Sam & Max Freelance Police
Encyclopedia
Sam & Max: Freelance Police was a graphic adventure
computer game developed by LucasArts
from 2002 until its cancellation in 2004, and the final game in the company's adventure game era
. Freelance Police was originally intended for release for Windows
in early 2004 as a sequel to the 1993 title Sam & Max Hit the Road
. The game was based on the characters Sam and Max
: an anthropomorphic dog
and "hyperkinetic rabbit
y thing" who debuted in a 1987 comic book series
created by Steve Purcell
. Freelance Police was announced in August 2002, and showcased at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2003. Like its predecessor, Freelance Police was designed as a point-and-click
adventure game, but used a 3D
game engine
in place of the SCUMM
and GrimE
engines used in older LucasArts adventure games. The project's development was led by Michael Stemmle
, one of the original designers for Sam & Max Hit the Road, while Steve Purcell assisted in developing the game's plot and providing artistic direction.
Although the game's development appeared to be proceeding towards completion without difficulty, LucasArts abruptly canceled production of Freelance Police in March 2004, citing economic and market conditions. The game's cancellation was received poorly by fans of the series, Steve Purcell, and the video game industry media. Many journalists viewed this move as a culmination in the decline of the adventure game genre. LucasArts later terminated its adventure game development, and many of the Freelance Police design team left to create Telltale Games
and continue development of such adventure games. Steve Purcell moved the Sam & Max franchise to Telltale Games in 2005, prompting a revival of Sam & Max video games.
and sequel to the 1993 title Sam & Max Hit the Road
. The game was to feature 3D computer graphics
rendered in real-time. The game engine
contained elements from other LucasArts games, including those from Gladius
, RTX Red Rock
, Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels and Star Wars: Obi-Wan
. Graphical features such as shader
s, bump maps and lightmap
s were used to give a 3D effect to 2D textures in the game. Little was revealed of the gameplay, other than that Freelance Police would not follow the same control scheme used in 3D LucasArts adventures Grim Fandango
and Escape from Monkey Island
, but would return to point-and-click
mechanics used in the 2D LucasArts games. As in Sam & Max Hit the Road, Freelance Police would contain a mixture of optional and compulsory minigames, 19 in total. The game was designed so that the player character
could not die or reach a dead end.
Few details were revealed about the game's plot. In a January 2004 interview, lead designer Michael Stemmle provided a rough outline: the game's story was "really six stories, loosely held together by a thrilling über-plot". Each individual story contained a separate case for the Freelance Police, taking place in a variety of environments, including a space station
and a neopagan
bacchanal, and featuring "freakish bad guys". Stemmle stated that the intention was to keep the "über-plot" concealed for a while, but noted that it contained "all the barely plausible grandeur that fans have come to expect from Sam and Max". Steve Purcell
, the creator of Sam & Max, assisted in the development of both the plot and the artistic direction, producing concept art of various characters and locales. Besides the return of the titular characters, only one other character, Flint Paper, was confirmed for the game. Described by Stemmle as "the Freelance Police's rough 'n' tumble private detective neighbour", Paper is briefly featured in Sam & Max comics and makes an offstage appearance in Sam & Max Hit the Road. Stemmle had Paper planned for a "critical role" in the game's plot.
Due to the nature of the story, LucasArts considered releasing the game in episodic
fashion and using digital distribution
, an option favored by the development team but opposed by the management division, who preferred the more traditional methods of retail distribution. Post-release bonus content was also considered; Stemmle remarked that such content would include new power-ups
, minigames and "maybe even entirely new interactive Sam & Max cases [the player] can download".
on August 27, 2002. In their press release, LucasArts president Simon Jeffery
stated that "the Sam & Max sequel, much like the recently announced Full Throttle II, perfectly complements LucasArts' renowned adventure game legacy and lends further support to the company's commitment to investing in and developing more of our original properties". LucasArts revealed no additional details at the time beyond a projected release in the first quarter of 2004. The game was officially announced for Windows
at the Electronic Entertainment Expo convention on May 12, 2003, where the full title Sam & Max: Freelance Police was revealed. LucasArts reaffirmed the projected early 2004 release date at the convention. The game's trailer was also presented at E3, reintroducing the characters and confirming that the original voice actors for Sam and Max, Bill Farmer
and Nick Jameson
respectively, were set to reprise their roles. Over the following months, several minor media releases were made, revealing new information regarding the game's developmental direction and graphical style. The game's release was highly anticipated by journalists in the video game industry, who published various previews and interviews with the development team, particularly with lead designer Michael Stemmle, one of the original designers of Sam & Max Hit the Road.
