The Walking Dead isn't about traditional puzzle solving, save file carryovers confirmed

The Walking Dead is about intense gaming experiences, not traditional puzzle solving, as puzzles hurt the pacing of games from a story telling perspective, Telltale CEO Dan Connors tells Rock Paper Shotgun.

"A three-object traditional game puzzle — like, go find this, give it to this guy, trigger the dialogue to open the door — hurts the story. It hurts the story world, because why would I do that?" Connors told RPS. "In our puzzle design, our puzzle design has to create real challenges to the story, real believable actions. It'll still be using your brain to figure it out and it'll still be using your wits."

Connors explained that he didn't want to knock puzzle games, and he knows people enjoy puzzles, but The Walking Dead is about creating intense gaming experiences, not traditional puzzle solving. He used the example of putting a player into a situation where they have to make a gruesome decision and live with the consequences, so the player will feel the gravity of the situation, and experience the intensity.

He went on to mention that the team has learned about storytelling from The Walking Dead, but they are ready to evolve the storytelling for The Walking Dead season two by looking at other genres and introducing new characters.

Polygon reported last month that carrying over save files from season one to two is a possibility. In the recent interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, Connors confirmed save file carryovers. He said that Telltale are "definitely trying to make sure that it's going to be a good, solid thing for everybody."

Connors said that season two possibly won't suffer the same save file bugs suffered by season one. Telltale are "going to be a lot more diligent about making sure that part of the system can handle everything that's going to happen," and he thinks that there will be "some good systems in place" to ensure save file stability.