Sam & Max Hit the Road
Encyclopedia
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 is based on the comic
characters of Sam and Max
, the "Freelance Police", an anthropomorphic dog
and "hyperkinetic rabbity
thing". The characters, created by Steve Purcell
, originally debuted in a 1987 comic book series. Based on the 1989 Sam & Max comic On the Road, the duo take the case of a missing bigfoot
from a nearby carnival
, traveling to many Americana
tourist sites to solve the mystery.
LucasArts began development of the game in 1989, wanting to use new settings and characters after the success of the past Maniac Mansion
and Monkey Island adventure titles. Series creator Steve Purcell, then a LucasArts employee, was one of the lead designers on the project. Sam & Max Hit the Road is the ninth game to use the SCUMM
adventure game engine, and also integrated the iMUSE audio system developed by Michael Land
and Peter McConnell
. The game was one of the first to incorporate full voice talent
for its characters; the two titular characters were voiced by professional voice actors Bill Farmer
and Nick Jameson
.
The game received critical acclaim on release, and was praised for its humor, voice acting, graphics, music and gameplay. It is now regarded as a classic adventure game and is often listed in publishers' lists of top games of all time. Several attempts to produce sequels were cancelled, ultimately resulting in the franchise moving from LucasArts to Telltale Games
.
adventure game
where the player controls the actions of Sam from a third-person perspective. The player uses Sam to explore the pre-rendered
cartoon environments of the game and solve a series of puzzles using a simple point-and-click
interface. The game's puzzles have logical solutions, although a number of them have far-fetched solutions due to the game's cartoon setting. Players can set the game's cursor
in a particular mode to designate how Sam interacts with the environment: Sam can walk around an area, talk to other characters, look at objects
, pick them up or otherwise try to use them. The cursor's graphic changes when it is hovered over an in-game entity that Sam can interact with. When talking to another character, the player is given a choice of subject areas to discuss, depicted in a conversation tree
as icons at the base of the screen. In addition to specific topics involving the game's plot, Sam can inject unconnected exclamations, questions and non sequiturs into a conversation.
The game incorporates an inventory system for items that Sam picks up during the course of the game. Items can be used on other entities in the game world, or can often be combined with other inventory items to provide a new object necessary for solving a puzzle. Although Max's character will walk around the game's areas by his own will, Sam can also use Max at various points by using an inventory icon of Max's head on game objects—usually on characters where the solution to a problem involves violence. Sam and Max travel to different locations in the game using their black and white 1960 DeSoto Adventurer
, which when clicked on in-game will present a map of the United States
with all the available locations the pair can travel to shown. As the game progresses, the number of locations on the map increases.
In addition to the main game, Sam & Max Hit the Road includes several minigame
s. Some of these, such as a carnival game based on Whac-A-Mole
but involving live rats, must be completed in order to receive new items and further the game's plot, while others, such as a car-themed version of Battleship
, are entirely optional as to whether the player uses them. As with the majority of LucasArts adventure games
, Sam & Max Hit the Road is designed so that the player character
s cannot die or reach a complete dead-end.
characters created by Steve Purcell
, who act as private detectives and vigilante
s. Sam & Max Hit the Road follows the pair on a case that takes them from their office in New York City
across the United States
. The game starts in a similar way to many of the comic stories, with Sam and Max receiving a telephone call from an unseen and unheard Commissioner
, who tells them to go to a nearby carnival
. At the carnival, they are told by the owners that their star attraction, a frozen bigfoot
called Bruno, has been set free and fled taking their second attraction, Trixie the Giraffe-Necked Girl. Sam and Max set off to find Bruno and Trixie and bring them back. As the duo investigate the carnival, they learn that Bruno and Trixie are in love and that Trixie freed Bruno. The Freelance Police leave the carnival to pursue leads at various tourist trap
s throughout the country, such as The World's Largest Ball of Twine
, a vortex
controlled by giant subterranean magnet
s and bungee jumping
facilities at Mount Rushmore
.
The pair learn that two other bigfoots used as tourist attractions in other parts of the country have been freed by Bruno, and that Bruno has been captured by Liverpudlian country western singer Conroy Bumpus, a cruel animal abuser who wishes to use Bruno in his performances. Sam and Max travel to Bumpus' home and rescue Bruno and Trixie, but Bruno then departs with Trixie to join a bigfoot gathering at an inn in Nevada
. Following them, Sam and Max are forced to disguise themselves as a bigfoot to enter the party. Eventually the party is gatecrashed by Conroy Bumpus and his henchman Lee Harvey, who hope to capture the bigfoots. However, Sam manages to fool Bumpus and Harvey into donning their bigfoot disguise, and Max locks them in the inn's kitchen freezer.
