TellTale Collection

That's no moon. No, really, some of the games in the Indie Royale Lunar Bundle take place in space, but none of them appear to be set on - or are even about - the Moon. Still, nonsensical titles can be forgiven when the upshot is a four pack of pay-what-you-want indie games, including Back to the Future and the enjoyably tense zero gravity platformer Cargo Commander.

Here's a rundown of the bundle's lunacy:




Pid: A 2D puzzle-platformer in which you use gravity beams to explore a "peculiar planet". That's planet. Not moon. Review here.
Cargo Commander: A space-based roguelike-like about exploring randomly generated giant crates for weird loot. Still no moon. Review here.
Back to the Future: Telltale's five-part adventure update of the Back to the Future series. It's possible you can see the Moon during night scenes. Review here.
Dungeon Hearts: A fantasy match-three strategy game. Almost certainly no moon. No review either, I'm afraid.


A bit of a mixed bag in terms of quality, but I'd argue the inclusion of Cargo Commander more than justifies the cost. In addition, the three large question marks on the bundle page suggest some extra games will be announced at some point over the game's remaining few days.

Are mute heroes better than verbose heroes? Does a voice-acted player character infringe on your ability to put yourself into the story? In this week's debate, Logan says "Yes," while his character says nothing. He wants to be the character he’s playing, not merely control him, and that’s easier to do when the character is silent. T.J. had a professional voice actor say "No." He thinks giving verbalized emotions and mannerisms to your in-universe avatar makes him or her feel more real.

Read the debate below, continue it in the comments, and jump to the next page for opinions from the community. Logan, you have the floor:

Logan: BioShock’s Jack. Isaac Clarke from Dead Space. The little boy from Limbo. Portal’s Chell. Gordon Freeman. These are some of the most unforgettable characters I’ve ever played, and they all made their indelible impressions on me without speaking a single word. In fact, they made such an impression because they didn’t say a word. By remaining silent throughout, they gave me room to take over the role, to project myself into the game.

T.J.: All of the games you mentioned were unforgettable narratives. But everything memorable about them came from the environments, situations, and supporting casts. Gordon Freeman is a great example. What can you really say about him, as a person? I find Shepard’s inspirational speeches to the crew in the Mass Effect games far more stirring and memorable than almost anything I’ve experienced in a silent protagonist game. I was Shepard, just as much as I was Gordon. But I didn’t have the alienating element of not having a voice making me feel less like a grounded part of the setting.



Logan: Ooh, Shepard. That was cold. I’ll happily agree that some games are better off with fully written and voiced protagonists—and Shepard’s a perfect example. But it’s a different matter, I think, with first-person games in particular, where your thought processes animate the narrative: “OK, if I jump into a portal here, I’ll shoot out of the wall there and land over yonder.” In this way I’m woven into the story, as a product of my own imagination. If the character is talking, I’m listening to his or her thoughts—and they sort of overwrite my own. It can be great fun, but it’s a more passive experience.

T.J.: First-person shooters are probably one of the best venues for silent protagonists, but lets look at BioShock and BioShock Infinite. I definitely felt more engaged by Booker, who responded verbally to the action, the story twists, and the potent emotions expressed by Elizabeth... than I did by Jack, who didn’t so much as cough at the chaos and insanity around him.

Logan: But was the result that BioShock Infinite was a better game, or just that it delivered a traditional main character?

T.J.: Booker? Traditional? Did we play the same game? I mean, it’s a tough call to say which was out-and-out better, as there are a lot of factors to consider. But zooming in on the protagonist’s vocals (or lack thereof) as an added brushstroke on a complex canvas, Infinite displays a more vibrant palette.

Logan: Do you think that Half-Life 2, in retrospect, is an inferior game as a result of its silent protagonist?



T.J.: Half-Life 2 was great. Great enough that we gave it a 98. But imagine what it could have been like if Gordon had been given the opportunity to project himself onto his surroundings, with reactive astrophysics quips and emotional back-and-forth to play off of the memorable cast around him? We relate to characters in fiction that behave like people we know in the real world. So yeah, I’ll take that plunge: I think I would have bonded with Freeman more, and therefore had a superior experience, if he hadn't kept his lips sewn shut the whole way.