In August 2003, LucasArts halted production on the Full Throttle adventure game sequel Hell on Wheels, leading the magazine Hyper
to speculate that Freelance Police might suffer a similar fate. LucasArts reassured the media that Freelance Police was still in production and was nearing completion, reiterating that the game would be released in 2004. Media coverage continued; for example, PC Gamer US
ran an interview with Stemmle as a cover story in February 2004. However, on March 3, 2004, LucasArts abruptly announced the cancellation of Freelance Police. In a short press release, LucasArts' Acting General Manager, Mike Nelson, stated that "after careful evaluation of current market place realities and underlying economic considerations, we've decided that this was not the appropriate time to launch a graphic adventure on the PC".
The reaction to the game's cancellation was overwhelmingly negative. Commentators in the industry media felt that the decision was another example of a decline in the adventure genre, where many concluded that LucasArts was moving to maintain its position with low risk Star Wars
-themed titles instead of the adventure games
that had brought them success in earlier years. Freelance Polices cancellation is often cited as the culmination of the downward decline in the adventure genre. The decision came so suddenly that some magazines accidentally published favorable previews of the game after LucasArts' announcement. A fan web site named "Save Sam and Max" presented a petition of 32,000 signatures to LucasArts conveying the fans' disappointment. Steve Purcell, the creator of the Sam & Max franchise, stated that he was disappointed by LucasArts' decision:
According to Stemmle, the cancellation decision was prompted by the report of an external marketing analysis group hired by LucasArts, which claimed that the European market for adventure games "had simply disappeared. Not shrunk, not cratered, just... disappeared". A newly established German company, Bad Brain Entertainment, claimed to have entered negotiations with LucasArts to acquire the game, although nothing resulted from these talks. LucasArts subsequently dismissed many of the designers involved with developing their adventure games, and in 2006 stated that they did not intend to return to the adventure genre until the next decade. Some of the former Freelance Police development team formed Telltale Games
in June 2004 to continue developing the sort of adventure games that LucasArts no longer wished to produce. Telltale Games later unsuccessfully attempted to buy the rights to Freelance Police from LucasArts, which would have enabled the team to finish developing the game. When the LucasArts license expired in mid-2005, Purcell took the franchise to Telltale Games, where it was developed into an episodic
series of games. However, very little of the work done on Freelance Police was carried over by the developers to Telltale Games; LucasArts still held onto the game's assets and Telltale was wary about using similar design patterns. The new series debuted in October 2006 with Sam & Max Save the World
.
Graphic adventure game
A graphic adventure game is a form of adventure game. They are distinct from text adventures. Whereas a player must actively observe using commands such as "look" in a text-based adventure, graphic adventures revolutionized gameplay by making use of natural human perception...
computer game developed by LucasArts
LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
from 2002 until its cancellation in 2004, and the final game in the company's adventure game era
LucasArts adventure games
From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, LucasArts was well known for their point-and-click graphic adventure games, nearly all of which received high scoring reviews at the time of their release. Their style tended towards the humorous, often irreverent or slapstick humour, with a few exceptions...
. Freelance Police was originally intended for release for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
in early 2004 as a sequel to the 1993 title Sam & Max Hit the Road
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Sam & Max Hit the Road is a graphic adventure computer game released by LucasArts during the company's adventure games era. The game was originally released for DOS in 1993 and for Mac OS in 1995. A 2002 re-release included compatibility with Windows and Amiga...
. The game was based on the characters Sam and Max
Sam & Max
Sam & Max is a media franchise focusing on the fictional characters of Sam and Max, the Freelance Police. The characters, who occupy a universe that parodies American popular culture, were created by Steve Purcell in his youth, and later debuted in a 1987 comic book series...
: an anthropomorphic dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
and "hyperkinetic rabbit
Rabbit
Rabbits are small mammals in the family Leporidae of the order Lagomorpha, found in several parts of the world...
y thing" who debuted in a 1987 comic book series
Comic book
A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...
created by Steve Purcell
Steve Purcell
Steve Ross Purcell is an American cartoonist, animator and game designer. He is most widely known as the creator of Sam & Max, an independent comic book series about a pair of anthropomorphic animal vigilantes and private investigators, for which Purcell received an Eisner Award in 2007...