Chief Vanuatu, leader of the bigfoots, in recognition of the pair's actions, makes the Freelance Police members of the bigfoot tribe and tells them of a spell that will make the world safe for bigfoots again, preventing their capture by humans. However, the chief requires help deciphering the spell's four ingredients, and asks for Sam and Max's help. Eventually, they discover that the ingredients are a vegetable resembling John Muir
, hair restoration tonic
, the tooth of a dinosaur
and a vortex contained within a snow globe
. Combined with a live bigfoot sacrifice—which Max substitutes for frozen bigfoot-clad Bumpus and Harvey—the ingredients cause large trees to spring into existence, destroying towns and cities and covering the bulk of the west United States in forest. Content that their work is done, Sam and Max take the frozen ice block containing Bumpus and Harvey to the carnival. Believing that Bruno has been returned to them, the owners give a large reward of skee ball
tickets to the Freelance Police, who then spend the end credits shooting targets at a carnival stall with real firearms.
, many of whom had previous experience working on other LucasArts adventure games
. The game was designed by Sean Clark
, Michael Stemmle
, Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell
and his future wife Collette Michaud, all of whom had worked on Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
. Sam and Max first appeared as video game characters as internal testing material for SCUMM
engine
programmers recently employed by LucasArts; Steve Purcell created animated versions of the characters and an office backdrop for the programmers to practice on. Soon after, Sam & Max comic strips by Steve Purcell were published in LucasArts' quarterly newsletter. After a positive reaction from fans to the strips and out of a wish to use new characters and settings after the success of the Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion
franchises, LucasArts offered in 1992 to create a video game out of the characters.
The game was based on the 1989 Sam & Max
comic On The Road, which featured the two on a journey across the United States. Several of the game's tourist trap
s were based on real locations experienced by the developers; Steve Purcell recollects a childhood visit to a "Frog Rock"—one of the locations featured in the game—and remembered thinking "That's it? It doesn't even look like a frog!" A chain of "Snuckey's" roadside stores and attractions was a tribute to the Stuckey's
chain which Purcell and his family often stopped at during road trips.
Sam & Max was one of the first games to include a full speech soundtrack and music, which for Steve Purcell was a "dream opportunity" to hear his creations speak. Steve Purcell describes casting Bill Farmer
in the role of Sam as his audition tape "was very dry; he wasn’t trying too hard to sell the lines". Actor Nick Jameson
was cast to voice Max. The game's jazz
score was composed by LucasArts' Clint Bajakian
, Michael Land
and Peter McConnell
, and was incorporated into the game using Land and McConnell's iMUSE engine, which allowed for audio to be synchronized with the visuals. High quality versions of four of the game's tracks were included on the CD version of the game. Sam & Max Hit the Road was released simultaneously on floppy disk
and CD-ROM
; only the CD version of the game contained full in-game speech and music. Fans of the game have since recreated the game's MIDI soundtrack in higher quality MP3
format.
As the Sam & Max comics had a more adult tone, Steve Purcell expected LucasArts to cut back "the edgier material" from the game. However, he expressed that he was pleased with how LucasArts allowed him to stay close to his original vision for the game. The game's various minigame
s were included to allow players to take a break from solving the main game's puzzles and play something "short and silly". Sam & Max Hit the Road also signified a major change in development for games on the SCUMM engine. The user interface was entirely rehauled from that introduced in Maniac Mansion
and built upon in subsequent games. Instead of selecting a verb function from a list at the bottom of the screen and clicking on an in-game entity, Sam & Max Hit the Road compressed all verb functions into the mouse cursor, which players could cycle through using the right-mouse button. The inventory was also moved off the main screen to a sub-screen accessible by a small icon on the screen. According to Steve Purcell, this cleared space on the screen to "expand on the excellent backgrounds and also made interaction much quicker and less laborious than LucasArts' previous adventure games" The conversation tree
s were also affected by this; Michael Stemmle proposed removing the text-based selection menu used in previous LucasArts' adventure games in favor of icons representing topics of discussion as "nothing would kill a joke worse than reading it before you hear it". Several of these innovations were retained for future LucasArts adventure games.
. The magazine Edge
noted that "with most adventure games, its hard to feel anything for the character(s) you control", but stated that Sam & Max Hit the Road broke this mold by being "genuinely funny" and players would be "experimenting more than... normally just to see what the madcap pair will get up to next." The reviewer praised the game's graphics as "beautifully detailed" and the puzzles as "intricate to solve", but noted that a number of the minigames were "dismal". Joonas Linkola, writing for Adventure Gamers
, echoed many of these comments, praising the cartoon-style graphics as "appropriately cheesy" and "colorful". On the subject of the game's humor, Linkola noted that "there are many visual jokes, but the backbone of the game is in its witty dialogue", and as such this gave the game a "replayability value" as players may pick up on jokes based on "verbal acrobatics, on the use of polysyllabic words, old English and other such oddities" that they missed the first time around. Linkola gave additional praise to the soundtrack and audio work, stating that the "very fitting voices... adds to the comical duo's wisecracking attitude".