Logan: A scripted and voiced Gordon Freeman may or may not have been a memorable character, just like a scripted and voiced Chell from Portal might have been. But in a sense, that’s the problem! Because some of my best memories from games with silent protagonists are the memories of my own thoughts and actions. I remember staring at the foot of a splicer in BioShock and realizing that the flesh of her foot was molded into a heel. I was so grossed out that I made this unmanly noise, partway between a squeal and a scream. I remember getting orders shouted at me in FEAR and thinking, "No, why don’t you take point.” I’m glad these moments weren't preempted by scripted elements.

T.J.: You were staring at the Splicers’ feet? Man, in a real underwater, objectivist dystopia ruined by rampant genetic modification, you’d totally be “that one guy” who just stands there dumbfounded and gets sliced into 14 pieces.

Logan: No, I’d be the guy at Pinkberry with his mouth under the chocolate hazelnut nozzle going “Would you kindly pull the lever?” But my point is, I remember what I did and thought at moments throughout all of my favorite games, and those are experiences that are totally unique to me. And that’s at least part of why I love games so much—because of unique experiences like that.



T.J.: I see what you’re getting at. Likewise, a lot of my love for games is driven by their ability to tell the kinds of stories other media just aren’t equipped for. Silent protagonists take us further beyond the bounds of traditional narratives, accentuating the uniqueness of interactive storytelling. That being said, really good voiced protagonists—your Shepards, your Bookers, your Lee Everetts—never feel like a distraction from the mutated flesh pumps you come across. When the execution is right, they serve to enhance all of those things, and lend them insight and believability.

There’s nothing like being pulled out of the moment in Dragon Age: Origins when the flow of an intense conversation stops so the camera can cut to the speechless, distant expression of your seemingly-oblivious Grey Warden.

Logan: Oh yeah, there’s no question that voiced protagonists have their moments. But they’re not my moments, and those are the ones I enjoy the most in games. Valve seems to understand this intuitively, and that’s why it’s given us two of the most memorable characters in videogame history: because I think the developers deliberately build into their games moments that they all understand will be uniquely owned by the players; “a-ha!” moments when the solution to a puzzle suddenly snaps into focus, or narrative revelations like watching horseplay between Alyx and Dog that instantly tell you a lot about how she grew up. Voiced protagonists can give us wonderful characters; silent ones let me build my own.

That’s the debate! As always, these debates are exercises meant to reveal alternate viewpoints—sometimes including perspectives we wouldn’t normally explore—and cultivate discussion, so continue it in the comments, and jump to the next page for more opinions from the community.





https://twitter.com/hawkinson88/status/325060938120183808

@pcgamer it really depends on the writing. Some voiced characters are amazing, and some are whiny and annoying.— Ryan H (@kancer) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer In many cases, yes. I am forced to substitute the absence of a developed personality with my own words and thoughts. I like that.— Rocko (@Rockoman100) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer The volume of the protag doesn't matter, only the skill of the writer: hero voice is just one tool of many in a master writer's box— Jacob Dieffenbach (@dieffenbachj) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer The most interesting characters are the ones with a history, with regrets. Blank characters don't have that.— Devin White (@D_A_White) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer Most voiced characters seem to disappoint. I think silent ones express the storyline better through visuals which I prefer.— Casey Bavier (@clbavier) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer Definitely voiced. Having an NPC talk to you directly, then act as if your lack of response is totally normal feels eerily wrong.— Kirt Goodfellow (@_Kenomica) April 19, 2013


@pcgamer Silent! #YOLO— Michael Nader (@MNader92) April 19, 2013

At Telltale's panel "Saving Doug: Empathy, Character, and Choice in The Walking Dead" today at GDC 2013, co-creative leads Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanaman outlined the ideas that guided their design of one of last year's most acclaimed games. A few of the presentation's topics overlapped a little with DayZ creator Dean Hall's comments yesterday at GDC about the value of context in storytelling and of player-generated meaning. But maybe most notably, the pair of designers admitted that they were concerned "every day" about how the game's story would suffer if players didn't care about Clementine, Lee's companion throughout the series.

Hopefully Obvious Disclaimer: This post includes spoilers about Telltale's adaptation of The Walking Dead.