. Freelance Police was announced in August 2002, and showcased at the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in 2003. Like its predecessor, Freelance Police was designed as a point-and-click
Point-and-click
Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button , or other pointing device...
adventure game, but used a 3D
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
in place of the SCUMM
SCUMM
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion is a scripting language developed at LucasArts to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion....
and GrimE
GrimE
GrimE is an adventure game engine, created by Bret Mogilefsky at LucasArts using the free software scripting language Lua. It was first used for Grim Fandango. Partly based on the Sith engine, GrimE was the successor to SCUMM, preserving some of that engine's features...
engines used in older LucasArts adventure games. The project's development was led by Michael Stemmle
Michael Stemmle
Michael J. Stemmle is a computer game writer, designer, and director who cocreated some of LucasArts' adventure games in the 1990s and early 2000s...
, one of the original designers for Sam & Max Hit the Road, while Steve Purcell assisted in developing the game's plot and providing artistic direction.
Although the game's development appeared to be proceeding towards completion without difficulty, LucasArts abruptly canceled production of Freelance Police in March 2004, citing economic and market conditions. The game's cancellation was received poorly by fans of the series, Steve Purcell, and the video game industry media. Many journalists viewed this move as a culmination in the decline of the adventure game genre. LucasArts later terminated its adventure game development, and many of the Freelance Police design team left to create Telltale Games
Telltale Games
Telltale Games is a leading independent digital first publisher and game developer founded in June 2004 as Telltale, Incorporated. Based in San Rafael, California, the studio includes designers formerly employed by LucasArts...
and continue development of such adventure games. Steve Purcell moved the Sam & Max franchise to Telltale Games in 2005, prompting a revival of Sam & Max video games.
Overview
Sam & Max: Freelance Police was designed by LucasArts as a graphic adventure gameGraphic adventure game
A graphic adventure game is a form of adventure game. They are distinct from text adventures. Whereas a player must actively observe using commands such as "look" in a text-based adventure, graphic adventures revolutionized gameplay by making use of natural human perception...
and sequel to the 1993 title Sam & Max Hit the Road
Sam & Max Hit the Road
Sam & Max Hit the Road is a graphic adventure computer game released by LucasArts during the company's adventure games era. The game was originally released for DOS in 1993 and for Mac OS in 1995. A 2002 re-release included compatibility with Windows and Amiga...
. The game was to feature 3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
rendered in real-time. The game engine
Game engine
A game engine is a system designed for the creation and development of video games. There are many game engines that are designed to work on video game consoles and personal computers...
contained elements from other LucasArts games, including those from Gladius
Gladius (video game)
The game was rated as one of the "best Xbox games most people never played" by Official Xbox Magazine.-External links:*...
, RTX Red Rock
RTX Red Rock
RTX Red Rock is an action-adventure game developed and published by LucasArts for the PlayStation 2. It was announced and later canceled for the Nintendo GameCube.- Plot :...
, Full Throttle: Hell on Wheels and Star Wars: Obi-Wan
Star Wars: Obi-Wan
Star Wars: Obi-Wan had mostly negative reviews due to the AI, short levels and outdated graphics.In March, 2004, GMR Magazine, rated Obi-Wan number 5 on its list of 5 worst Star Wars games.- External links :**...
. Graphical features such as shader
Shader
In the field of computer graphics, a shader is a computer program that is used primarily to calculate rendering effects on graphics hardware with a high degree of flexibility...
s, bump maps and lightmap
Lightmap
A lightmap is a data structure which contains the brightness of surfaces in 3d graphics applications such as video games. Lightmaps are precomputed and used for static objects. Quake was the first computer game to use lightmaps to augment rendering. Before lightmaps were invented, realtime...
s were used to give a 3D effect to 2D textures in the game. Little was revealed of the gameplay, other than that Freelance Police would not follow the same control scheme used in 3D LucasArts adventures Grim Fandango
Grim Fandango
Grim Fandango is a personal computer game in the graphic adventure genre released by LucasArts in 1998 and primarily written by Tim Schafer. It is the first adventure game by LucasArts to use 3D computer graphics overlaid on pre-rendered, static backgrounds...
and Escape from Monkey Island
Escape from Monkey Island
Escape from Monkey Island is a computer adventure game developed and released by LucasArts in 2000. It is the fourth game in the Monkey Island series....