Allgame
reviewer Steve Honeywell was also very positive with his comments, describing the plot as "interesting", the graphics as "appropriately cartoonish and fun" and the locations as "well-designed", but noting that above all "what makes Sam & Max Hit the Road work is the humor". On the game's puzzles, Honeywell stated that "some of the puzzles are pretty simple, while others are difficult in the extreme. One nice thing is the almost complete absence of red herring
items. Everything you find can be put to use somewhere". As with other reviews, Allgame praised the audio work, noting that "the music is decent throughout the game, and the voice talent is stellar", closing with the comment that the game takes point-and-click adventures to "insane new heights in terms of both fun and comedy". The site GamersHell praised the graphics of the game as "superb" but noted that "it's not so friendly that it can only be played by kiddies". Although describing sound setup as "a bit tricky", the reviewer praised the voice acting as "very good" and the music as "top quality". However, although the review noted that the game had "easy to use" interfaces and menus, it was critical of the fact that "at times it can be the frustrating 'hunt for the correct pixel' syndrome".
The game was reviewed in 1994 in Dragon
#203 by Sandy Petersen
in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.
described Sam and Max Hit the Road in its 2007 "Top 100 Games" feature as "known more for its story and characters", noting that "the unusual and interesting gameplay is typically saddled in the shotgun position in fans' memories, but when you're driving a Porsche
, even the trunk is a smooth ride". Writing for Adventure Classic Gaming in 2006, David Olgarsson noted that the game had "undoubtedly... become [LucasArts'] most critically acclaimed adventure game of all time", citing the game's production values, graphical effects, challenging puzzles and story techniques as the reason for this, concluding that the game was an "enduring testament to adventure gaming’s finest hours". In 2004, Adventure Gamers
listed Sam & Max Hit the Road as the eighth-best adventure game of all time, describing it as "the most absurd and ridiculous game ever designed". The game was one of four nominees for the 1994 Annie Award
for Best Animated CD-ROM, although the award instead went to LucasArts' Star Wars: Rebel Assault
.
The first attempts at creating a sequel took place in September 2001 with Sam & Max Plunge Through Space. The game was to be an Xbox
exclusive title, developed by Infinite Machine, a small company consisting of a number of former LucasArts employees. The story of the game was developed by series creator Steve Purcell
and fellow designer Chuck Jordan and involved the Freelance Police travelling the galaxy to find a stolen Statue of Liberty
. However, Infinite Machine went bankrupt within a year, and the project was abandoned.
At the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo convention, nearly a decade after the release of Sam & Max Hit the Road, LucasArts
announced the production of a PC sequel, entitled Sam & Max: Freelance Police. Freelance Police, like Hit the Road, was to be a point-and-click graphic adventure game, utilising a new 3D
game engine
. Development of Freelance Police was led by Michael Stemmle
, one of the original designers of Sam and Max Hit the Road. Steve Purcell contributed to the project by writing the story and producing concept art
. The original voice actors for Sam and Max, Bill Farmer
and Nick Jameson
, were also set to reprise their roles. In March 2004, however, quite far into the game's development, Sam & Max: Freelance Police was abruptly cancelled by LucasArts, citing "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" in a short press release. The fan reaction to the cancellation was strong; a petition of 32,000 signatures stating the disappointment of fans was later presented to LucasArts.
After LucasArts' license with Steve Purcell expired in 2005, the Sam & Max franchise moved to Telltale Games
, a company of former LucasArts employees who had worked on a number of LucasArts adventure games
, including on the development of Freelance Police. Under Telltale Games, a new episodic series
of Sam & Max video games was announced. Like both Sam & Max Hit the Road and Freelance Police, Sam & Max Save the World
was in a point-and-click graphic adventure game format, although it lacked the original voice actors for the characters. The first season ran for six episodes, each with a self-contained storyline but with an overall story arc running through the series. The first episode was released on GameTap
in October 2006, with episodes following regularly until April 2007, and a special compilation on the Wii
released in October 2008. A second season, Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space, began in November 2007 and ended in April 2008. Originally thought to be released in 2009, a third season, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse
, began in April 2010.
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...
during the company's adventure games 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...
. The game was originally released for DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
in 1993 and for Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
in 1995. A 2002 re-release included compatibility with 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...
and Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
. The game is based on the comic
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...
characters of 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...
, the "Freelance Police", 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 rabbity
Lagomorpha
The lagomorphs are the members of the taxonomic order Lagomorpha, of which there are two living families, the Leporidae , and the Ochotonidae...
thing". The characters, 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...
, originally debuted in a 1987 comic book series. Based on the 1989 Sam & Max comic On the Road, the duo take the case of a missing bigfoot
Bigfoot
Bigfoot, also known as sasquatch, is an ape-like cryptid that purportedly inhabits forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid...
from a nearby carnival
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
, traveling to many Americana
Americana
Americana refers to artifacts, or a collection of artifacts, related to the history, geography, folklore and cultural heritage of the United States. Many kinds of material fall within the definition of Americana: paintings, prints and drawings; license plates or entire vehicles, household objects,...
tourist sites to solve the mystery.