Jake Rodkin: “While Clementine seems like an obvious choice for a character in a game that’s paying attention to your decisions because she can both influence your decisions and she can be shaped by them, but the creation for Clementine was actually more pragmatic at the beginning. It came from us trying to answer one question, which is: ‘Why the hell would you not leave this group of ass*$#%?’ So we quickly realized that a child that you cared about, someone akin to Carl in terms of Rick from the comics, would mean that you couldn’t just hit the road or maybe you wouldn’t constantly feel like you wanted to. But of course, if you don’t care about that child as well, then we were sort of doubly screwed. Because you’d be frustrated with this group and you’d be shackled to this little kid you don’t care about.”

Sean Vanaman: "Those were real fears. That was like real, every day..."

Rodkin: "Was there talk about cutting Clementine out of the game a week before voice recording? Yes there was."

This example ran alongside Telltale's discussion of the dangers of introducing unnecessary branches to The Walking Dead.

Earlier in the presentation Rodkin and Vanaman explained how Telltale came to recognize that adding too many story branches was a potential pitfall.

Rodkin: “We had to learn in The Walking Dead that the setup leading up to a dramatic moment was going to be as important or maybe more important than the payoffs. It did take us a while to get there. I think with the idea of an interactive story it’s really, really easy to get fixated on branching the narrative just for the sake of having more branches. You can spend forever coming up with cool ways to branch a story and lose sight of what makes the choices that you’re branching have resonance in the first place, which is the context that’s built up before the choice is made--the reason that a player is actually making a choice. It turns out that you can branch your narrative all you want, and that doesn’t make your narrative any more meaningful if the act of actually making those choices have no meaning.”

Vanaman: “Something we learned the hard way.”

Rodkin: “Yes. So, for example... for a while we actually altered the design of the second episode of The Walking Dead so that the result of most every major plot beat in the first act was in the hands of the player at the expense of building context. Every big event had repercussions which rippled out into later in the episode.”

Continuing, Rodkin provided an example of a plot structure they were considering for the game's second episode, but eventually discarded.

Rodkin: “So like, for instance, when you encounter these guys David and Travis in the woods, one of them would come back to you, and one of them would be left behind to become food for the cannibals later in the episode. But maybe if you made a completely unrelated choice later, Mark would be the one who was eaten instead. So Lee has this axe which you can give to a few different characters, only some of them could come to your aid later on. And then when the family from the dairy meets you, you could decide how much of your group’s fuel store to put on the table to bargain with in exchange for food when you go to visit them in the dairy. Then when you finally do get to the dairy, if you don’t like it there, you could just take your whole camp back for a second hash-through of all your options. Which of course, practically ended up boiling down to just ‘Oh, we should actually just go back to that dairy.’”

Jake Rodkin (left, creative director) and TWD director and writer Sean Vanaman.

Rodkin: “It sounds maybe cool on paper until you say all of that out loud. And maybe in another game or another situation it would be incredibly cool, but in The Walking Dead it wasn’t working. We were selling out the reason that all these choices were important for just giving the player the ability to make more choices. Creating all of these events and feeling like you had all this power actually ended up robbing all of the events of their meaning.”

Vanaman: “Yeah, we forgot about context and kind of became slaves to the question of ‘Wouldn’t it be neat if?’”

Rodkin: “Yeah, the more we broke the game down into choice after choice after choice, creating a sort of ever-shifting foundation of context to build on, the more players in playtests and even just the team started to feel untethered from the meaning of things, from what they were doing. And it drove home for us what really mattered in The Walking Dead, which was the experience of spending time with the world and the characters until you knew them the way you would a real place and real people, and then putting those bonds to the test.”

Track down the rest of the presentation on the GDC Vault when it becomes available. Rodkin and Vanaman can also be heard on the wonderful Idle Thumbs podcast.

This year's GDC has been the source of many interesting industry tidbits. But forget them for now, because it also hosted two award shows last night. Shiny, slightly crass and easily digestible in a handy list format - we've got all the winners from the Independent Games Festival Awards and Game Developers Choice Awards right here. Did Hotline Miami's masked protagonist beat the living snot out of the FTL crew for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize? Did Incredipede's creepy-crawly monstrosities scare away the other Visual Art nominees? Did any game not called Journey win a GDC Award? Read on to find out.

We'll start with the IGF Awards, primarily because its the one that wasn't dominated by a PS3-exclusive game about plodding through a desert.

