative designer Emily Grace Buck, management would frequently demand rewrites of materials, with most games having between 60 and 90 percent of the content reworked after executive review. Bruner and management created a "culture of fear" of demotion or firing among developers. Some of these rewrites had come days prior to an episode's submission date for certification, creating hasty rewrites that filtered through
6478-675: The Borderlands based on the Borderlands series by Gearbox Software , and Game of Thrones , based on the HBO television show adaption, Minecraft: Story Mode based on the Mojang game, Minecraft , Batman from DC Comics , and Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series from Marvel Comics . On retrospective after the studio's closure, former employees of Telltale believed that
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6636-603: The Borderlands in February 2021. Following negotiations with Sherwood Partners starting in February 2019, LCG Entertainment acquired several key Telltale assets and on August 28, 2019, announced that it was re-launching the company by assuming "Telltale Games" as its trade name , operating out of Malibu, California , with a satellite studio in Corte Madera, California . Under the leadership of founders Jamie Ottilie ( chief executive officer ) and Brian Waddle ( chief revenue officer ),
6794-607: The CD-ROM). The Secret of Monkey Island is the first game in the Monkey Island series and was released in 1990. The game, noted for its greater use of witty humor over previous titles, was designed by Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer . The concept itself was pioneered by Gilbert. Following the deviation in gameplay in Loom , The Secret of Monkey Island returned to similar point-and click gameplay featured in Indiana Jones and
6952-679: The Future and Jurassic Park . Notably, Telltale's Jurassic Park: The Game was the first game to break away from the standard adventure game format, including elements like quick time events and time-limited choices which would become a core gameplay element in their future adventure games. Telltale obtained the license from NBC Universal to develop episodic series around the Law & Order franchise in April 2011. By 2010, Telltale had proven itself successful, with yearly revenues of $ 10 million, 90% greater than
7110-488: The Future and Jurassic Park . Telltale's critical breakout game came in 2012's The Walking Dead , based on the comic book series of the same name . It introduced a more narrative-directed approach that diverged from the standard adventure game "point and click" gameplay. The Walking Dead gave the player the ability to make choices that could affect how future events in the game or its sequels played out, effectively allowing players to craft their own personalized take on
7268-437: The Galaxy , and Batman , but the rate of production created a " crunch time " culture behind the scenes, leaving poor company morale, little room for creativity to veer from the formula set by The Walking Dead or improvements on the Telltale Tool. A management shakeup occurred in early 2017, with CEO Bruner stepping down, and Pete Hawley, formerly of Zynga , brought in to fix Telltale's problems. Internal restructuring led to
7426-672: The Last Crusade . The SCUMM engine was again upgraded for the title. Set in the Caribbean in the Golden Age of Piracy , the game introduced Guybrush Threepwood , a hapless amateur pirate. The game's MIDI music soundtrack was the first to feature work by Michael Land . The CD-ROM re-release added a new CD-audio music soundtrack, and updated the game's graphical user interface. A sequel to The Secret of Monkey Island , Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge , followed in 1991. As with its predecessor, it
7584-454: The LucasArts to develop special editions of the first two Monkey Island games and the Telltale helmed adventure game Tales of Monkey Island . LucasArts' first adventure game was the 1986 title Labyrinth . The game's development was led by David Fox , with contributions from Douglas Adams , Christopher Cerf , Noah Falstein and Brenda Laurel . Based on the film of the same name , it
7742-476: The Plant and Sam & Max cameo appearances, that spanned numerous games. Most of the games were designed by the people with experience from creating preceding adventure games for LucasArts, and the same composers were involved in the majority of productions. In 2004, after a string of titles that never reached release, LucasArts ceased development on graphic adventure games. Many of the development staff involved in
7900-503: The SCUMM engine was completely overhauled to produce significantly more advanced graphics than any previous LucasArts adventure game. The resulting distinct cartoon style was created by artist Bill Tiller . The Curse of Monkey Island featured slightly refined gameplay based on the pie menu interface used in Full Throttle . The character of Guybrush Threepwood returns, with a voice actor for
8058-510: The Sith engine as a base and coded using Lua . The new engine resulted in a redesign in control and gameplay: instead of using point-and-click mechanics, the player uses the keyboard or a gamepad to interact with the game. Full-motion video cut scenes are used to advance the plot, stylized to be nearly indistinguishable from the in-game backgrounds. GrimE was also a true 3D engine: characters are collections of 3D-rendered polygons. Grim Fandango
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#17328551719798216-503: The Switch due to content, but they were focusing on their more recent, family-friendly games like Minecraft: Story Mode , Batman , and Guardians of the Galaxy only due to ease of porting these to the Switch, while older games like The Walking Dead required more effort to port. The Telltale Tool is a proprietary game engine developed by Telltale. Telltale commenced development on the engine shortly after its founding, initially referring to
8374-480: The Telltale Tool led to a perception that many of Telltale's games had an abnormally high rate of bugs and other technical flaws, pervasive enough to pose a significant risk of impeding players' ability to progress through a given game. A 2015 article by Kotaku noted that "their games, wonderful in many ways as they may be, have been accompanied by an undercurrent of fan anger" over widespread bugs and glitches. The article concluded that Telltale's support forums "paint
8532-422: The Telltale Tool, to support this. It closed in October 2018 after filing for bankruptcy protection. Telltale's initial successes were on games using intellectual properties with small but dedicated fan bases, including Sam & Max , Wallace & Gromit , Homestar Runner , and Bone . Around 2010, the studio gained more lucrative licensing opportunities in more mainstream properties such as Back to