LucasArts began development of the game in 1989, wanting to use new settings and characters after the success of the past Maniac Mansion
Maniac Mansion
Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It was Lucasfilm's first published video game, and it was initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II. A comedy horror parody of B movies, it follows teenager Dave Miller as he ventures...
and Monkey Island adventure titles. Series creator Steve Purcell, then a LucasArts employee, was one of the lead designers on the project. Sam & Max Hit the Road is the ninth game to use 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....
adventure game engine, and also integrated the iMUSE audio system developed by Michael Land
Michael Land
Michael Z. Land is an American video game composer and musician best known for his scores for various games produced by LucasArts.-Early life and career:Michael Land was born in the North Shore area north of Boston, Massachusetts...
and Peter McConnell
Peter McConnell
Peter N. McConnell , also known as Peter Mc, is an American video game music composer who worked for LucasArts for nearly ten years. He studied music as an undergraduate at Harvard University in 80s under Timothy Vincent Clarke, Curt Cacioppo and Ivan Tcherepnin...
. The game was one of the first to incorporate full voice talent
Voice acting
Voice acting is the art of providing voices for animated characters and radio and audio dramas and comedy, as well as doing voice-overs in radio and television commercials, audio dramas, dubbed foreign language films, video games, puppet shows, and amusement rides.Performers are called...
for its characters; the two titular characters were voiced by professional voice actors 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...
.
The game received critical acclaim on release, and was praised for its humor, voice acting, graphics, music and gameplay. It is now regarded as a classic adventure game and is often listed in publishers' lists of top games of all time. Several attempts to produce sequels were cancelled, ultimately resulting in the franchise moving from LucasArts to 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...
.
Gameplay
Sam & Max Hit the Road is a 2D2D computer graphics
2D computer graphics is the computer-based generation of digital images—mostly from two-dimensional models and by techniques specific to them...
adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
where the player controls the actions of Sam from a third-person perspective. The player uses Sam to explore the pre-rendered
Pre-rendered
Pre-rendering is the process in which video footage is not rendered in real-time by the hardware that is outputing or playing back the video. Instead, the video is a recording of a footage that was previously rendered on a different equipment...
cartoon environments of the game and solve a series of puzzles using a simple 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...
interface. The game's puzzles have logical solutions, although a number of them have far-fetched solutions due to the game's cartoon setting. Players can set the game's cursor
Cursor (computers)
In computing, a cursor is an indicator used to show the position on a computer monitor or other display device that will respond to input from a text input or pointing device. The flashing text cursor may be referred to as a caret in some cases...
in a particular mode to designate how Sam interacts with the environment: Sam can walk around an area, talk to other characters, look at objects
Item (game)
In pencil and paper games and computer and video games, an item is an object within the game world that can be collected by a player or, occasionally, a non-player character...
, pick them up or otherwise try to use them. The cursor's graphic changes when it is hovered over an in-game entity that Sam can interact with. When talking to another character, the player is given a choice of subject areas to discuss, depicted in a conversation tree
Conversation tree
A dialog tree or conversation tree is a gameplay mechanic that is used throughout many adventure games and role-playing video games. When interacting with a non-player character, the player is given a choice of what to say and makes subsequent choices until the conversation ends...
as icons at the base of the screen. In addition to specific topics involving the game's plot, Sam can inject unconnected exclamations, questions and non sequiturs into a conversation.
The game incorporates an inventory system for items that Sam picks up during the course of the game. Items can be used on other entities in the game world, or can often be combined with other inventory items to provide a new object necessary for solving a puzzle. Although Max's character will walk around the game's areas by his own will, Sam can also use Max at various points by using an inventory icon of Max's head on game objects—usually on characters where the solution to a problem involves violence. Sam and Max travel to different locations in the game using their black and white 1960 DeSoto Adventurer
DeSoto Adventurer
The DeSoto Adventurer is an automobile produced by the Chrysler Corporation and sold under its DeSoto automotive marque from 1956 through the 1960 model year. It was initially DeSoto's special, limited-production, high-performance model, similar to the Chrysler 300. While in production, the...
, which when clicked on in-game will present a map of the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
with all the available locations the pair can travel to shown. As the game progresses, the number of locations on the map increases.