Independent Games Festival Awards

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)


Excellence in Visual Art

Incredipede (Northway Games and Thomas Shahan)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
Guacalamelee! (Drinkbox Studios)
Loves in a Dangerous Spacetime (Asteroid Base)
Year Walk (Simogo)


Excellence in Narrative

Thirty Flights of Loving (Blendo Games)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
Dys4ia (Auntie Pixelante)
Gone Home (The Fullbright Company)


Technical Excellence

StarForge (CodeHatch)
Perspective (DigiPen Widdershins)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)
Intrusion 2 (Aleksey Abramenko)
LiquidSketch (Tobias Neukom)


Excellence In Design

Samurai Gunn (Beau Blyth)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
Starseed Pilgrim (Droqen & Ryan Roth)
Super Hexagon (Terry Cavanagh)
Super Space (David Scamehorn and Alexander Baard/DigiPen)


Excellence In Audio

Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
Bad Hotel (Lucky Frame)
140 (Jeppe Carlsen)
Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games)
Pixeljunk 4AM (Q-Games)


Best Student Game

ATUM (NHTV IGAD)
Back to Bed (Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment)
Blackwell's Asylum (Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment)
Farsh (NHTV IGAD)
Knights of Pen & Paper (IESB - Instituto de Ensino Superior de Brasilia & UnB - Universidade de Brasilia)
the mindfulxp volume (Carnegie Mellon University Entertainment Technology Center)
Pulse (Vancouver Film School)
Zineth (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)


Nuovo Award

Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
Spaceteam (Henry Smith)
Dys4ia (Auntie Pixelante)
Bientot l'ete (Tale of Tales)
7 Grand Steps (Mousechief)
MirrorMoon (SantaRagione + BloodyMonkey)
VESPER.5 (Michael Brough)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)


Audience Award
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)

Thoughts? Firstly, congratulations to Zineth, deserved winner of Best Student Game. It's great, and you should play it. More obviously, well done to Richard Hofmeier for the runaway success of Cart Life. I'm sure many will be surprised by just how well it's done, especially among such a strong list of contenders for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. If you're currently thinking "Cart What now?" let Christopher Livingston's Sim-plicity column on the game fill you in.

Elsewhere in the list, I'm surprised to see Little Inferno getting a Technical Excellence award (it had nice fire, I guess), unsurprised to see FTL nab the Audience Award, and marginally disappointed to see Hotline Miami go back to its DeLorean with nothing. Although, hey, it's still got a chance at a Games Developer Choice Award! Haha, no, just kidding. Journey won everything.

Game Developers Choice Awards

Game of the Year

Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)


Innovation Award

Mark of the Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
The Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow/Sony Computer Entertainment)
ZombiU (Ubisoft Montpellier/Ubisoft)


Best Audio

Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games/Devolver Digital)
Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Assassin's Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)


Best Debut

Humble Hearts (Dust: An Elysian Tail)
Polytron Corporation (Fez)
Giant Sparrow (The Unfinished Swan)
Subset Games (FTL: Faster Than Light)
Fireproof Games (The Room )


Best Downloadable Game

The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
Trials: Evolution (RedLynx/Microsoft Studios)
Mark Of The Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)


Best Game Design

Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Mark Of The Ninja (Klei Entertainment/Microsoft Studios)
Spelunky (Derek Yu/Andy Hull)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games/2K Games)


Best Handheld/Mobile Game

Gravity Rush (SCE Japan Studio/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Hero Academy (Robot Entertainment)
Sound Shapes (Queasy Games/Sony Computer Entertainment)
The Room (Fireproof Games)
Kid Icarus: Uprising (Sora/Nintendo)


Best Narrative

Spec Ops: The Line (Yager Entertainment/2K Games)
Mass Effect 3 (BioWare/Electronic Arts)
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Virtue's Last Reward (Chunsoft/Aksys Games)


Best Technology

Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
PlanetSide 2 (Sony Online Entertainment)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)
Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Treyarch/Activision)
Assassin's Creed III (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)


Best Visual Arts

Borderlands 2 (Gearbox Software/2K Games)
Journey (Thatgamecompany/Sony Computer Entertainment)
Far Cry 3 (Ubisoft Montreal/Ubisoft)
Dishonored (Arkane Studios/Bethesda Softworks)
Halo 4 (343 Industries/Microsoft Studios)


Ambassador Award
Chris Melissinos, curator of The Smithsonian's The Art of Video Games exhibit

Pioneer Award
Spacewar creator Steve Russell

Audience Award
Dishonored

Lifetime Achievement Award
BioWare founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk

Conclusion: award show judges really love Journey.