8690-408: The Tentacle in 2016, and Full Throttle in 2017. Following the release of Escape from Monkey Island in 2000, LucasArts put three further adventure games into development, but all three were later canceled. The first of these was Full Throttle: Payback , a sequel to Full Throttle that began production in early 2000. Tim Schafer, the original creator of Full Throttle , was not involved in
8848-418: The U.S., trademark rights are acquired by use in commerce, but there can be substantial benefits to filing a trademark application. Sole proprietors are the most common users of DBAs. Sole proprietors are individual business owners who run their businesses themselves. Since most people in these circumstances use a business name other than their own name, it is often necessary for them to get DBAs. Generally,
9006-470: The Unity-based engine. Telltale helped other developers to publish their games. Under the moniker Telltale Publishing, Telltale entered into a publishing deal with Jackbox Games to bring the console versions of The Jackbox Party Pack to retail markets, and with The Fun Pimps to publish 7 Days to Die for consoles; according to Variety , this publishing deal was as financially successful for Telltale as
9164-403: The amount of time that the creators and developers could spend on content in order to maintain a consistent flow of episodes to consumers but impacted the quality of games. There was a perpetual drive to release new episodes on a regular basis, whether they were good or not, so that the company had a continued source of income. This particularly affected the Telltale Tool, the game engine used since
9322-457: The beginning of 2000 to found Double Fine Productions . Among their games include The Cave , a game designed by Gilbert and developed by Double Fine, inspired by the multiple-character approach of Maniac Mansion , and Broken Age , a point-and-click adventure game financed by crowdfunding through Kickstarter , one of the first games demonstrating this as a viable mechanism for game development. Double Fine has been able to engage in acquiring
9480-400: The co-designers for Sam & Max Hit the Road , was the lead designer for the project. Series creator Steve Purcell, who had left LucasArts in 1997, worked as an advisor for the development team. Freelance Police was displayed alongside Hell on Wheels at the 2003 E3 convention, where the game's trailer was revealed. Although development appeared to be proceeding smoothly, Freelance Police
9638-423: The company on a new course. Unfortunately, we ran out of time trying to get there. We released some of our best content this year and received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, but ultimately, that did not translate to sales. With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the games industry. Those who were let go reported they were given no warning, had to leave
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#17328551719799796-557: The company remains in assignment as of April 2019. Various digital storefronts started removing Telltale products from their marketplaces by that November. For some of these removed games, after rights were returned, the original company was able to rerelease the titles through a new publisher; for example, Skybound republished all four seasons of The Walking Dead as one collection, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series , in September 2019, while Gearbox Software rereleased Tales from
9954-420: The company to get past these problems. In November 2017, a restructuring of the company cut about 90 positions, about a quarter of their staff, which was not expected to affect the release of any existing projects. Hawley said that the restructuring was for "reorienting our organization with a focus on delivering fewer, better games with a smaller team". While Telltale had not stated which positions were let go in
10112-490: The company took on more projects, rushing the development schedules. Until 2016, Telltale Tool did not have a physics engine , meaning that if a scene required an object to fall, this had to be animated by hand, taking time from other more productive activities. This also prevented them from using elements like dynamic lighting, and required them to develop lighting models using 3D modeling tools like Maya , significantly extending time to develop art assets. The aged feature set of
10270-414: The company's inception, which caused numerous bugs in released episodes that Telltale became infamously noted for. The anonymous QC tester stated that their department was nearly always under crunch time, working from 48 to 60 hours a week on testing at least two-game series across multiple platforms simultaneously, and were understaffed, leading to some of the quality control issues as well. During this time,
10428-401: The company. The company's initial goal was to develop a new Sam & Max game in an episodic format. Grossman said that Telltale identified that Sam & Max had a small but dedicated audience allowing them to develop a title that would be successful in reaching out to this group and not requiring them to seek out a bigger license that would have incurred more development costs. Developing
10586-484: The corporate veil . In English , trade names are generally treated as proper nouns . In Argentina , a trade name is known as a nombre de fantasía ('fantasy' or 'fiction' name), and the legal name of business is called a razón social (social name). In Brazil , a trade name is known as a nome fantasia ('fantasy' or 'fiction' name), and the legal name of business is called razão social (social name). In some Canadian jurisdictions , such as Ontario , when
10744-522: The county or city to be registered with the State Corporation Commission. DBA statements are often used in conjunction with a franchise . The franchisee will have a legal name under which it may sue and be sued, but will conduct business under the franchiser's brand name (which the public would recognize). A typical real-world example can be found in a well-known pricing mistake case, Donovan v. RRL Corp. , 26 Cal. 4th 261 (2001), where
10902-466: The earlier games. Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders introduced digital music to LucasArts adventure games in the form of MIDI . In 1989, LucasArts released their first adaptation of one of Lucasfilm's major franchises: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade , based on the film of the same name . The game again upgraded the SCUMM engine's capabilities, but kept similar gameplay. The project
11060-408: The engine as the "Telltale Engine and Toolset". A casual poker game, Telltale Texas Hold'em , was created to test their engine and distribution model, and to ensure that all major bugs were ironed out before the release of their first adventure game , Bone: Out from Boneville . The Telltale Tool has been used for every game developed by Telltale Games, and continued to receive improvements since
