Sam & Max Save the World

Sam & Max Save the World is set in a universe that parodies American popular culture, and it follows the title characters of Sam and Max, the Freelance Police, a pair of vigilantes and private investigators. Sam is a level-headed but enthusiastic anthropomorphic dog who wears a blue suit and fedora. He is inquisitive, knowledgeable in obscure areas and tends to prefer the logical solution to problems, but he is not above using force.[16] Max is described as a "hyperkinetic rabbity thing"; cunning, uninhibited and reveling in violence and mischief. His reactions to situations usually incorporate force but often with a seeming disregard for his own personal safety.[17] Together, the Freelance Police operate out of a dilapidated office block in a dangerous neighborhood in New York City where they receive cases over the telephone from an unseen police commissioner.[18]

There are several supporting characters that consistently appear throughout the episodes.

Bosco is the proprietor of the nearby convenience store and supplies the Freelance Police with a number of items across the game. Driven paranoid by repeated shoplifting, Bosco is obsessed with conspiracies, believing that nearly every US government agency, as well as many criminal outfits, are after him. As such, his store is overwhelmed with security devices and contraptions created by Bosco himself. He regularly attempts to disguise himself as a variety of foreign nationals, but to little effect.[19][20]

Further down the neighborhood is Sybil Pandemik, who owns a small office across from Sam and Max. Sybil is unable to keep a consistent job and regularly changes her career choices. Introduced as a psychotherapist, she is noted to have worked as a tattoo artist, software tester, tabloid journalist and professional witness.[19][21]

In a hole in Sam and Max's own office resides Jimmy Two-Teeth, a rat who works as a petty criminal, confidence trickster and fence. He profusely dislikes Sam and Max, who he sees as always interfering with his work.[22][23]

Other characters include the Soda Poppers, a group of three former child stars from the 1970s. The three, each with their own trademark catch-phrase, first appear as victims of hypnosis in the first episode, later acting as the judges on a Pop Idol parody in the second episode. By the fourth episode, they are elected the governors of the Dakotas and plunge the region into civil war over ownership of Mount Rushmore.[19][24][25] Also making sporadic appearances is Hugh Bliss, an eccentric magician and leader of the Prismatology cult, a parody of Scientology.[26] He is often seen attempting to promote his self-help guides based on Prismatology.[24] Sam finds Bliss irritating, while Max almost idolizes him.[24] Minor characters include Agent Superball, a US Secret Service agent with a penchant for guarding doors;[25] Chuckles, the pit manager in a mafia-run casino;[22] Harry Moleman, a police mole who switches sides;[22] and the Computer Obsolescence Prevention Society (COPS), a group of outdated computers attempting to find purpose in the technologically advanced world.[27]

The game opens with Sam and Max, the Freelance Police, lounging in their office, awaiting a new case after a long hiatus. Eventually, the commissioner sends them out to investigate a group of former child stars, the Soda Poppers, who have been causing trouble in the neighborhood. The Soda Poppers are attempting to promote a self-help video called Eye-Bo, which (when watched) hypnotizes the viewer. After seeking assistance from Sybil to reverse the hypnotism on the Soda Poppers by knocking them unconscious, the Freelance Police learn that the scheme has been devised by one Brady Culture, another former child star who owes his fall from popularity to the rise of the Soda Poppers. Sam and Max and the Soda Poppers confront Culture, who hypnotizes the Soda Poppers again. However, Sam manages to fool Culture into ordering the Soda Poppers to attack himself, subduing the threat.[19] The next case the Freelance Police get involves liberating a studio audience held hostage by a deranged TV talk show host, Myra Stump. At the TV station, Sam and Max deduce that Myra has been hypnotized and, after using other shows in the studio to become celebrities, they convince her to let them become guests on her show. Once on the show, Sam notes a strange toy bear on the host's desk, the source of the hypnotism. Using the studio sound system, Sam electrocutes both Myra and the bear, allowing the audience to leave.[24]

Sam and Max in their office; the game's environments were designed to feel more coarse and dangerous than those in Sam & Max Hit the Road

