Alas, the Telltale Heart, each beat thudding to remind me of its existence. I turned away, fearful of what would lie if I was to dig it up. I had a jolly time with Telltale in the past, but recent actions left me with dread of what they had become. It wasn’t as though Tales from the Borderlands was bad, it was excellent, but their other series Game of Thrones had been Telltale’s Mr Hyde: A drunken mess of a being without soul, heart or emotion. So thus, my worry of if the heart still beats or if it was my troubled mind creating phantom pulses only increased with the announcement of Minecraft: Story Mode.
The heart, it beats! I swear on it! Faintly, but it beats still lest my eyes deceive me!
Minecraft: Story Mode by Telltale Games is a walk-n-prod game where you stumble from one scene to the next poking things and choosing conversation options to continue the narrative. This brings the obvious question to the observant: “But Minecraft doesn’t have a story to speak of! How can Telltale create a story that doesn’t feel disconnected to the source material, when said source material is without narrative?!”
The first way, and this is where the writing is at its strongest, is what is called “ludonarrative” or “narrative from gameplay.” This is where something is inferred in terms of story by the gameplay you experience. To use Call of Duty as an example, the gameplay being murdering down hundreds and hundreds of unremarkable goons could infer to the player that the character you play as is a god-damn psychopath. Someone who sees all opposition as less human beings and more just an obstacle in the way of victory. So, applied to Minecraft, notice how you start off with very few materials and slowly build your way up to better equipment, grander buildings, and more complex devices? That indicates a zero-to-hero adventure through the progression, and Minecraft: Story Mode embraces this by using the Hero’s Journey story structure as its core.
However, naturally, you can not build a tale based purely on the monomyth structure. Even Lord of the Rings, the classic example, also bred a fantastical layer of paint on top. As such, the game uses a thick dose of Minecraft references which, while appropriate to the source material, will likely lead to those unaware of the original game bamboozled in what is going on — Like stepping into a cinematic showing half way through a film. Although, I believe that is okay, since Minecraft: Story Mode is meant to be a tribute to the source material rather than something to lure in the unaware and unsold from the outside with a curling bony finger.
What isn’t okay is, pretty much, everything else concerning the narrative. Rather than the Telltale classic of easing the player into the history of the land through conversations and environment, you’re instead subjected to an exposition dump akin to being waterboarded as you’re flat out told what led up to the current situation. This in itself isn’t necessarily bad, especially as the introduction is presented like hearing a myth from a time long ago in front of a roaring fire by a relative with a head of grey and a sagely voice. However, I believe it does lead to a huge problem arising relatively quickly.
Part of being shown rather than just being told, I feel, is giving you a reason for investment. You learn not just the “what,” but also the “why,” and the general perceptions of what occurred. It also allows the viewer to not just learn the backstory but get to know the people inhabiting the land as well. I guess the reason I mention this is that beyond simplistic motivations I noticed like “wanting to see the next sun-rise” and “close friendships with a long history,” I do not understand the motivation for a lot of the characters.
Beyond your character’s two closest friends (and Rueben the pig, who has eyebrows for some reason), I still can not work out why anyone else likes you, helps you, or depends on you at all. If Minecraft: Story Mode felt like it had an edge to it or a nefarious sort of intelligence (setting up the infamous cartoon moment where you look down and notice you’re running on air before falling), I’d even suspect this is done with a twist or betrayal coming up. Instead, it feels like being spoon-fed lore when I should have been learning about the important cast members in the episode.
Although, stepping away from the story at hand, the gameplay is where the episode shines the brightest. I guess it is with a half-smug tone that I usually describe Telltale titles as “walk-n-prod” games, as gameplay tends to be as passive as occasionally banging the VCR player on the side to unpause the film. However Minecraft: Story Mode features crafting items using the Minecraft work bench, which can open up different solutions to the same problem. This is in addition to various puzzles to solve, and a simplistic form of combat beyond just QTEs that feels almost like fencing as you walk back and forth hitting monsters with your sword. While I’d imagine those who can only feel alive hearing the death rattle of the opposition will still feel agitated and restless, more than ever there is the sensation of playing a game rather than just an interactive story.
The more I think on what the game currently symbolizes, especially in the context of previous Telltale games, the more I find myself reaching to cinema for the perfect metaphor.
The writing style, the brand of jokes (which tends to be family-friendly low-hanging fruit), all of the various narrative mistakes — These feel less born from a videogame equivalent of memorable modern comedies like Shaun of the Dead, The Avengers, or 21 Jump Street (okay, so I only found SotD funny out of that list). It feels more like The Intern, Pixels, or Unfinished Business where it is inoffensive enough to sit through but by the week’s end someone has to remind you what it even was, and you’ll be lucky to remember much of what went on let alone the jokes.
Minecraft: Story Mode Episode 1 does its job and wasn’t boring, but it doesn’t have the comedic writing ability of Sam & Max or Tales from the Borderlands that’ll make the series memorable beyond the week. I struggle to imagine anyone not familiar with Minecraft remotely enjoying it, or anyone seeing the series as anything more than a simple time killer. Who knows, though? It is Episode 1, and maybe with the set-up now done, the writing team can flex their narrative muscles to present something more than just a Minecraft tribute band.
A PC code for Minecraft Story mode was provided by Telltale Games for the purpose of this review