11218-476: The entire production process. This rush created some of the apparent "bugs" in the Telltale Tool which Buck stated were more often a result of the inability to smooth out hastily reworked animations as well as perpetuating the crunch time culture within the company. Other cases of narrative rewrites were a result of different expectations by some of the executive management. Buck stated that they had originally been driven by management to make Minecraft: Story Mode as
11376-557: The episode and into future episodes; one example would be deciding which of one of two characters to save from a zombie attack at the spur of the moment. While these decisions do not have a direct impact on the game's overall narrative and structure, it provides a more personalized story around what decisions the player had made. This format proved highly successful: the game sold one million copies in 20 days, exceeded 8.5 million episode purchases by 2013, and an estimated $ 40 million in revenue. The success led to two additional 5-episode seasons,
11534-713: The episodic format. Though initially planned for a five-episode series, Telltale only released two episodes in 2005 and 2006 and the remaining episode had been canceled. Alongside Bone , Telltale developed a series of games for Ubisoft around the CSI television series, including CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder , CSI: Hard Evidence , CSI: Deadly Intent , and CSI: Fatal Conspiracy ; though these games were also developed as episodes, they were each released in single packages. Outside of Ubisoft, few other publishers were interested in distributing Telltale's early games, forcing them to turn to their own distribution system. Once they had secured
11692-671: The firm's closure called this transition "the beginning of the end" for Telltale. With Bruner's placement as CEO in January 2015, Telltale said it was developing a game based on its own intellectual property as a result of this leadership change. In February 2015, Lionsgate announced an investment within Telltale Games to produce a number of "Super Shows", a hybrid interactive work combining television and video game elements, which would be distributed through non-traditional channels such as through streaming services. The first Super Show planned
11850-406: The first The Walking Dead season. On August 18, 2016, Telltale published Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n by Night School Studio . During the company's restructuring in 2017, the publishing branch of Telltale had been put on hiatus but was expected to be reused once the company regained its financial stability. The release of the first season of The Walking Dead in 2012 is considered to have created
12008-524: The first LucasArts adventure game to be released for Windows , although support for DOS was still retained. The game was the tenth to use the SCUMM engine, which had undergone further enhancements. The game kept a modified version of the streamlined interface used in Sam & Max Hit the Road , but introduced a contextual pie menu that dictated how players interacted with the game. Full Throttle featured technology called INSANE (Interactive Streaming Animation Engine) to assist with cut scene animation and
12166-459: The first game. Former employees of the original Telltale were skeptical of LCG's approach to the relaunch of Telltale, considering that offering only freelance work while in San Francisco, which has one of the highest costs-of-living in the country, is risky. Others have urged LCG to pay off its existing Telltale debt to its former employees, while others have called for a boycott of any game from
12324-444: The first season of The Walking Dead , decided to leave to pursue independent game development , founding Campo Santo in 2013 and releasing Firewatch , a critically praised narrative-driven exploration game. Adam Hines , a writer for Telltale, co-founded Night School Studio in 2014, subsequently releasing Oxenfree which heavily used a " walk and talk " mechanic as part of its gameplay. Four former employees who had left before
12482-413: The first time in the series, in an effort to save his fiancée from a voodoo curse. Michael Land once again composed the game's score. The Curse of Monkey Island would mark the end of support for DOS; the game was released on CD-ROM solely for Windows. For the 1998 title Grim Fandango , LucasArts retired the SCUMM engine in favor of a new 3D engine. The GrimE (Grim Engine) technology was created, using
12640-479: The franchise to Telltale Games. The company subsequently released Sam & Max Save the World in episodic fashion from late 2006 to early 2007. A second run of Sam & Max games, Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space , was released across late 2007 and early 2008. The third Sam & Max season The Devil's Playhouse was released in 2010. In 2009, LucasArts began a collaboration with Telltale Games to create
12798-467: The game used the iMUSE system, the engine had to be modified to run the new live orchestra music in various arrangements that simulated the shift in tone and pitch from scene to scene that iMUSE performed on the original MIDI music. The second special edition featured a change in control scheme as well as a change in art direction due to criticism of the first special edition. Double Fine Productions released remasters of Grim Fandango in 2015, Day of
12956-418: The game was set in a fantasy setting. As well as updating the engine's graphics through the use of dithering , Loom marked a major deviation in interacting with the game's world. Instead of using the standard point-and-click interface of previous games, Loom requires players to use four-note musical tunes to create spells on objects or other characters. Loom also introduced the game design philosophy that
13114-533: The game's action sequences. The game's musical score was produced by Peter McConnell, and incorporated a title theme by The Gone Jackals . Full Throttle was the first LucasArts adventure game to be distributed only on CD-ROM. Later in 1995, The Dig was published. Production had started in 1989, but The Dig was plagued with development problems. The final version of the game was overseen by Sean Clark, although two previous versions had involved Noah Falstein, Brian Moriarty and Dave Grossman. The game's story itself
13272-480: The game's music, which included excerpts, many as short as one or two chords, from Richard Wagner's work. The twelfth and final game to utilize SCUMM technology was the 1997 title The Curse of Monkey Island . The game was the third entry in the Monkey Island series, and the first not to involve series creator Ron Gilbert. Development was instead led by Jonathan Ackley and Larry Ahern . For its final outing,