Back in 2011, Telltale revealed it's working on an adaptation of Fables, the DC Comics series of fairy tale characters surviving in the modern world. As IGN reports today, Telltale's next adventure is now named The Wolf Among Us and will launch this summer.

Taking place as a canon prequel to the events of the comics, The Wolf Among Us follows Bigby Wolf, a humanized Big Bad Wolf scraping a living in New York City as a grim-faced detective. In the comics, Wolf can shapeshift between forms at will, wield his "huff and puff" wind power, and smoke a pack of cigarettes faster than you can say "lupine."

It'll be interesting to see how Wolf's abilities factor into Among Us' adventure framework, especially since its plot involves Wolf trying to keep other fairytale Big Apple citizens from drawing too much attention to themselves. I'd say that might become tricky if he accidentally topples over an apartment building by sneezing too hard or something. Still, Telltale tackling another episodic series is a thumbs-up all around given its successful first season of The Walking Dead.

It isn't often we see the words "Origin" and "sale" next to each other, but this week is the exception: EA is running a week-long Player Appreciation Sale which discounts some pretty hefty games in the publisher's lineup—titans such as Mass Effect 3, Crysis 3, and Battlefield 3.

Here's the full list of games on sale and their prices:

Battlefield 3 Premium—$25
Battlefield 3—$12
Battlefield 3 Premium Edition—$30
Crysis 3—$30
Crysis 3 Digital Deluxe Edition—$40
Crysis 3 Digital Deluxe Upgrade—$10
The Sims 3 Seasons—$20
The Sims 3 University Life—$28
The Sims 3 Supernatural—$15
Dead Space—$6
Dead Space 2—$6
Dead Space 3—$30
Resident Evil 5—$10
Mass Effect 3—$10
The Walking Dead—$10
Batman: Arkham City GOTY Edition—$12
FIFA Soccer 13—$20
Command & Conquer Ultimate Collection—$15
Hitman: Absolution—$15
Saints Row: The Third Full Package—$25
Assassin's Creed 3—$35
Assassin's Creed 3 Deluxe Edition—$56
Darksiders 2—$18
Dead Island GOTY Edition—$10
Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City—$25


Normal and special editions on sale? And they're big games? I don't want to spoil this rare opportunity to enjoy a good Origin sale with cynicism, but it's hard not to chortle lightly at the convenient devaluing of nearly half the games EA offered SimCity players for free earlier this week.

Update: In a statement to Game Informer, Telltale say: "The current estimated release window for Season Two of The Walking Dead is for fall of ‘this’ year (2013), and not ‘next’ year (2014) as has been reported after a recent interview. We apologize for any confusion and thank you and all of our fans for your continued excitement for Telltale’s series."

So not that long to wait after all.

Original story: Hoping to find out the fate of after in the conclusion to Season 1 of The Walking Dead? Prepare for a wait. In an interview with Eurogamer, Telltale's CEO Dan Connors reveals the game's second season is currently planned for release around "fall next year". On the plus side, it means people who haven't yet played the game have well over a year to find out what that first sentence is hiding.

Fortunately for fans, the studio plans to release some form of Walking Dead content in the interim between the two seasons, as revealed by writer (and mayor of Whitta Vista) Gary Whitta last week. "Knowing that it’s a way off, and knowing that people are hungry for more Walking Dead, there may very well be more Walking Dead from Telltale before season two," he said.

"We'll probably have something to announce fairly soon about what we're going to do," Connors admitted. "It'll be different."

Alternative headlines include "Dick and Dom SNUBBED in Online - Browser category", "Black Ops II not deemed most innovative game of the year - internet pitchforks rest easy", or just, "Journey wins pretty much all the other bloody awards, to the chagrin of PC-centric news writers". Still, there were some wins for games that PC owners could play. As well as Dishonored's top award, shiny trophies also went to The Walking Dead, XCOM and Far Cry 3.

Full list below. Winners in bold.