In addition to the main game, Sam & Max Hit the Road includes several minigame
Minigame
A minigame is a short video game often contained within another video game. A minigame is always smaller or more simplistic than the game in which it is contained. Minigames are sometimes also offered separately for free to promote the main game...
s. Some of these, such as a carnival game based on Whac-A-Mole
Whac-A-Mole
Whac-A-Mole is an arcade redemption game. A typical Whac-A-Mole machine consists of a large, waist-level cabinet with five holes in its top and a large, soft, black mallet. Each hole contains a single plastic mole and the machinery necessary to move it up and down. Once the game starts, the moles...
but involving live rats, must be completed in order to receive new items and further the game's plot, while others, such as a car-themed version of Battleship
Battleship (game)
The game Battleship is a guessing game played by two people. It is known throughout the world as a pencil and paper game which predates World War I. It was published by Milton Bradley Company in 1931 as the pad-and-pencil game "Broadsides, the Game of Naval Strategy".-Description:The game is...
, are entirely optional as to whether the player uses them. As with the majority of LucasArts 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...
, Sam & Max Hit the Road is 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...
s cannot die or reach a complete dead-end.
Plot
Sam and Max, the Freelance Police, are two comic bookComic 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...
characters 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...
, who act as private detectives and vigilante
Vigilante
A vigilante is a private individual who legally or illegally punishes an alleged lawbreaker, or participates in a group which metes out extralegal punishment to an alleged lawbreaker....
s. Sam & Max Hit the Road follows the pair on a case that takes them from their office in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
across the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The game starts in a similar way to many of the comic stories, with Sam and Max receiving a telephone call from an unseen and unheard Commissioner
Police commissioner
Commissioner is a senior rank used in many police forces and may be rendered Police Commissioner or Commissioner of Police. In some organizations, the commissioner is a political appointee, and may or may not actually be a professional police officer. In these circumstances, there is often a...
, who tells them to go to a nearby carnival
Circus
A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...
. At the carnival, they are told by the owners that their star attraction, a frozen bigfoot
Bigfoot
Bigfoot, also known as sasquatch, is an ape-like cryptid that purportedly inhabits forests, mainly in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. Bigfoot is usually described as a large, hairy, bipedal humanoid...
called Bruno, has been set free and fled taking their second attraction, Trixie the Giraffe-Necked Girl. Sam and Max set off to find Bruno and Trixie and bring them back. As the duo investigate the carnival, they learn that Bruno and Trixie are in love and that Trixie freed Bruno. The Freelance Police leave the carnival to pursue leads at various tourist trap
Tourist trap
A tourist trap is an establishment, or group of establishments, that has been created with the aim of attracting tourists and their money...
s throughout the country, such as The World's Largest Ball of Twine
Biggest ball of twine
There are several claims to the world's biggest ball of twine record.-Largest sisal twine ball built by one person:Darwin, Minnesota is the home of a ball by Francis A. Johnson. It is 4 meters in diameter and weighs 4,900 kg . He started his obsession in March 1950 and wrapped four hours...
, a vortex
Vortex
A vortex is a spinning, often turbulent,flow of fluid. Any spiral motion with closed streamlines is vortex flow. The motion of the fluid swirling rapidly around a center is called a vortex...
controlled by giant subterranean magnet
Magnet
A magnet is a material or object that produces a magnetic field. This magnetic field is invisible but is responsible for the most notable property of a magnet: a force that pulls on other ferromagnetic materials, such as iron, and attracts or repels other magnets.A permanent magnet is an object...
s and bungee jumping
Bungee jumping
Bungee jumping is an activity that involves jumping from a tall structure while connected to a large elastic cord. The tall structure is usually a fixed object, such as a building, bridge or crane; but it is also possible to jump from a movable object, such as a hot-air-balloon or helicopter, that...
facilities at Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore
Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore near Keystone, South Dakota, in the United States...
.
The pair learn that two other bigfoots used as tourist attractions in other parts of the country have been freed by Bruno, and that Bruno has been captured by Liverpudlian country western singer Conroy Bumpus, a cruel animal abuser who wishes to use Bruno in his performances. Sam and Max travel to Bumpus' home and rescue Bruno and Trixie, but Bruno then departs with Trixie to join a bigfoot gathering at an inn in Nevada
Nevada
Nevada is a state in the western, mountain west, and southwestern regions of the United States. With an area of and a population of about 2.7 million, it is the 7th-largest and 35th-most populous state. Over two-thirds of Nevada's people live in the Las Vegas metropolitan area, which contains its...
. Following them, Sam and Max are forced to disguise themselves as a bigfoot to enter the party. Eventually the party is gatecrashed by Conroy Bumpus and his henchman Lee Harvey, who hope to capture the bigfoots. However, Sam manages to fool Bumpus and Harvey into donning their bigfoot disguise, and Max locks them in the inn's kitchen freezer.
Chief Vanuatu, leader of the bigfoots, in recognition of the pair's actions, makes the Freelance Police members of the bigfoot tribe and tells them of a spell that will make the world safe for bigfoots again, preventing their capture by humans. However, the chief requires help deciphering the spell's four ingredients, and asks for Sam and Max's help. Eventually, they discover that the ingredients are a vegetable resembling John Muir
John Muir
John Muir was a Scottish-born American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, have been read by millions...