13430-627: The high risk graphic adventure games that had brought success in earlier years. LucasArts subsequently dismissed many of the designers involved with developing their adventure games, and in 2006 LucasArts president Jim Ward stated that the company may return to developing adventure games in 2015, effectively ending their adventure game era. According to LucasArts' game design philosophy, the player should be entertained, focusing on story and exploration, instead of being excessively punished for mistakes or frustrated by trial and error. Their adventure games would not contain dead ends nor player death, unlike
13588-408: The initial version, such as compatibility to new systems and better graphics capabilities. The only third-party game to use the Telltale Tool, Hector: Badge of Carnage , was developed by Straandlooper and also published by Telltale Games. While the Telltale Tool has been updated over the years to support newer consoles and computers, it lacked features that made it more difficult to develop for as
13746-450: The last two episodes of The Final Season through their Skybound Games division and with the original development team from Telltale. On October 4, 2018, narrative designer Rachel Noel stated that her team within the skeleton crew was also laid off, and that there were "not many" people left at the company. Telltale saw assignment proceedings begin on October 11, 2018, working through Sherwood Partners to liquidate all remaining assets;
13904-402: The law is to protect the public from fraud, by compelling the business owner to first file or register his fictitious business name with the county clerk, and then making a further public record of it by publishing it in a newspaper. Several other states, such as Illinois , require print notices as well. In Uruguay , a trade name is known as a nombre fantasía , and the legal name of business
14062-490: The layoffs, but felt that the change of direction at LucasArts was not favorable, and departed the company later that year to found Telltale Games July 2004. The studio opening was announced on October 4. The name "Telltale" was selected by Bruner as the three envisioned themselves creating more adventure games but de-emphasizing puzzle elements in favor of narrative aspects, telling a tale to the user. Technology attorney Ira P. Rothken negotiated publishing and licensing deals for
14220-540: The let-go developers over finishing the game. Two anonymous sources speaking to Ethan Gach of Kotaku clarified that Telltale was trying to convince potential development partners to hire the staff Telltale had laid off, so that the staff could remotely finish the two remaining episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season . During the 2018 New York Comic Con , Robert Kirkman , the creator of The Walking Dead comic, stated that his production company Skybound Entertainment had completed negotiations with Telltale to finish
14378-423: The license to Telltale. Until they could get to that point, the studio developed other games to bring in revenue and keep the studio afloat. On February 11, 2005, the company released their first game, Telltale Texas Hold'em , a poker card game simulator which was intended primarily to test the Telltale Tool, their in-house game engine. They used the license around Jeff Smith 's Bone comic book series to test
14536-507: The license. Telltale relocated to a larger space and expanded from 125 to 160 in mid-2013. Around 2015, the company had grown to 200 to 250 employees. The company continued to grow, at its peak having about 400 employees in mid-2017. In the midst of this growth, in 2014–2015, the management of Telltale recognized the need to restructure to handle more projects and more staff. This led to original chief executive officer (CEO) Dan Connors resigning and being replaced by co-founder Kevin Bruner, who
14694-501: The majority of early adventure games such as those of Sierra . In 1989, while designing the first Monkey Island game, Ron Gilbert wrote an article titled "Why Adventure Games Suck" outlining what he perceived to be design flaws in adventure games of the time. In writing the Maniac Mansion script, Gilbert purposely made some of the puzzle solutions irreverent and humorous as an anti-thesis to early adventure games, which would become
14852-428: The making of these games moved on to form new companies, continuing to produce similar games at studios such as Telltale Games , Double Fine Productions , and Autumn Moon Entertainment . In 2009, however, LucasArts made a collaboration with Telltale to revive the Monkey Island series , one of the old LucasArts adventure franchises, as well as stating its intent to revisit its past portfolio. This collaboration brought
15010-479: The management division. Production ceased in November 2000, when a quarter of the levels and about 40 percent of the preproduction art were complete. Ahern and Tiller both left LucasArts in 2001. Another Full Throttle sequel began production in 2002. Entitled Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels , the game was to be for the PlayStation 2 and Xbox consoles. In contrast to the original Full Throttle , Hell on Wheels
15168-461: The named defendant, RRL Corporation, was a Lexus car dealership doing business as " Lexus of Westminster ", but remaining a separate legal entity from Lexus, a division of Toyota Motor Sales, USA, Inc. . In California , filing a DBA statement also requires that a notice of the fictitious name be published in local newspapers for some set period of time to inform the public of the owner's intent to operate under an assumed name . The intention of
15326-422: The new Telltale is set to re-release the old Telltale's back-catalog, as well as work on new games based on Telltale-affiliated properties. While licenses for games and planned games like The Walking Dead and Stranger Things have since reverted to their original owners, the new Telltale retains licenses for The Wolf Among Us and Batman , as well as the intellectual property for Puzzle Agent . The new Telltale
15484-422: The new Telltale. As of 2022, roughly 50 percent of the company's staff is made up of former Telltale employees. Telltale Games released video games in episodic installments . It is seen by production studios and other content producers to take a more realistic approach to movie tie-in games rather than the difficult "see the movie, play the game" model, and also collaborates with studios and screenwriters to create
15642-502: The newly involved parties had previously worked with the old Telltale. The first game under this new company was a re-release of Batman: The Telltale Series , adding in a new noir-style shader among other fixes, which was released in December 2019. The company also announced The Wolf Among Us 2 at The Game Awards 2019 . The sequel is being made in partnership with Ad hoc Studios, a company composed of former Telltale employees who worked on
