Telltale Games

That rush of familiarity as you play "They Stole Max's Brain!" may not be just because it's the third episode of Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse. It may be because Mike Stemmle scripted it. Seventeen years after co-writing/designing the legendary Sam & Max Hit the Road, Mike - who joined Telltale in 2008 and has penned episodes of Tales of Monkey Island and Strong Bad's Cool Games for Attractive People - is back. He joins lead designer Joe Pinney. While new to the Sam & Max franchise, Joe has a long and storied background with Telltale and adventure games in general, with a resume that includes Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, Tales of Monkey Island and a few LucasArts classic adventures, including Secret of Monkey Island.

Mike and Joe share some of their thoughts on the new game...

Mike, at LucasArts you were co-designer on the game that started it all: Sam & Max Hit the Road. How does that experience compare to your time on They Stole Max's Brain!?

You'd think there'd be an overwhelming feeling of déjà vu, but I think I used all my vu up last year on Tales of Monkey Island.  This was much more akin to being parachuted into the middle of a combat zone, handed a rifle, and pointed at the enemy.  Only, y'know, with jokes instead of a rifle, and deadlines instead of an enemy.  In any event, there was definitely a sense of vertiginous panic as I waded in to the dialog for They Stole Max's Brain!  It'd been nearly a decade since I'd written either of these characters.  What if I'd left all my good Dog & Bunny jokes behind with my out-of-control facial hair, my crippling sleep apnea, or my lonely life of not-so-quiet desperation?

Luckily, Joe gave me a spiffy design to work from, making it darned easy to fake it until I found their voices again.

Joe, you have a long and successful history working on adventure games, but this is your first stint with Sam & Max.  What drew you to this franchise, and what's it been like working on it?

Telltale's first seasons of Sam and Max, taken as a whole, are my favorite adventure gaming experiences of all time (followed extremely closely by Secret of Monkey Island).  They got me excited about Telltale.  Getting to work at this company, on this franchise, with this Mike Stemmle, is just a crazy huge privilege.

It took me a while to get my head into the Sam & Max zone.  I'm used to pretty grounded stuff and these guys are anything but.  Fortunately there are plenty of unmoored absurdists in the building.  I just followed their lead down the dog-and-rabbit hole.

What led to the whole noir look and feel in this episode? Seems like the "Philip Marlowe, hardboiled detective" vibe hasn't really been explored in the Sam & Max series...

Mike: If I'm remembering correctly, the noir act at the start of the episode was something we wanted to do from a fairly early point in the development of the season, and Joe kinda ran wild with it.  I just filled in some dialog.

And as for WHY this take on Sam hasn't been explored yet, I've got a couple of thoughts.  Firstly, when Max is around Sam, it's really hard to pull off the hardboiled vibe.  Chaotic randomness is something of  a noir-killer, as anyone who's ever seen "Emo Phillips: Private Dick" will surely attest.   Secondly, Sam's an easygoing guy - it'd take a LOT to get him so honked off that he'd start randomly roughing up people like Courtney Love at a People's Choice Awards Reception.  Luckily for us, removing Max's brain solves both problems.

Joe: What Mike said. It's great fun to push familiar characters into new dramatic zones IF it makes story sense, and here it does. 

So...who DID steal Max's brain?

Mike: 

1. Beauty...beauty stole Max's brain.
2. The one-armed man
3. Kevin Spacey
4. Professor Plum
5. In a way, didn't we ALL steal Max's brain?
6. Brain and brain, what is brain?
7. I think it's funny that Sam assumes Max keeps his brain in his head.  After all, we still don't know where he keeps his gun...

Joe: It's one of the answers above, but to decipher it you have to re-arrange the letters, write them in lemon juice on a piece of paper, cut the paper into little Max dolls, burn the dolls, and mail the ashes to Art Linkletter.