, but would return to point-and-click
Point-and-click
Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button , or other pointing device...
mechanics used in the 2D LucasArts games. As in Sam & Max Hit the Road, Freelance Police would contain a mixture of optional and compulsory minigames, 19 in total. The game was designed so that the player character
Player character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
could not die or reach a dead end.
Few details were revealed about the game's plot. In a January 2004 interview, lead designer Michael Stemmle provided a rough outline: the game's story was "really six stories, loosely held together by a thrilling über-plot". Each individual story contained a separate case for the Freelance Police, taking place in a variety of environments, including a space station
Space station
A space station is a spacecraft capable of supporting a crew which is designed to remain in space for an extended period of time, and to which other spacecraft can dock. A space station is distinguished from other spacecraft used for human spaceflight by its lack of major propulsion or landing...
and a neopagan
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
bacchanal, and featuring "freakish bad guys". Stemmle stated that the intention was to keep the "über-plot" concealed for a while, but noted that it contained "all the barely plausible grandeur that fans have come to expect from Sam and Max". Steve Purcell
Steve Purcell
Steve Ross Purcell is an American cartoonist, animator and game designer. He is most widely known as the creator of Sam & Max, an independent comic book series about a pair of anthropomorphic animal vigilantes and private investigators, for which Purcell received an Eisner Award in 2007...
, the creator of Sam & Max, assisted in the development of both the plot and the artistic direction, producing concept art of various characters and locales. Besides the return of the titular characters, only one other character, Flint Paper, was confirmed for the game. Described by Stemmle as "the Freelance Police's rough 'n' tumble private detective neighbour", Paper is briefly featured in Sam & Max comics and makes an offstage appearance in Sam & Max Hit the Road. Stemmle had Paper planned for a "critical role" in the game's plot.
Due to the nature of the story, LucasArts considered releasing the game in episodic
Episodic games
An episodic video game is a video game of a shorter length that is commercially released as an installment to a continuous and larger series. Episodic games differ from conventional video games in that they often contain less content but are developed on a more frequent basis.Such a series may or...
fashion and using digital distribution
Digital distribution
Online distribution, digital distribution, or electronic software distribution is the practice of delivering content without the use of physical media, typically by downloading via the internet directly to a consumer's device. Online distribution bypasses conventional physical distribution media,...
, an option favored by the development team but opposed by the management division, who preferred the more traditional methods of retail distribution. Post-release bonus content was also considered; Stemmle remarked that such content would include new power-ups
Power-up
In computer and video games, power-ups are objects that instantly benefit or add extra abilities to the game character as a game mechanic. This is in contrast to an item, which may or may not have a benefit and can be used at a time chosen by the player...
, minigames and "maybe even entirely new interactive Sam & Max cases [the player] can download".
Development
The development of a sequel to Sam & Max Hit the Road was announced by LucasArtsLucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
on August 27, 2002. In their press release, LucasArts president Simon Jeffery
Simon Jeffery
Simon Jeffery is the chief publishing officer of ngmoco's Plus+ Publishing group.Similar to EA Publishing Partners group, Plus+ Publishing is a combined technology, App Store publishing and custom support play for iPhone and iPod touch developers. It will launch its first products with the rollout...
stated that "the Sam & Max sequel, much like the recently announced Full Throttle II, perfectly complements LucasArts' renowned adventure game legacy and lends further support to the company's commitment to investing in and developing more of our original properties". LucasArts revealed no additional details at the time beyond a projected release in the first quarter of 2004. The game was officially announced for Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
at the Electronic Entertainment Expo convention on May 12, 2003, where the full title Sam & Max: Freelance Police was revealed. LucasArts reaffirmed the projected early 2004 release date at the convention. The game's trailer was also presented at E3, reintroducing the characters and confirming that the original voice actors for Sam and Max, Bill Farmer
Bill Farmer
William "Bill" Farmer is an American voice actor and comedian, best known for being the current voice of the Disney characters Goofy, Pluto and Horace Horsecollar.-Early life:...
and Nick Jameson
Nick Jameson
Nick Jameson is an American actor and voice actor, as well as a songwriter, composer, musician and producer. He has appeared in the television series The Critic, 24, Lost and, vocally, in Star Wars: Clone Wars as Palpatine , the radio adaption of Dark Empire, and several other productions of Star...
respectively, were set to reprise their roles. Over the following months, several minor media releases were made, revealing new information regarding the game's developmental direction and graphical style. The game's release was highly anticipated by journalists in the video game industry, who published various previews and interviews with the development team, particularly with lead designer Michael Stemmle, one of the original designers of Sam & Max Hit the Road.