15800-436: The offered story. Nearly all of Telltale's adventure games afterwards featured this player choice-driven approach. The Walking Dead was critically praised and considered to have revitalized the adventure game genre since LucasArts' departure from it in 2004. Telltale continued to expand with new licensing deals for episodic adventure games over the next few years, including for Minecraft , Game of Thrones , Guardians of
15958-473: The office building within 30 minutes of the company's decision, received no severance , and only had a limited amount of time on their health care benefits. Melissa Hutchison , the voice actor for Clementine in The Walking Dead games, said that the news came in the middle of a recording session which they had to immediately end. On September 24, the former staff were allowed to return to the office within
16116-924: The only classic developer-publisher relationship was with Ubisoft for the CSI video game franchise . They have struck financial arrangements with GameTap for the first two seasons of the rebooted Sam & Max games, but their publishing arrangements have been chiefly made after the games were already completed and had already been sold via digital distribution. Telltale aimed to present itself on as many digital platforms and avenues as possible. It has released games through GameTap; on Microsoft Windows and OS X , through Steam and similar services, plus its own online store, on Wii via WiiWare and disc, on Xbox 360 , via Xbox Live Arcade and disc, on PlayStation 3 through PlayStation Network and disc, on iPhone and iPad through iTunes , on PlayStation Vita , and on Kindle Fire HDX . Though Telltale normally port their own games to other systems, CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder
16274-493: The original 8-bit style interface. Gilbert also directed a sixth game in the Monkey Island series, Return to Monkey Island , which was released in September 2022. Aric Wilmunder, one of the co-creators of the SCUMM engine, had taken some of the original design documents for the LucasArts games when he left the company. Sometime later, he decided to return these back to LucasArts, but the company suggested that since Wilmunder had kept his copies safe for years, that Wilmunder keep
16432-492: The player character cannot reach a dead-end or die; this design decision was applied to all later adventure games, with the exception of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis . A later CD-ROM re-release added Red Book CD-DA music featuring the compositions of Pyotr Tchaikovsky and a full voice soundtrack (although, as a consequence of using Red Book CD-DA for the speech, the dialogue script had to be shortened considerably to fit on
16590-632: The previous uses, with the executives staying more hands-off and reducing the amount of micromanagement of the creative teams. In June 2018, Telltale announced a partnership with Netflix for the streaming service to provide its games to subscribers, with the first planned game being Minecraft: Story Mode . Alongside this, Telltale announced that they were working on a yet-untitled game based on Netflix's original property, Stranger Things . According to Variety , there had been suggestions of teaming with Netflix for collaboration shortly after Stranger Things first aired in mid-2016, but Telltale's management at
16748-499: The previous year. Part of this was attributed to Back to the Future: The Game , which Steve Allison, the senior vice-president (VP) of marketing, called in 2011 their "most successful franchise to date". Allison stated that for most of their games, they only need to sell 100,000 copies to break even, but many of their recent releases have seen twice that number or more. The studio expanded from 90 to 140 employees. They had obtained
16906-413: The project as possible reasons for the decision. Additionally, Roy Conrad , the voice actor of the game's protagonist, had died in 2002. The final attempt by LucasArts to develop an original adventure game was Sam & Max: Freelance Police , a sequel to the 1993 title Sam & Max Hit the Road . The game was announced for Windows in 2002 as a counterpart to Hell on Wheels . Michael Stemmle, one of
17064-457: The project. Sam and Max were also included in the casual poker games developed by Telltale Games, Poker Night at the Inventory , released in 2010, and its sequel, Poker Night 2 , released in 2013. The company has gone on to develop other episodic adventure games from licensed properties, reaching critical success with their series of The Walking Dead games. Tim Schafer, the creator of Full Throttle and Grim Fandango , left LucasArts at
17222-404: The project. Instead, development was led by Larry Ahern and Bill Tiller, who had both worked on The Curse of Monkey Island . In the early stages, the project received positive feedback from other LucasArts employees. According to Tiller, however, Payback eventually fell apart because of disagreements over the game's style between the development team and "a particularly influential person" within
17380-452: The reins to someone that can better drive Telltale to the next level and realize all the potential that is here." Pete Hawley, the former VP for Games at Zynga , was announced as the new CEO, with Connors remaining on its Board and acting in an advisory role. Rather than other corporate "fixers" who take control of a company for a temporary period to help it regain its financial footing, Hawley had committed to staying with Telltale after helping
17538-481: The remaining two were released that December. Telltale released the second of four planned episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season as scheduled on September 25, 2018, and stated that it had been contacted by "multiple potential partners" to help bring the last two episodes of the series to completion in some manner. While some fans of the series were happy about the news, others, including Cory Barlog , suggested that Telltale should prioritize finding ways to pay
17696-569: The restructuring, sources speaking to USgamer stated that most were part of the management structure that led to these problems; coupled with Hawley's appointment as CEO, this was expected to be a turning point to help revitalize Telltale. In June 2018, Bruner filed a lawsuit against Telltale in relation to his departure, citing financial damages as he had been seemingly removed from the Board of Directors, and thus could not gain information related to Telltale's financial status in anticipation of selling off
17854-453: The reviewing process with management that led to last-minute reworking of some episodes. The Verge also found some of the employees they spoke to had stated that top-level executives, including Bruner, had become fixated on the format that The Walking Dead presented, making decisions that prevented developers from looking at alternative formats or variations from this formula, stifling creativity and leading to several staff departures prior to
