I miss Telltale Games — the real one, not the corporate lich shambling around as we speak. While they never quite figured out how to reliably deliver episodic games at the right pace, their dedication to the form helped shape my taste as a young adult.

The promise of a new “Sam & Max” adventure every month or two was more than enough to intrigue me during the Bush administration, and I stayed locked in until everything went sideways.

Of course, the people who actually made those games didn’t go away. They were just scattered to the winds.

Some of those folks helped found AdHoc Studio, and they’re in the middle of releasing an episodic game of their own. “Dispatch” is an eight-part super hero adventure game that definitely evokes the tone of “Tales From the Borderlands.”

The player isn’t moving a character around in 3D space, at least not in the first two episodes, but much of the Telltale experience is still there. Optional QTEs, dialogue choices on a timer, weird mini-games, and a focus on character-driven stories feels right at home. In a different timeline, this could have been an “Incredibles” game put out by Telltale.

But unlike the family-friendly fare of Pixar, this story about the mundanity of super heroes is more than a little raunchy. The game starts off with some mild-to-moderate torture, and then we’re quickly treated to a slightly blurry shot of the penis of a super villain. This isn’t your granddad’s super heroes — yadda yadda.

I wouldn’t say that the writing hits all the time, but there’s still plenty to like even if some jokes fall flat and property theft is still depicted as something worth potentially killing over. There’s a bat man who sometimes just screams, and that’s pretty cool, right?

As of this week, we only have the first two episodes to judge, and I’d say “Dispatch” passes the big test: I’m still thinking about it.

I went through both episodes relatively quickly because I wanted to see what would happen next, and I’m now itching to play three and four next week. And more importantly, I can now engage with the discourse online as we all wildly speculate on what will happen next.

If the whole game shipped at once, there would be loads of people without jobs, school, or any kind of responsibilities who would have already consumed everything. And even though I’m not particularly sensitive to rogue spoilers, it’s not very fun to jump into a conversation about a plot point you haven’t reached yet.

Episodic games are neat, and I’m glad they’re still being made.

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“Dispatch” is available now on PS5 and PC.

Image credit: “Dispatch,” Ad Hoc Studio