, hair restoration tonic
Baldness treatments
Baldness treatment is a US $1 billion per year industry. In males past their early 20s, the incidence of balding is roughly equivalent to chronological age. Thus, by age 50, roughly half of men experience male pattern baldness . Beginning in the 1980s, drug therapy has increasingly become a...
, the tooth of a dinosaur
Dinosaur
Dinosaurs are a diverse group of animals of the clade and superorder Dinosauria. They were the dominant terrestrial vertebrates for over 160 million years, from the late Triassic period until the end of the Cretaceous , when the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event led to the extinction of...
and a vortex contained within a snow globe
Snow globe
A snow globe is a transparent sphere, usually made of glass, enclosing a miniaturized scene of some sort, often together with a model of a landscape. The sphere also encloses the water in the globe; the water serves as the medium through which the "snow" falls. To activate the snow, the globe is...
. Combined with a live bigfoot sacrifice—which Max substitutes for frozen bigfoot-clad Bumpus and Harvey—the ingredients cause large trees to spring into existence, destroying towns and cities and covering the bulk of the west United States in forest. Content that their work is done, Sam and Max take the frozen ice block containing Bumpus and Harvey to the carnival. Believing that Bruno has been returned to them, the owners give a large reward of skee ball
Skee ball
Skee ball is a common arcade game and one of the first redemption games. It is similar to bowling except it is played on an inclined lane and the player aims to get the ball to fall into a hole rather than knock down pins...
tickets to the Freelance Police, who then spend the end credits shooting targets at a carnival stall with real firearms.
Development
Sam & Max Hit the Road was developed by a small team at 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...
, many of whom had previous experience working on other LucasArts 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...
. The game was designed by Sean Clark
Sean Clark
Sean P. Clark is a game designer, director and programmer who worked on a number of notable LucasArts adventure games from early 1990 through to 2002.- Game development history :* Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure...
, 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...
, Sam & Max creator 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...
and his future wife Collette Michaud, all of whom had worked on Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a point-and-click adventure game by LucasArts originally released in 1992. Almost a year later, it was reissued on CD-ROM as an enhanced "talkie" edition with full voice acting and digitized sound effects...
. Sam and Max first appeared as video game characters as internal testing material for 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....
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...
programmers recently employed by LucasArts; Steve Purcell created animated versions of the characters and an office backdrop for the programmers to practice on. Soon after, Sam & Max comic strips by Steve Purcell were published in LucasArts' quarterly newsletter. After a positive reaction from fans to the strips and out of a wish to use new characters and settings after the success of the Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion
Maniac Mansion
Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It was Lucasfilm's first published video game, and it was initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II. A comedy horror parody of B movies, it follows teenager Dave Miller as he ventures...
franchises, LucasArts offered in 1992 to create a video game out of the characters.
The game was based on the 1989 Sam & 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...
comic On The Road, which featured the two on a journey across the United States. Several of the game's tourist trap
Tourist trap
A tourist trap is an establishment, or group of establishments, that has been created with the aim of attracting tourists and their money...
s were based on real locations experienced by the developers; Steve Purcell recollects a childhood visit to a "Frog Rock"—one of the locations featured in the game—and remembered thinking "That's it? It doesn't even look like a frog!" A chain of "Snuckey's" roadside stores and attractions was a tribute to the Stuckey's
Stuckey's
Stuckey's is a roadside convenience store chain found on highways throughout the United States. Stores are concentrated in the Southeast, Southwest, and Midwest, although operations have existed as far east as Connecticut and as far west as Oregon...
chain which Purcell and his family often stopped at during road trips.
Sam & Max was one of the first games to include a full speech soundtrack and music, which for Steve Purcell was a "dream opportunity" to hear his creations speak. Steve Purcell describes casting 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:...
in the role of Sam as his audition tape "was very dry; he wasn’t trying too hard to sell the lines". Actor 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...
was cast to voice Max. The game's jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
score was composed by LucasArts' Clint Bajakian
Clint Bajakian
Clint Bajakian is an American video game composer and musician.-Biography:Bajakian was born in Massachusetts, United States. He was linked with music since age of 8. In middle school Bajakian played in marching bands, and also played in range of rock bands...
, Michael Land
Michael Land
Michael Z. Land is an American video game composer and musician best known for his scores for various games produced by LucasArts.-Early life and career:Michael Land was born in the North Shore area north of Boston, Massachusetts...
and Peter McConnell
Peter McConnell
Peter N. McConnell , also known as Peter Mc, is an American video game music composer who worked for LucasArts for nearly ten years. He studied music as an undergraduate at Harvard University in 80s under Timothy Vincent Clarke, Curt Cacioppo and Ivan Tcherepnin...
, and was incorporated into the game using Land and McConnell's iMUSE engine, which allowed for audio to be synchronized with the visuals. High quality versions of four of the game's tracks were included on the CD version of the game. Sam & Max Hit the Road was released simultaneously on floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
and CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
; only the CD version of the game contained full in-game speech and music. Fans of the game have since recreated the game's MIDI soundtrack in higher quality MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
format.