18012-417: The rights to The Walking Dead television series, and Smilegate , a Korean mobile games publisher, were looking to invest in Telltale, but both pulled out the day before Telltale's closure announcement. Dan Murray, president of Skybound Interactive which was working with Telltale for The Walking Dead games, said "We knew some of the challenges Telltale was facing, but when the news hits so suddenly everyone
18170-529: The rights to Sam & Max , Telltale set about to making this game with an episodic approach, with episodes planned to be released on a tight monthly basis through their partner, GameTap. Sam & Max: Season One was considered a success for the company, and considered one of the first successful demonstration of an episodic release in video games. The success led to additional funding through two rounds of angel investment , including Matthew Le Merle and members of angel group Keiretsu Forum . The studio created
18328-466: The rights to Telltale for an adventure game based on its show Stranger Things . In the midst of releasing The Walking Dead: The Final Season , the company was forced to initiate a "majority studio closure" after their last investor had pulled out of funding. Telltale announced on September 21, 2018, that it had let go of all but 25 of its staff as part of this closure, with the remaining skeleton crew completing specific obligations, such as finishing
18486-498: The rights to the LucasArts games for making remasters. To date, they have released Grim Fandango Remastered (2015), Day of the Tentacle Remastered (2016), and Full Throttle Remastered (2017). Gilbert worked with Winnick, Fox and Ferrari to develop Thimbleweed Park , which was released at the end of March 2017. The game, also funded through Kickstarter, was designed as an homage to the early LucasArts adventures mimicking
18644-669: The same time as the digital release, a retail disc that contains the first episode. The disc included a "season pass" entitlement to the remaining episodes to be digitally downloaded, tied to the disc itself rather than the user. This allowed for trading or resale of the retail product that can be played by others, which according to Stauffer, makes for a "nice in-between" market model that satisfies players, retailers, and themselves. For some of their games, Telltale developed additional downloadable content , such as 400 Days for The Walking Dead , or three additional episodes for Minecraft: Story Mode Season 1, which must be purchased separately from
18802-400: The season pass. With Batman: The Telltale Series and most of their subsequently released episodic adventure games, Telltale added a "Crowd Play" feature that can be used by those that stream their playthroughs on services like Twitch . Through Crowd Play, viewers can vote for an option for the streamer to select. While mainly a developer, Telltale also verified its self-publishing ethos;
18960-593: The series with Poker Night 2 . The Walking Dead started out as a pilot program game that was known internally as the "zombie prototype". In general, few of these games brought in large revenues, and until 2010, the founders feared that investors would suddenly pull out of the company and would force its closure. Having established themselves as working with comedy franchises, Telltale chose to work with dramatic franchises as well as comedy series. In June 2010, Telltale announced that they had secured licenses with NBC Universal to develop two episodic series based on Back to
19118-405: The situation makes no sense, people don't grumble about it". The first game to adopt the design philosophy was Loom . After designer Brian Moriarty learned that players tended to list as their favourite Infocom games those they had completed, he designed Loom so that it would be impossible to lose. After Loom the sole exception was Fate of Atlantis , as the designers felt that player death
19276-671: The status of its in-progress games, including The Wolf Among Us: Season Two , Game of Thrones: Season Two , and the untitled Stranger Things project, but laid-off employees alleged that teams working on these games had all been let go. On September 24, Netflix announced that it is "in the process of evaluating other options for bringing the Stranger Things universe to life in an interactive medium." It also confirmed that it plans to go ahead with releasing Minecraft: Story Mode as planned. The first three episodes of Minecraft: Story Mode were subsequently released on Netflix on November 27, and
19434-539: The studio had been ready to close another round of financing when their last major investor pulled out. The company executives had to make the decision to end all production as soon as possible without this investment. While Connors did not specify which investor pulled out, Variety suggested that this may have been Lionsgate , which had contacted Telltale's board the previous week about its intent to pull out of funding Telltale in order to return to its core film business. Variety also reported that AMC Networks , which owns
19592-453: The studio in 2016 and 2017, according to Variety . By 2016, Bruner said that the Telltale studio had established an environment to be able to work on four major titles simultaneously with room for various side projects. However, this approach to development had created a perpetual state of " crunch time " within Telltale, according to several current and former staff speaking to USgamer , The Verge , and Variety in 2017. This limited
19750-440: The studio's closure—Michael Choung (who had briefly spent time at Night School Studio), Dennis Lenart, Nick Herman, and Pierre Shorette—formed AdHoc Studio with the intent to develop live-action interactive video games, following in Telltale's footsteps. AdHoc has since become involved with the new Telltale Games by LCG to help with the narrative and cinematic elements of The Wolf Among Us 2 . Telltale co-founder Dan Connors created
19908-431: The studio's expansion into all these additional licensed properties were trying to replicate the success of The Walking Dead , moving the company from a risk-taker to seeking risk aversion strategies. This was also propagated by the weight of the licensed properties: they had taken more conservative approaches to deliver a game that mirrored The Walking Dead , a well-known product, rather than take risks and potentially lose
20066-448: The studio's sudden closure. On September 21, 2018, CEO Pete Hawley announced that Telltale was undergoing a "majority studio closure", with around 90% of its present workforce (225 to 250 employees) let go that day. A core team of about 25 employees remained to "fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners", which includes completing the Minecraft: Story Mode interactive media project for Netflix . According to Dan Connors,