The commissioner then tasks Sam and Max with infiltrating the Toy Mafia, a criminal organisation operating from a casino. The commissioner's mole in the organisation has gone quiet; he wants the Freelance Police to find out what happened to the mole. Sam and Max quickly discover that the Toy Mafia are responsible for the toy bear that hypnotised Myra. As they gain the Mafia's trust, they ascertain that the mole has switched sides and is now leading the outfit. After discovering that the casino is a front for a factory producing the hypnotizing bears for mass distribution, the Freelance Police sabotage the factory and destroy the operation.[22] Soon after, the US President starts bringing in bizarre policies; Max is particularly concerned about the introduction of gun restrictions, while Sam believes the President has been hypnotized. At the White House, Max beheads the President, revealing him to be a mechanical puppet designed to hypnotize the nation through TV broadcasts. The President's bodyguard, none other than the now-fallen Toy Mafia's pit boss, activates a giant robot disguised as the statue at the Lincoln Memorial to run in an emergency election against Max. Sam discredits Lincoln's campaign, resulting in Max winning the presidential election. Lincoln begins a destructive rampage through Washington D.C., but is neutralized when Max fires an intercontinental ballistic missile at him.[25]

The next case given to Sam and Max involves dealing with a computer crisis that is causing the world economy to collapse. They discover the problem is a virtual reality program called Reality 2.0, powered by the Internet (which has gained sentience), which is hypnotizing people so they never want to leave the program. Sam and Max access the program themselves and introduce a computer virus that crashes Reality 2.0 and deletes the digital embodiment of the Internet. Prior to expiring, the Internet reveals that it was following the plans of one Roy G. Biv.[27] Sam eventually deduces that Roy G. Biv is actually Hugh Bliss, a character seemingly in the background of all their previous cases. The Freelance Police travel to Bliss' Prismatology retreat on the Moon, where Bliss is preparing a device to hypnotize the entire planet. Bliss reveals himself as a colony of sentient bacteria that feeds off of the endorphins produced by human happiness; by hypnotizing the planet, Bliss assures himself of a permanent supply of nourishment. Bliss activates the device, but is killed when Sam tricks him into a tank of water and boils it using the rocket engine of a lunar lander. Returning to Earth, Max takes great pleasure in reversing the hypnotism by personally knocking everyone on the planet unconscious.[28]

Telltale Games consisted of developers from Freelance Police, as well as other former LucasArts alumni such as Dave Grossman (third from left).

Sam & Max Save the World originates from Sam & Max: Freelance Police, a graphic adventure game that was developed by LucasArts from 2002 to 2004.[45] Freelance Police was a sequel to the 1993 title Sam & Max Hit the Road. However, LucasArts ceased production on Freelance Police in March 2004.[46] In the subsequent weeks, LucasArts underwent major restructuring; many of the developers who worked on past LucasArts adventure games were made redundant.[47][48] Some of the former Freelance Police development team consequently formed Telltale Games in June 2004 to continue developing the sort of adventure games that LucasArts no longer wished to produce.[49] Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell, who described himself as disappointed and frustrated with LucasArts' decision,[50] took the Sam & Max franchise to Telltale after the LucasArts license expired in mid-2005. Telltale Games announced the new series of Sam & Max games in September 2005.[51] Brendan Q. Ferguson, who worked on Freelance Police as a programmer, designer and writer; Dave Grossman, one of the project leaders on Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle; and Purcell primarily led the development of the project.[52]

Unlike Freelance Police, Save the World was developed in episodic form, with episodes being released in quick succession, to allow for reduced development time between titles and quicker delivery of content to consumers.[51] Telltale launched a website for Sam & Max in November to accompany their new series.[53] The following month, Purcell began publishing a Sam & Max webcomic entitled "The Big Sleep" on the site;[54] the webcomic ran for twelve issues and concluded in April 2007. Purcell won an Eisner Award in 2007 for the webcomic.[55] In March 2006, Telltale acquired US$825,000 in funding from a group of private investors, to help sustain growth until its next round of equity funding.[56]

Telltale released the game's trailer for the Electronic Entertainment Expo in May 2006,[57][58] showing the new voice actors for Sam and Max: David Nowlin and William Kasten respectively.[59] However, Andrew Chaikin voiced Max in the first episode, but was unable to continue in the role due to health reasons.[60] While at the convention, Telltale revealed that the first episode was forecast for release towards the end of 2006, via the distribution service GameTap.[61] Telltale announced a release date of October 17 over GameTap in early September, with the note that each episode would be made available from Telltale themselves within fifteen days of release.[62] Development on the first episode was completed on September 25,[63] and from October 10, GameTap began hosting the Sam & Max animated series as promotional material for release.[64] The first episode, "Culture Shock", was released on-time on October 17.[65] The next five episodes were released over short intervals until the series finale in April 2007.[66] The series debuted on Steam on June 15 the same year.[67] Telltale began shipping a special collectors edition of the game in July,[68] while the retail version of the game was published in August.[69] January 2008 saw a significant update to the game, upgrading the game engine and ensuring compatibility with Windows Vista.[70]