As the Sam & Max comics had a more adult tone, Steve Purcell expected LucasArts to cut back "the edgier material" from the game. However, he expressed that he was pleased with how LucasArts allowed him to stay close to his original vision for the game. The game's various minigame
Minigame
A minigame is a short video game often contained within another video game. A minigame is always smaller or more simplistic than the game in which it is contained. Minigames are sometimes also offered separately for free to promote the main game...
s were included to allow players to take a break from solving the main game's puzzles and play something "short and silly". Sam & Max Hit the Road also signified a major change in development for games on the SCUMM engine. The user interface was entirely rehauled from that introduced in Maniac Mansion
Maniac Mansion
Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It was Lucasfilm's first published video game, and it was initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II. A comedy horror parody of B movies, it follows teenager Dave Miller as he ventures...
and built upon in subsequent games. Instead of selecting a verb function from a list at the bottom of the screen and clicking on an in-game entity, Sam & Max Hit the Road compressed all verb functions into the mouse cursor, which players could cycle through using the right-mouse button. The inventory was also moved off the main screen to a sub-screen accessible by a small icon on the screen. According to Steve Purcell, this cleared space on the screen to "expand on the excellent backgrounds and also made interaction much quicker and less laborious than LucasArts' previous adventure games" The conversation tree
Conversation tree
A dialog tree or conversation tree is a gameplay mechanic that is used throughout many adventure games and role-playing video games. When interacting with a non-player character, the player is given a choice of what to say and makes subsequent choices until the conversation ends...
s were also affected by this; Michael Stemmle proposed removing the text-based selection menu used in previous LucasArts' adventure games in favor of icons representing topics of discussion as "nothing would kill a joke worse than reading it before you hear it". Several of these innovations were retained for future LucasArts adventure games.
Reception
Critical response
Sam & Max Hit the Road received a favorable reception from the gaming industry's press, holding a rating of 84% on the review aggregator site Game RankingsGame Rankings
GameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive...
. The magazine Edge
Edge (magazine)
Edge is a multi-format computer and video game magazine published by Future Publishing in the United Kingdom. It is known for its industry contacts, editorial stance, distinctive anonymous third-person writing style, yearly awards and longevity....
noted that "with most adventure games, its hard to feel anything for the character(s) you control", but stated that Sam & Max Hit the Road broke this mold by being "genuinely funny" and players would be "experimenting more than... normally just to see what the madcap pair will get up to next." The reviewer praised the game's graphics as "beautifully detailed" and the puzzles as "intricate to solve", but noted that a number of the minigames were "dismal". Joonas Linkola, writing for Adventure Gamers
Adventure Gamers
Adventure Gamers is a computer game website created in 1998 dedicated to the genre of adventure games. It publishes reviews and previews of adventure games, as well as opinion articles and interviews with game designers....
, echoed many of these comments, praising the cartoon-style graphics as "appropriately cheesy" and "colorful". On the subject of the game's humor, Linkola noted that "there are many visual jokes, but the backbone of the game is in its witty dialogue", and as such this gave the game a "replayability value" as players may pick up on jokes based on "verbal acrobatics, on the use of polysyllabic words, old English and other such oddities" that they missed the first time around. Linkola gave additional praise to the soundtrack and audio work, stating that the "very fitting voices... adds to the comical duo's wisecracking attitude".
Allgame
Allgame
Allgame is a commercial database of information about arcade games, video games and console manufacturers.Allgame is owned by All Media Guide, along with Allmusic and Allmovie....
reviewer Steve Honeywell was also very positive with his comments, describing the plot as "interesting", the graphics as "appropriately cartoonish and fun" and the locations as "well-designed", but noting that above all "what makes Sam & Max Hit the Road work is the humor". On the game's puzzles, Honeywell stated that "some of the puzzles are pretty simple, while others are difficult in the extreme. One nice thing is the almost complete absence of red herring
Red herring
A red herring is a deliberate attempt to divert attention.Red herring may refer to:* Red herring , the informal fallacy of presenting an argument that may in itself be valid, but does not address the issue in question....
items. Everything you find can be put to use somewhere". As with other reviews, Allgame praised the audio work, noting that "the music is decent throughout the game, and the voice talent is stellar", closing with the comment that the game takes point-and-click adventures to "insane new heights in terms of both fun and comedy". The site GamersHell praised the graphics of the game as "superb" but noted that "it's not so friendly that it can only be played by kiddies". Although describing sound setup as "a bit tricky", the reviewer praised the voice acting as "very good" and the music as "top quality". However, although the review noted that the game had "easy to use" interfaces and menus, it was critical of the fact that "at times it can be the frustrating 'hunt for the correct pixel' syndrome".
