This game quickly took the top list of favorites in my book second only to Telltale’s The Walking Dead series. They came very close to knocking The Walking Dead out of my number one spot but not quite.
Telltale tackled a very well done adaptation of Bill Willingham’s Fables which centers a story around Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of a magical New York City which is populated by fairy-tale toons. Fables is a very dark fairy-tale so not one for the children but the way Telltale pulled this story into it’s unique game play design is fantastic.
Over the next few weeks we will take a look at this five part series on The Wolf Among Us and as I was saying this is one of the best adventure games I’ve played. The first episode of this series is called Faith which slaps you smack dab into the middle of a mystical version of New York. You now have to fill the shoes of Bigby Wolf, the sheriff of Fabletown and Telltale does a fantastic job building on it’s choice and consequence game system.
This was a relatively quick episode to play but easily a two hour chunk of time you need to really see everything in this first episode. The game drops some majorly hard bombs on you early on with the decisions you have to make, but being a big bad wolf made it a little easier to rough some Fables up. Action and adventure are some of the main themes of this first episode but at the heart of things comes a mystery. This is what makes this game such a joy to play is the wide use of emotions and rich story surrounded by well done characters.
If you’ve played any of Telltales games you know how the game system works as it’s not only decision based, but reaction based as well. You’ve got to be quick when watching what needs to happen next and make sure you think quickly. Each decision has a different outcome so it makes you want to come back for more just to see what they are. These actions aren’t just limited to Bigby as the world ded with is scattered with crazies and very entertaining characters. Tad of a “SPOILER” alert but this first episode revolves around solving a murder which hasn’t happened in Fabletown for quite some time.
During your search, you’ll come across a rather interesting toad who refuse to hide himself from the human world, a member of the Three Little Pigs with a bit of a drinking problem, and an abusive woodsman with a startling revelation regarding Snow White. Since it’s based on characters that pretty much everybody knows, The Wolf Among Us is able to toy with our expectations and delivering some very surprising and entertaining character developments. It’s amazing how the dialogue swings between funny, absolutely tragic, brutal, and magical all over a course of the two-hour episode.
Even the entrance and presentation of Faith brings a very successful highlight to the harsh and strange world you see. All of this episode’s crazy interactions are met with a fantastic 80’s neon lit color style. While you step into the alternate New York City, you get to experience a clash of both magic and gritty decision making that brings you quite close to the story and characters.
Bigby’s story arc has some very large moments of decision making which really pulls you into the characters past and present. Bigby has a very complicated story which ties into so many of the stories characters it’s quite difficult at times to know what decision to make. This made me want to go back multiple times to look over all the decisions you could make and replay each scenario. This is one game and adventure that I will definitely go back to play over and over again.
Telltale Games created a masterpiece with the Walking Dead game series and I took the hook, line and sinker when I first started playing the game. Now almost two years later after season 2 finished leaving fans with mixed emotions on how things ended, Telltale Games seemed to have closed the story with season 2. The famed developer company has been quite busy lately with the alternate story of their Michonne miniseries and just yesterday I saw the newest addition will be a Batman game coming later this year. All of Telltale’s games are pretty awesome if you ask me, as I’ve tried just about all of them, but the big question on the table is when the heck are we going to see the next season of The Walking Dead series release?
Ok, so let me start this post by saying I’ve thrown the idea back and forth for years now of whether I do film & TV reviews. It’s always come down to NO not right now as I’ve just got to much going on and I didn’t want to add to an already full plate.
From there, as the show unfolds we get to meet the cast and overall feels like a Scream movie, but different and same all at once. Weird I know, but the parallels to the first film’s characters; Sidney, Billy, Stu, Randy and Tatum in Emma (Willa Fitzgerald), Will (Conner Weil), Jake (Tom Maden), Noah (John Karna) and Brooke (Carlson Young), as these kids from “Lakewood” begin to realize a killer is among them. The show throws some other characters into the mix, including a mysterious new guy in town Kieran (Amadeus Serafini) and Audrey (Bex Taylor-Klaus), who was the victim of some recent cyber bullying.
As with most things in writing, there are a lot of ways to build a world well, and a lot more ways to do it poorly. First, let me start with the fact that I am still working on my first novel series, and the world building early on became overwhelming. This is no one’s fault except mine as I rushed into a very large project that at the time I wasn’t quite ready to tackle yet. Many years of writing short fantasy / sci-fi stories, and personal blogging gave me the feeling I was ready to take on a novel of epic proportions. Ultimately, I’ve loved every minute of this writing journey I’ve ventured into as it’s helped me grow as a writer, and building worlds was a huge step into the creative for me. These few paragraphs are just some of the tips and tricks I’ve learned a long the way to make world building easier, and more enjoyable.
Fourth, You’ve decided how your world works, you’ve decided your characters’ places within this world, and now you have to write, write, write. I tend to give very broad outlines of my world and the inner workings; then as the characters move through the world, I bring out those specifics. My plot within the story moves very fast and at times the world building takes a back seat, but all in all the creation of the world takes place and ultimately becomes immersive.
Ash & Veil 