20224-454: The surname(s) of the sole trader or partners, or the legal name of a company. The Companies Registration Office publishes a searchable register of such business names. In Japan , the word yagō ( 屋号 ) is used. In Colonial Nigeria , certain tribes had members that used a variety of trading names to conduct business with the Europeans. Two examples were King Perekule VII of Bonny , who
20382-469: The term trade name to refer to "doing business as" (DBA) names. In most U.S. states now, however, DBAs are officially referred to using other terms. Almost half of the states, including New York and Oregon , use the terms assumed business name or assumed name ; nearly as many, including Pennsylvania , use the term fictitious name . For consumer protection purposes, many U.S. jurisdictions require businesses operating with fictitious names to file
20540-440: The themes for the future, past and present settings of the game respectively. Day of the Tentacle was the first game to drop support for older, less successful platforms, instead initially releasing only for DOS and Mac OS . The game was one of the first video games to feature a full voice soundtrack upon its release. Following the focus on the Maniac Mansion , Monkey Island and Indiana Jones franchises, LucasArts developed
20698-519: The time, including Bruner, rejected the idea. The Netflix partnership solidified after Hawley took over as CEO. The Stranger Things game would have been used to bridge the show's story between its second and third season. In addition to this game, Telltale had started working with Night School Studio in 2017 for them to make a first-person, narrative driven game that would have led into Telltale's game. However, Night School reported difficulty in cooperating with Telltale over 2018 and were also surprised by
20856-561: The whole set of documents together. Wilmunder has subsequently been working with an archivist at Stanford to preserve all the documents and potential donation to a museum, while scanning all of the documents and providing these on the Internet, along with transcribing the source code for SCUMM to GitHub . ScummVM is an open source emulator originally designed to play SCUMM-based games but has since expanded to play numerous other adventure games based on other commercial game engines. ScummVM
21014-399: Was "just the start of LucasArts' new mission to revitalize its deep portfolio of beloved gaming franchises". Described by British journalist John Walker as a "cautious toe in the water" for LucasArts, the move was prompted by LucasArts president Darrell Rodriguez, who had assumed the post only two months prior. According to Walker, many LucasArts employees had grown up playing the games from
21172-418: Was McConnell's last LucasArts project. As with The Curse of Monkey Island , the game was only released for Windows. The second title to use GrimE and the final original LucasArts adventure game to be released was Escape from Monkey Island . Released in 2000, the game is the fourth installment in the Monkey Island series. The game's development was led by Sean Clark and Michael Stemmle. The GrimE technology
21330-464: Was abruptly canceled in early 2004, just a few weeks before the game's marketing campaign was about to begin. LucasArts cited "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" as the reasons for their decision. Commentators, however, felt that the move was representative of a perceived decline in the adventure game genre, and that LucasArts was moving to maintain its position with low business risk Star Wars -themed titles instead of
21488-430: Was also able to expand their release platforms beyond personal computers, with releases of these games on various consoles at the time. To supplement their normal episodic games, Telltale created a pilot program in early 2010 to explore one-off games that would explore other gameplay and storytelling approaches that could eventually be incorporated into their episodic games. The first game, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent ,
21646-561: Was also the firm's president. Connors noted that with the studio's continued growth, it had begun experiencing growth-specific challenges. Connors stated that Bruner's ascension to CEO would best enable Telltale Games to act on future expansion opportunities. Connors remained on the board of directors , and also served as a creative consultant . Internally, there were concerns about this transition and Brunner's influence on it; an anonymous quality control (QC) employee writing in Gamasutra after
21804-489: Was also the first LucasArts adventure game to be released for DOS . Maniac Mansion was LucasArts' first full graphic adventure game , using a point-and-click interface rather than the text-based gameplay seen in Labyrinth . A menu of verbs allows the player to choose how to interact with the game's environment. Maniac Mansion aims to parody the horror genre. The game was subject to several enhancements and re-releases, and
21962-421: Was an original intellectual property (IP) developed by Telltale that would be able to take advantage of this format. Telltale also announced that Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer and Unity Technologies CEO John Riccitiello joined Telltale's board of directors. Alongside this, Lionsgate had invested US$ 40 million into Telltale. The "Super Show" concept never got out of pre-production, due to issues that arose with
22120-499: Was created by Tim Schafer, his final work for LucasArts. The game follows the tale of Manny Calavera, a travel agent in the Land of the Dead, as he becomes embroiled in a web of crime and corruption. As well as drawing inspiration from Aztec concepts of the afterlife , Grim Fandango is strongly rooted in film noir tradition. Peter McConnell composed the musical score ; as with Schafer, this
22278-458: Was designed by Ron Gilbert, Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer, though it would be Gilbert's last work for LucasArts. The game once again placed the player in the position of Guybrush Threepwood, searching for a fabled treasure in the Caribbean. Gameplay remained mostly unchanged from The Secret of Monkey Island , though the game's user interface was simplified to be more user-friendly. LeChuck's Revenge again featured music by Michael Land, although Land
22436-411: Was designed by Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman and focused on saving humanity from a megalomanic mutant tentacle by using time travel. It was Grossman's last project for LucasArts before leaving in 1994. The game featured a further upgrade in the SCUMM engine to enhance the graphics capabilities. Day of the Tentacle ' s music was composed by Michael Land, Clint Bajakian and Peter McConnell, who composed