The game was reviewed in 1994 in Dragon
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
#203 by Sandy Petersen
Sandy Petersen
Carl Sanford Joslyn Petersen is a game designer.Petersen was born in St. Louis, Missouri and attended University of California, Berkeley, majoring in zoology....
in the "Eye of the Monitor" column. Petersen gave the game 4 out of 5 stars.
Legacy
Sam and Max Hit the Road has since come to be regarded as a classic adventure game title, and is regularly featured in listings of the top 100 games. IGNIGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
described Sam and Max Hit the Road in its 2007 "Top 100 Games" feature as "known more for its story and characters", noting that "the unusual and interesting gameplay is typically saddled in the shotgun position in fans' memories, but when you're driving a Porsche
Porsche
Porsche Automobil Holding SE, usually shortened to Porsche SE a Societas Europaea or European Public Company, is a German based holding company with investments in the automotive industry....
, even the trunk is a smooth ride". Writing for Adventure Classic Gaming in 2006, David Olgarsson noted that the game had "undoubtedly... become [LucasArts'] most critically acclaimed adventure game of all time", citing the game's production values, graphical effects, challenging puzzles and story techniques as the reason for this, concluding that the game was an "enduring testament to adventure gaming’s finest hours". In 2004, Adventure Gamers
Adventure Gamers
Adventure Gamers is a computer game website created in 1998 dedicated to the genre of adventure games. It publishes reviews and previews of adventure games, as well as opinion articles and interviews with game designers....
listed Sam & Max Hit the Road as the eighth-best adventure game of all time, describing it as "the most absurd and ridiculous game ever designed". The game was one of four nominees for the 1994 Annie Award
Annie Award
The Annie Awards have been presented by the Los Angeles, California branch of the International Animated Film Association, ASIFA-Hollywood since 1972...
for Best Animated CD-ROM, although the award instead went to LucasArts' Star Wars: Rebel Assault
Star Wars: Rebel Assault
Star Wars: Rebel Assault was the first CD ROM-only game published by LucasArts, set in the Star Wars universe. It was released for the PC followed by subsequent releases on the Sega CD, Mac and 3DO platforms.-Summary:...
.
Sequels
Xbox
The Xbox is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Microsoft. It was released on November 15, 2001 in North America, February 22, 2002 in Japan, and March 14, 2002 in Australia and Europe and is the predecessor to the Xbox 360. It was Microsoft's first foray into the gaming console...
exclusive title, developed by Infinite Machine, a small company consisting of a number of former LucasArts employees. The story of the game was developed by series creator 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...
and fellow designer Chuck Jordan and involved the Freelance Police travelling the galaxy to find a stolen Statue of Liberty
Statue of Liberty
The Statue of Liberty is a colossal neoclassical sculpture on Liberty Island in New York Harbor, designed by Frédéric Bartholdi and dedicated on October 28, 1886...
. However, Infinite Machine went bankrupt within a year, and the project was abandoned.
At the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo convention, nearly a decade after the release of Sam & Max Hit the Road, 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...
announced the production of a PC sequel, entitled Sam & Max: Freelance Police. Freelance Police, like Hit the Road, was to be a point-and-click graphic adventure game, utilising a new 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...
. Development of Freelance Police 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 of Sam and Max Hit the Road. Steve Purcell contributed to the project by writing the story and producing concept art
Concept art
Concept art is a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood for use in films, video games, animation, or comic books before it is put into the final product. Concept art is also referred to as visual development and/or concept design...
. 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...
, were also set to reprise their roles. In March 2004, however, quite far into the game's development, Sam & Max: Freelance Police was abruptly cancelled by LucasArts, citing "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" in a short press release. The fan reaction to the cancellation was strong; a petition of 32,000 signatures stating the disappointment of fans was later presented to LucasArts.
After LucasArts' license with Steve Purcell expired in 2005, the Sam & Max franchise moved to 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...
, a company of former LucasArts employees who had worked on a number of LucasArts 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...
, including on the development of Freelance Police. Under Telltale Games, a new episodic series
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...
of Sam & Max video games was announced. Like both Sam & Max Hit the Road and Freelance Police, 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...
was in a point-and-click graphic adventure game format, although it lacked the original voice actors for the characters. The first season ran for six episodes, each with a self-contained storyline but with an overall story arc running through the series. The first episode was released on GameTap
GameTap
GameTap is an American online video game service established by Turner Broadcasting System . Dubbed by TBS as a "first of its kind broadband gaming network", the service provides users with classic arcade video games and game-related video content...
in October 2006, with episodes following regularly until April 2007, and a special compilation on the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
released in October 2008. A second season, Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space, began in November 2007 and ended in April 2008. Originally thought to be released in 2009, a third season, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse is a graphic adventure video game developed by Telltale Games. It is the third "season" of the Sam & Max episodic series created by Telltale Games, following Sam & Max Save the World and Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space...
, began in April 2010.
External links
- Sam & Max Hit the Road at the International House of Mojo