I had a chance to sit down with the great folks at TellTale games, who wanted to show off the work they’ve done on Sam & Max: Season Two. The lovely Emily Morganti was seated next to the demo laptop, and several of the key developers and program managers were also present, interjecting comments as Emily showed me the demo. At the table were Dave Grossman, the Design Director, and David Bogan, the Art Director for Sam & Max.
Sam & Max are coming back for a second season of warm, melty episodic goodness, thanks to Telltale’s tireless development team and our good friends at GameTap. Like the groundbreaking Season One, Sam & Max will appear in several small installments, which will be released semi-monthly. Each game features the same sharp wit as the previous season, and a funny mystery for our crime-fighting duo to solve.
Emily started off by showing me the trailer for Sam & Max: Season Two. It starts off with the headless man from episode 6 running throught the streets, whom our courageous Dog & Bunny duo are chasing after. The chase goes past scenes of the Diner (that you never could go to in Season One), Bostco’s, and other locations from the series. There also is an appearance of a giant robot that appears between two buildings. Max eventually tackles the headless man, and the final scene shows Max spinning the disembodies head on his finger like a Harlem Globetrotter.
Emily mentioned that instead of writing an developing one episode at a time (as they did in Season One), they are concentrating on the new season as a whole. At the time they were showing me the demo, they had several different episodes in varying stages of completion. Episode one was in beta testing, Episode Two was in alpha testing, and episode Three was in the design and writing stages.
Bosco has made some security improvements to his Inconcenience Store
Emily then loaded up a savegame from one of the new episodes of Season Two. The scene begins with our favorite animal detectives, Sam & Max, entering Bosco’s Inconvenience store and receiving a full-body search. Apparently, Bosco has retrofitted his store from the millions he won from the detectives in Season One. There is some typical comedy dialogue (a la Abbot and Costello) between Bosco and Max about some confusion about a bomb that Bosco has discovered. This leads to lines like “My package is the Bomb!” with the funny bunny exclaiming “Now THAT’s a pickup line!”. It’s good to see that the writing remains as clever (and yet jouvenile) as ever.
The background music seems a little more polished, as the scene displayed had a somber 30s-era jazz trumpet playing in the background. Emily mentioned that some areas of the game have placeholder music, but that this scene had the final soundtrack, recorded with real instruments. The game engine also supports widescreen monitors (finally!).
Trophies from previous episodes are along the office walls
Emily showed off some of the usability improvements of Season Two. For one, Sam can now run. If you click on an object far away from the Dog Detective, he will run to it as quickly as he can, which saves the user from having to watch him slowly schleping across the room. Of course, if you order Max to check out something just a few paces away, then he will walk as usual. Also, you can hold down your mouse button and have Sam “free walk”… he will go wherever the cursor is as long as the mouse button is held down.
Concept drawings Stinky’s Granddaughter
There are also changes to all the recurring locations, and a few brand new ones! More lively NPCs who move around the world instead of standing rooted to one spot like pieces of furniture! Even more bizarre scenarios that will take Sam & Max from the arctic to the tropics and beyond! Characters also pipe up of their own accord with useful information if they think you’re stuck (although you can turn this feature off)!
You can also visit new locations that you couldn’t visit before. Remember Stinky’s diner down the street that you could never get to? Now you can enter it, which is now a key place to solve some of the cases. The waitress at the Diner is the granddaughter of the original Stinky (I’m not sure what it says about her that she’s wearing a fish apron). There are some nice touches to the diner, such as flies buzzing around in the kitchen, and there are lots of details (some of the developers shared some of the inside jokes behind some of the items on the wall). In this episode it is revealed that Sybil and Lincoln’s Head (characters from Season One) are now dating.
You can now get into Stinky’s Diner
Also new in this Season are some mini-games. In one of these, Jimmy Two-Teeth (your office rat) has some items that we need, but he won’t just give them up: you must fight him for it. Since both Sam & Max are too big to fit in his little mouse-hole, they send in a remote-control doll to fight the rat in a minature boxing ring. This boxing game is obviously influenced (satirically) by Nintendo, and any gaming historian will be familiar with the “Body Blow” sounds and behind-the-back camera angle. There are also some driving mini-games as a segway between locations while in the DeSoto, and you can drive and shoot at the same time (well, Max shoots, Sam drives).
A new fighting mini-game a la Nintendo
The formula for a Sam & Max episode has been successful, so some aspects of the episodic adventures remain the same. Each episode takes about three hours to play (depending on how you play). If you go through every line of humorous dialog, then it may take a little longer. Most people play the game as interactive entertainment, and want to hear all the lines of comedy. Gamers who take the quickest path just to complete the game will miss alot of the fun, and will get through the episode a little quicker.
Like in the previous episodes, you have to manipulate others in the environment to solve the puzzles. Emily stated that “The right answer is never the right answer”, until you do something to manipulate the environment to get the question right.
I asked if the Giant Robot from the trailer will be making an appearance, and the developers confirmed that he will appear in one (or more) of the upcoming episodes. Alot of the usability gripes have been addressed in this new season, and the games are made more fun with the addition of fun mini-games. The clever writing and art direction is as strong as ever, and the laughs just keep on coming. It appears that TellTale knows what it’s got, and is giving the Sam & Max fans more of what they want.
Some character concept drawings for Season Two
Like Season One before it, Sam & Max Season Two will be released electronically (over the Internets). GameTap subscribers will get each new episode first, but just one day later it’ll be unleashed on Telltale’s website for gamers worldwide to consume.