When you play the Game of Thrones , you either win or you die… and if you die you get to start over or perhaps the story continues without you and then a whole bunch of people die again.
No seriously, a LOT of people die in this game. This is easily the Telltale game with the biggest body count, and we played The Walking Dead . Heck, this might have a bigger body count than most Call of Duty games.
Red Wedding indeed…
… oh come on this whole article series is about spoilers, you can’t possibly complain about that.
Anyway, welcome to the world of Westeros. Winter is coming and all that jazz. You take the role of copyright, original character, self-insert, do not steal, House Forrester. This house looks after the Ironwood trees which are so totally incredibly important in the Game of Thrones universe and yet have mostly gone ignored up until this point. They are the loyal bannermen to the Starks and since the game starts around the Red Wedding… Well…
Yeah it’s a bad idea to be an ally of the Starks right now…
…
…
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They are all dead.
And now that they aren’t around to protect House Forrester anymore, and since the original lord of the house and his first born son kind of got pointy bits stuck inside them in the last battle, the house is pretty screwed.
You start off as a squire who recently got a promotion… right before the red wedding. I bet he was also a couple days ‘til retirement too. You manage to survive by basically deserting everyone you know and love, and running away. You then encounter the soldiers and enforcers of your rival house killing your family and taking your land. You defend yourself, but somehow you end up being the one who gets punished and sent to the wall.
Huh, nobles and law enforcers go free while innocents get killed or punished. Huh… something seems…familiar about that… huh… I wonder what it could be.
*cough* TOPICAL JOKE *cough*
So your happy little squire gets sent off to The Wall, which is basically a huge prison camp, presumably to meet Jon Snow, who I’m pretty sure knows nothing… I have this on good authority.
Quick jump over to the actual house of house Forrester where a son who is in his teens and prefers to play instruments rather than fight inherits the title of lord. I’m sure this will end wonderfully guys… just wonderfully. When you play as him, it’s your job to make bad decisions. For example, a thief is stealing from your supply, but it’s because he needs to feed his family and supplies are short now that no one is protecting you. If you punish him, everyone hates you! If you don’t punish him, everyone hates you! You can even kill or banish him and guess what, EVERYONE STILL HATES YOU! In fact, that’s pretty much the theme of the young lord’s journey: let’s see how to get the most people to hate me all at the same time. I got the high score!
The young lord is pulled between two people who are trying to give him advice. The first is a battle hardened soldier who is willing to do what it takes to defend the house, but is also willing to see the house burn if it means he gets to avoid bowing down to anyone he doesn’t like. The second is a wise old man whose advice always seems to be “give the enemy what they want and maybe they won’t slit our throats.” You choose one to be your sentinel and guess what, everyone hates you for the decision. Also, no matter what you do, it’s definitely a bad decision, as the other one complains a lot and generally says your choices are foolish.
Then you get stabbed in the neck… well that was sure a short lordship.
The final character that you get to play is a “handmaiden” and I use those quotes as hard as I can, to Margarey Tyrell, another characters who, despite her importance, really doesn’t seem to come up in any other form of Game of Thrones media. She is a daughter of house Forrester and is doing her best to exert what little power she has over the nobles. You are in King’s Landing, and it’s your job to be the greatest scumbag out of all the scumbags that surround you. You bow down, plead for your life, make bribes, follow odd dirty coal deliverers, and generally suck up to anyone you need to in order to secure survival for your house. Unfortunately, you are wholly ineffective at doing so, hence the brotherly neck stabbing thing.
So in short, Tellale’s Game of Thrones episode 1 is a game where you do a whole lot of things to try and prevent people from dying, and fail spectacularly.
Why is this fun?
Because Peter Dinklage is in the game, and everything he touches turns to acting gold. So shut up, like it, and bow to Tyrion Lannister, or else House Telltale will have your head!
Or something like that. I hear the book was better…