Sam & Max Save the World Interview

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Telltale Games is the new home for the Freelance Police Sam & Max, after the two spent the 90s earning critical success alongside LucasArts other point & click adventures.

After a failed return with the cancelled Sam & Max: Freelance Police, the two left LucasArts and eventually was picked up by Telltale Games, who went on to release two seasons worth of new adventures for the canine in a hat and a sharp suit and his psychopathic rabbit partner via digital distribution on PC.

Now the first season is being bundled together and released as a full title on Xbox Live Arcade this spring as Sam & Max Save the World, with season two, Sam & Max Beyond Time & Space following at a later date. Ahead of the release OXM talked exclusively with design director Dave Grossman about the dynamic duos' return.

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Can you fill OXM readers in on exactly what they should expect from Sam & Max?
Dave Grossman: Sam & Max could be described as hilariously twisted film noir, in which a pair of "freelance police" (they're sort of like detectives) operate with wild abandon in a gritty but cartoony modern big city. They practice a sort of "unvestigation," in which mysteries and crimes are eventually solved and the common good is more or less served, but by the use of unusual, questionable methods which may well cause more harm than the original problem. The humor in Sam & Max runs towards irreverence, wordplay, and cultural satire. It's lovingly sardonic, if that's possible, unflinchingly pointing out the lunacy in our day-to-day lives while embracing that lunacy as something wonderful. The references tend to be sophisticated and sometimes obscure, but there is also plenty of over-the-top wackiness that would appeal to a younger audience.

What sort of puzzles can we expect in the game and are there any concessions for newcomers not familiar with the Sam & Max universe?
DG: Players are given a wide variety of opportunities, including faking a psychological condition, improvising comedy in front of a camera, traveling through time and monkeying with the past, defeating Abraham Lincoln in a mud-slinging election and using the power of the US presidency for personal gain. No prior experience with the Sam & Max universe is required; these games are designed to be playable by anyone. You might need to bring a sense of humor.

Sam & Max: Freelance Police was sadly cancelled by LucasArts. Was there any narrative devices, jokes or scenarios that made the leap between that and Season One?
DG: We started completely fresh, which was easy for me since I was not involved with the cancelled game in any capacity and know very little about its content. I believe Freelance Police, like our series, was meant to be comprised of several episodes, but any other similarity is accidental. In any case I'm sure that our game is much, much better!

Is Season Two green-lit for release on Xbox Live or is that decision based on the success of Season One?
Emily Morganti: Both seasons (eleven episodes total) will be making their way to XBLA.

Who would you say is funnier - the dog or the rabbity thing?
DG: Max gets a lot of the zanier lines, and because he is completely unfettered by conscience (as compared with Sam, who is only MOSTLY unfettered by conscience), he's more outrageous and people tend to find him funnier. Personally, I like dry humor, for which Sam would be your man. I mean, your dog.

The entire first series has already been released on the PC. Did you think about distributing the episodes in a different way, say in packs or as a physical release in stores?
DG: The XBLA games will have each season's episodes collected together in a set, instead of releasing them all separately. Although the episodes are designed to be savored at a rate of one a month, we figured we'd let people splurge. We're treating it essentially like the collection of a season of a popular television show that you would see after the series had had its first run.

Given that it's a pre-existing title, how many people are working on bringing the episodes across to Xbox 360?
EM: That's a hard question to answer, since so much of the work went in leading up to this point. Over the past year we've begun focusing on multiplatform development, and almost the entire studio has involved in the shift to XBLA production in one way or another!

What has creator Steve Purcell's input been in all this - with both seasons and the port to Xbox 360?
DG: Steve spent a lot of time at the beginning of the series, making sure everything looked, sounded, smelled and acted like Sam & Max should. And he's there every time we start planning an episode, offering up the craziest ideas and generally keeping the bar high. He has a day job elsewhere, but our office is conveniently located between it and his house, so we can catch him coming or going any time story or characters need to be discussed. As for the Xbox release, we didn't change anything Steve is concerned about, so he didn't have much to say.

Pointing and clicking with a mouse vs stick sensitivity. Discuss.
DG: Taking a game that was originally designed for a mouse and reworking it to be played with a different sort of controller can be tricky, can't it? Fortunately, the Xbox stick can be used for variable sensitivity, and that allowed us to work out a simple system that's both intuitive and easy to use. It required some playtesting and adjustment and a subtle trick or two, of course, but it actually turned out to be less trouble than I was expecting it to be.

Is there any Xbox 360-exclusive content making it into any of the episodes?
EM: Other than some interface tweaks for the controller and the standard XBLA extras such as achievements and leaderboards, no.

Any tie-ins planned, like gamer pics or Premium Themes?
EM: We're hoping to do some of these things. Right now we're looking into the possibilities.

What are the differences between the digital distribution on PC and on Xbox Live?
DG: From the perspective of the audience, getting the game is pretty similar. I would expect that the choice between the two platforms would be mainly about a preference for playing games on one or the other, say, because the Xbox is in the living room, for example (Sam & Max is an excellent experience when played sitting on a couch). The actual purchase and download process is delightfully simple on both platforms.

When is the release penciled in? Can you tell us what sort of space will there be between each episode, as well as pricing, size and so on?
EM: We're selling the games in season bundles rather than one episode at a time, so there won't be any wait between episodes! Of course, this will put the download on the larger side, but we're doing everything we can to keep the download small without compromising the game's quality. Pricing hasn't been decided yet. The release date is still to be decided but we should have a better idea of that as the games go through Microsoft's approval process.

Gillen McAllister