Three months later, Telltale announced a Wii version of the game.[71] Telltale reported that an email campaign and Internet rumors of a port had stirred up interest within the company for producing a Wii version.[72] They redesigned the game's point-and-click interface to accommodate the Wii Remote, the primary controller for the console.[73] The game was initially forecast for release in North America on October 7, 2008,[74] but was released a week later on October 14.[75] The European version was published later in December.[76]

In February 2009, Telltale Games renamed the game from its initial release title of Sam & Max: Season One to Sam & Max Save the World. Telltale's public relations spokeswoman, Emily Morganti, explained that while Season One was thought to communicate the game's episodic nature to potential consumers, the company felt that it was nondescript in relation to the game's story.[77] The message accompanied the announcement of an Xbox Live Arcade version of the game, which had been subject to media speculation since February 2007.[78] Both Windows and Wii versions of the game were republished using the new title.[77]

Series creator Steve Purcell was involved in ensuring that the characters and environments of the game conveyed the same feel as the comics

According to Dave Grossman, the objective for Telltale Games with Sam & Max Save the World was to create a game with a "lot of story and character in it".[52] Grossman explained that the Sam & Max franchise was therefore most ideally suited to the graphic adventure genre; while action was thought to be possible with the source material, it "would be kind of wrong".[52] Still, designers decided to introduce action moments such as car chase scenes, wanting players to "feel like [they] are these crazy Freelance Police officers" and "just be involved in all this sort of mayhem" presented in the original comic strips.[79] Like in previous Sam & Max games, Sam & Max Save the World used a point-and-click gameplay system, itself a variation of the control scheme used by Telltale in their preceding adventure game series, Bone; the action sequences implemented in the game still maintained the point-and-click interface.[52]

Very little of the design from Freelance Police was carried over into Save the World; LucasArts still held onto the assets created for use in Freelance Police, and Telltale was wary of using similar design patterns.[52] While Ferguson and Purcell had both been involved with the canceled LucasArts project, Grossman had not. The team decided to just start from fresh, and pursue a different treatment of the game's subject.[52] Purcell himself wanted to ensure that the game conveyed the "gritty" feel of the original comics—something he felt was lacking from the LucasArts renditions of the franchise. Grossman stated that "we wanted to get a little bit more of that dirt on the streets, and the paper cups and people being mean and nasty".[52] This "gritty" feeling also influenced artistic design. For instance, on Purcell's suggestion, the sky was changed from blue to yellow in the street outside Sam and Max's office, instantly making the environment feel "filthy and disgusting".[52]

Bay Area Sound, a company set up by Clint Bajakian, who had worked extensively on composition and sound production on LucasArts games since 1994, produced the soundtrack.[80] The Save the World soundtrack was composed by Jared Emerson-Johnson, Bajakian's former protégé, whose previous work included composition and sound editing for LucasArts. Emerson-Johnson's scores used live performances as opposed to synthesized music often used elsewhere in the video games industry;[81] a small team of five musicians, including Emerson-Johnson and a recording engineer, produced the soundtrack.[82] The score is primarily grounded in film noir jazz, inspired by the work of Henry Mancini and Charles Mingus.[81] However, Emerson-Johnson noted that as the Sam & Max universe is "open-ended",[83] he had the chance to explore into other musical genres in some episodes, such as "a song-and-dance Charleston number, faux Philip Glass, an ode to Nina Rota's music from The Godfather, and even some inspired retro 8-bit game music".[81] Several songs were incorporated into the soundtrack, performed by Emerson-Johnson or Peter Barto, the voice actor for Agent Superball. Purcell later commented that Emerson-Johnson had seamlessly blended a "huge palette of genres and styles",[82] while Ferguson stated that he believed that it was Emerson-Johnson's scores that created the vital atmosphere in the games, noting that prior to the implementation of the music, playing the games was an "unrelenting horror".[84] The soundtrack to Sam & Max Save the World was published in July 2007.[68]