Telltale Reveals Puzzle Agent, Pilot Program

Episodic adventure game developer Telltale announced a new multi-platform title called Puzzle Agent, the studio's first game based on an original property and the first project from its experimental Pilot Program. As hinted at by Telltale, and developed for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and WiiWare, Puzzle Agent features the distinct, understated visual style of comics artist and animator Graham Annable (Grickle). He helped Telltale create the game and once served as creative director for the studio. He currently works for animation studio Laika, where he was a storyboard artist for stop-motion film Coraline. In Puzzle Agent, players explores and talk to the citizens of Scoggins, Minnesota, a fictional, rural town hiding an as-yet unrevealed mystery. Instead of typical point-and-click puzzles often found in adventure games, players solve Professor Layton-style puzzles and are evaluated on their performance, according to a report from consumer site IGN. The studio's Pilot Program is similar to the pilot system employed by the TV industry, in which a trial episode is produced to see if a concept has the potential for a full television series. With this program, Telltale can create "even weirder" experimental games than its typical productions. If Puzzle Agent and other future Pilot Program projects are received well by gamers, the company will consider adapting the one-off game into an episodic series. Telltale plans to release Puzzle Agent across all its announced platforms this June.