Best Game

Dishonored
Journey
Mass Effect 3
The Walking Dead
FIFA 13
Far Cry 3

Action

Far Cry 3
Hitman: Absolution
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Halo 4
Mass Effect 3
Borderlands 2

Game Innovation

The Unfinished Swan
Fez
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Wonderbook: Books of Spells
Journey
Kinect Sesame Street TV

Artistic Achievement
Journey
Halo 4
Borderlands 2
Far Cry 3
The Room
Dear Esther

Audio Achievement

Journey
Far Cry 3
Beat Sneak Bandit
Halo 4
Assassin's Creed III
Dear Esther

Mobiles & Handheld

The Walking Dead
LittleBigPlanet (Vita)
New Star Soccer
Incoboto
Super Monsters Ate My Condo
The Room

Online - Browser
SongPop
The Settlers Online
Merlin: The Game
Runescape
Amateur Surgeon Hospital
Dick and Dom’s HOOPLA!

Online - Multiplayer

Journey
Assassin’s Creed III
Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Need For Speed Most Wanted
Halo 4
Borderlands 2

Original Music

Journey
Diablo III
Assassin’s Creed III
Thomas Was Alone
The Unfinished Swan
The Walking Dead

British Game

The Room
Need for Speed Most Wanted
Forza Horizon
Dear Esther
Super Hexagon
LEGO: The Lord of the Rings

Performer

Danny Wallace (The Narrator) - Thomas Was Alone
Nolan North (Nathan Drake) - Uncharted: Golden Abyss
Melissa Hutchinson (Clementine) - The Walking Dead
Dave Fennoy (Lee Everett) - The Walking Dead
Adrian Hough (Haytham) - Assassin’s Creed III
Nigel Carrington (The Narrator) - Dear Esther

Debut Game

The Unfinished Swan
Deadlight
Forza Horizon
Dear Esther
Proteus
The Room

Sports/Fitness

New Star Soccer
Forza Horizon
F1 2012
Nike+ Kinect Training
Trials Evolution
FIFA 13

Family

LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes
Minecraft: XBOX 360 Edition
Just Dance 4
Skylanders Giants
Clay Jam
LEGO The Lord of the Rings

Story

The Walking Dead
Journey
Far Cry 3
Thomas was Alone
Mass Effect 3
Dishonored

Strategy

XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Dark Souls: Prepare To Die
Diablo III
Great Big War Game
Total War Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai
Football Manager 2013

Game Design

Journey
Dishonored
Far Cry 3
XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Borderlands 2
The Walking Dead

Fellowship
Gabe Newell

And if you'd like to see the various people involved in the above games accept their golden face masks, you can do so via this video of the event.

Who is this new, rather unsubtle assassin in the reveal images for Assassin's Creed 4: Black Flag? Evan, T.J., and Omri discuss. SimCity and the Arma 3 alpha are both out next Tuesday, and we're actually allowed to talk about at least one of them. Plus, some of the best listener questions we've had in a long time. Keep 'em coming!

All hands on deck for PC Gamer Podcast 346: Some Kinda Pirate

Have a question, comment, complaint, or observation? Send an MP3 to pcgamerpodcast@gmail.com.

Subscribe to the podcast RSS feed.

Follow us on Twitter:
@ELahti (Evan Lahti)
@AsaTJ (T.J. Hafer)
@omripettite (Omri Petitte)
@belsaas (Erik Belsaas, podcast producer)

Telltale previously said the upcoming second season of The Walking Dead's continued tale can go in any direction, but eager fans might not have to wait until then for more of that sweet zombie-laden drama. Speaking to IGN, writer and former PC Gamer Editor-in-Chief Gary Whitta reveals the studio is considering working on some interstitial content between seasons to shorten the wait.

"I can tell you what you already know, which is season two is coming," Whitta says. "There’s not much to say because it really is very early, and it’s a way off. But, knowing that it’s a way off, and knowing that people are hungry for more Walking Dead, there may very well be more Walking Dead from Telltale before season two. We may have a little something extra for you between season one and two."

Whitta didn't elaborate on the scope of the possible pre-season content, though Telltale's primary challenge probably lies with incorporating what players enjoyed best from the initial five episodes as a potential prologue for season two. Earlier this month, Telltale CEO Dan Connor didn't rule out crossover appearances of characters from the AMC TV show in future episodes.