Telltale games, an American independent digital publisher devoted to the development of graphic adventure games in an episodic fashion, has started a new series called “Game of Thrones“, based on the popular cycle of fantasy novels “A Song of Ice and Fire” by George R.R. Martin. It joins several other series developed by this company, based on popular licensed properties, either in comic books, cinema or television (“The Walking Dead“, “Jurassic Park” or “Back to the Future“) or videogames (“Monkey Island“, “Sam & Max” or the upcoming “Minecraft: story mode“).
What makes this series interesting for this blog is the kind of focus they wanted to give to the story. Although there have been several action scenes included, most of the interaction in the story lies in taking some specific choices. Difficult decisions, dialogues, with characters… Rather than fighting or shooting our way through the story, here the focus is in the characters and their interactions. Through those decisions – and their inevitable consequences – we will outline one of the many possible stories. As we can see, what Telltale games aims to do with this “Game of Thrones” is bringing the kind of narratives we can find in interactive fiction or gamebooks to the world of graphic adventure games.
Visually, this “Game of Thrones” is clearly inspired by the HBO series of the same name, but it offers something different to the fan of the series by delving into a part of the epic that neither the television series nor the novels dig very deeply; the story of the Forresters clan, only briefly referenced in the books.
At this moment, there are three finished episodes of a planned total of six. You can find their website