In August 2003, LucasArts halted production on the Full Throttle adventure game sequel Hell on Wheels, leading the magazine Hyper
Hyper (magazine)
Hyper is a multi-platform Australian video game magazine. Australia's longest running gaming magazine, it has been in publication since 1993, and was released the same month as the better known UK magazine Edge...
to speculate that Freelance Police might suffer a similar fate. LucasArts reassured the media that Freelance Police was still in production and was nearing completion, reiterating that the game would be released in 2004. Media coverage continued; for example, PC Gamer US
PC Gamer
PC Gamer is a magazine founded in Britain in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future Publishing. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games magazines in their respective countries...
ran an interview with Stemmle as a cover story in February 2004. However, on March 3, 2004, LucasArts abruptly announced the cancellation of Freelance Police. In a short press release, LucasArts' Acting General Manager, Mike Nelson, stated that "after careful evaluation of current market place realities and underlying economic considerations, we've decided that this was not the appropriate time to launch a graphic adventure on the PC".
The reaction to the game's cancellation was overwhelmingly negative. Commentators in the industry media felt that the decision was another example of a decline in the adventure genre, where many concluded that LucasArts was moving to maintain its position with low risk Star Wars
Star Wars
Star Wars is an American epic space opera film series created by George Lucas. The first film in the series was originally released on May 25, 1977, under the title Star Wars, by 20th Century Fox, and became a worldwide pop culture phenomenon, followed by two sequels, released at three-year...
-themed titles instead of the adventure games
LucasArts adventure games
From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, LucasArts was well known for their point-and-click graphic adventure games, nearly all of which received high scoring reviews at the time of their release. Their style tended towards the humorous, often irreverent or slapstick humour, with a few exceptions...
that had brought them success in earlier years. Freelance Polices cancellation is often cited as the culmination of the downward decline in the adventure genre. The decision came so suddenly that some magazines accidentally published favorable previews of the game after LucasArts' announcement. A fan web site named "Save Sam and Max" presented a petition of 32,000 signatures to LucasArts conveying the fans' disappointment. Steve Purcell, the creator of the Sam & Max franchise, stated that he was disappointed by LucasArts' decision:
According to Stemmle, the cancellation decision was prompted by the report of an external marketing analysis group hired by LucasArts, which claimed that the European market for adventure games "had simply disappeared. Not shrunk, not cratered, just... disappeared". A newly established German company, Bad Brain Entertainment, claimed to have entered negotiations with LucasArts to acquire the game, although nothing resulted from these talks. LucasArts subsequently dismissed many of the designers involved with developing their adventure games, and in 2006 stated that they did not intend to return to the adventure genre until the next decade. Some of the former Freelance Police development team formed Telltale Games
Telltale Games
Telltale Games is a leading independent digital first publisher and game developer founded in June 2004 as Telltale, Incorporated. Based in San Rafael, California, the studio includes designers formerly employed by LucasArts...
in June 2004 to continue developing the sort of adventure games that LucasArts no longer wished to produce. Telltale Games later unsuccessfully attempted to buy the rights to Freelance Police from LucasArts, which would have enabled the team to finish developing the game. When the LucasArts license expired in mid-2005, Purcell took the franchise to Telltale Games, where it was developed into an episodic
Episodic games
An episodic video game is a video game of a shorter length that is commercially released as an installment to a continuous and larger series. Episodic games differ from conventional video games in that they often contain less content but are developed on a more frequent basis.Such a series may or...
series of games. However, very little of the work done on Freelance Police was carried over by the developers to Telltale Games; LucasArts still held onto the game's assets and Telltale was wary about using similar design patterns. The new series debuted in October 2006 with Sam & Max Save the World
Sam & Max Save the World
Sam & Max Save the World is a graphic adventure video game developed by Telltale Games. The game was originally released as Sam & Max: Season One before being renamed in early 2009. Save the World was developed in episodic fashion, comprising six episodes that were released for Microsoft Windows...
.
External links
- Official Sam & Max: Freelance Police website, retrieved from archived version of August 6, 2003
- LucasArts Entertainment Company
- Save Sam and Max