22594-493: Was envisioned by Steven Spielberg , who had concluded that a film version would be prohibitively expensive. Spielberg's story focused on a group of astronauts becoming stranded on an alien world while on a mission to stop an asteroid hitting Earth. The Dig used the SCUMM engine and the INSANE technology. In addition, fellow Lucasfilm company Industrial Light & Magic was involved in the game's special effects. Michael Land composed
22752-426: Was expected to start small for the first six months to regain distribution channels, and the company has offered former staff of the old Telltale freelance roles within the company with the potential for full-time positions at a later point in time. Partners in the new Telltale include publisher Athlon Games , which will handle distribution, and financial contributors Chris Kingsley, Lyle Hall and Tobias Sjögren. None of
22910-413: Was included as a game within a game in its sequel, Day of the Tentacle . The third LucasArts adventure game was Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders , designed by David Fox, Matthew Kane, David Spangler and Ron Gilbert. Set within a science fiction setting, the game was released in 1988. It used a slightly upgraded version of the SCUMM engine, but adopted the same control and gameplay methods of
23068-509: Was joined by Clint Bajakian and Peter McConnell . In addition, the game marked the debut of iMuse (Interactive Music Streaming Engine), a system developed by Land and McConnell that allowed for the game's MIDI music to transition dynamically with the visuals. The 1992 title Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis was the second LucasArts adventure game based on the Indiana Jones franchise. Unlike its predecessor, The Fate of Atlantis featured an entirely original storyline. The development
23226-545: Was known as Captain Pepple in trade matters, and King Jubo Jubogha of Opobo , who bore the pseudonym Captain Jaja . Both Pepple and Jaja would bequeath their trade names to their royal descendants as official surnames upon their deaths. In Singapore , there is no filing requirement for a "trading as" name, but there are requirements for disclosure of the underlying business or company's registered name and unique entity number. In
23384-452: Was led by Hal Barwood and Noah Falstein, the latter of whom was one of the co-designers of The Last Crusade . The Fate of Atlantis was Falstein's last LucasArts project. The game incorporated the "Indy Quotient" system from The Last Crusade to allow the game to be completed in several ways. A 1993 CD-ROM re-release added a full voice soundtrack. Day of the Tentacle is the sequel to the 1987 title Maniac Mansion . Released in 1993, it
23542-444: Was led by Ron Gilbert, David Fox and Noah Falstein; it was Fox's last adventure game for the company. A quotient point system, referred to as "Indy Quotient", allowed the player to overcome puzzles in several different ways, such as fighting a guard, sneaking past the guard, or convincing the guard to allow the player to pass. Loom was the fourth game to utilize the SCUMM engine and was released in 1990. Designed by Brian Moriarty ,
23700-401: Was necessary to create tension, which was required for an Indiana Jones story. As various designers left LucasArts, new companies were created to produce adventure games in similar styles to those created by LucasArts. Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert, who left LucasArts after the completion of LeChuck's Revenge , went on to found Humongous Entertainment , in 1992. The company was primarily
23858-544: Was ported to the PlayStation 2 by Ubisoft Sofia , and Bone: Out from Boneville was ported to Mac OS by Vanbrio. Telltale was one of the companies who Sony confirmed pledged PlayStation 4 third-party support at the PlayStation Meeting 2013. Telltale had also committed to developing and re-releasing seasons for the Nintendo Switch . Stauffer stated that there were no restrictions on what games they can bring to
24016-433: Was redesigned. Command functions were compressed into a number of cursor modes instead of having a list of verb actions to choose from on screen, and the inventory system was moved to an off-screen menu. The more streamlined interface allowed for more of the screen to be dedicated to gameplay. Land, Bajakian and McConnell returned to score the game's music. While Bajakian did not compose any further LucasArts adventure games, he
24174-571: Was released in May 2023. Trade name In a number of countries, the phrase " trading as " (abbreviated to t/a ) is used to designate a trade name. In the United States , the phrase " doing business as " (abbreviated to DBA , dba , d.b.a. , or d/b/a ) is used, among others, such as assumed business name or fictitious business name . In Canada , " operating as " (abbreviated to o/a ) and " trading as " are used, although " doing business as "
24332-400: Was slightly modified for the game, although Escape from Monkey Island was in most respects similar to Grim Fandango in both graphics and gameplay. Escape from Monkey again follows Guybrush Threepwood, this time attempting to deal with an Australian land developer attempting to eradicate piracy through a voodoo talisman. The game's music was created by five different composers: Michael Land,
24490-399: Was still involved with sound production in later titles. He is credited as both a music supervisor and one of four composers on Escape From Monkey Island . In 1995, after a year-long hiatus from adventure games, LucasArts released Full Throttle . Full Throttle was designed by Tim Schafer, and follows the story of Ben, a biker in a dystopian future who has been framed for murder. It was
24648-473: Was taken off guard", while anonymous Telltale employees stated to The Verge that they had known the company was in financial trouble in the months leading up to the closure and was further hurt by leaks of news related to the Netflix deal, which management wanted to use as a lure for speculative investors. In a press release, Hawley stated: It's been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set
24806-532: Was that the player should never die or reach a complete dead-end , although there were exceptions. Many of the games shared similar game interfaces and technology, powered by SCUMM (Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion). After 1997, these games transitioned into 3D graphics with the GrimE game engine. Common features between the games include in-joke references to both other LucasArts games and Lucasfilm productions, as well as other running gags, such as Chuck
24964-431: Was to be an action-adventure game . Development was headed by Sean Clark, his last work for the company. Hell on Wheels was showcased at the 2003 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), where a playable demonstration and a teaser trailer were displayed. Despite this, LucasArts halted production in late 2003. Commentators cited poor graphics compared to other action-adventures of the time and Schafer's lack of involvement in
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