The Success of the Sam & Max Series?

[ThatNickGuy]

Speaking for myself, I've been thoroughly enjoying the new Sam & Max games. With the first season, I tried the demo for each of them and decided to wait until the retail release of the whole thing. I just want to say that I loved it, absolutely loved it. I used to play the ol' Hit the Road, along with several other Sierra and LucasArts games back in High School and this was a huge blast of nostalgia for me.

For the second season, I played the demo to the first game and said to myself, "Self! There's no way you can wait again for the retail version!" and heartily bought the whole season. Since then, the new episodes have been something I've been looking forward to. I believe that Telltale games has very successfully captured the formula of episodic gaming, something that even a hugely popular company such as Valve has yet to really conquer (how long are we going to have to wait for Episode Three, damnit?!).

With all that said, I'm just curious about how successful the series has been for Telltale. No doubt, it's become their break maker, but has it become more successful than the company has hoped? Less? The series has gotten consistently good reviews, ranging from 7-ish to 8-ish, and I think word of mouth has made the series successful. And Season 2 came out relatively soon after Season 1 was all released (at least in my eyes, after buying the retail copy).

So, I guess I'm just curious to ask to the people working for Telltale how successful a product has the Sam & Max series become? It's clearly been a success, but how successful?

[Mysterysheep]

Well I don't work for TT but just looking around this forum you'll find a lot of people who were introduced to Sam & Max through the new episodes so I'd say it's been a pretty big success for Telltale.

[Hero1]

Well I have no idea, but just based on being around the forum I would say season 2 is not doing as well as season 1..maybe when telltale announces the 2 new licenses it will bring more people to the site and they will check out sam & max.. unfortunately I know a lot of people who checked out season 1 and have decided not to go onto season 2..saying season 1 was too easy or repetitive.. which is a shame because season 2 has been so good

[Molokov]

To be honest, I'd say the gameplay is simple - after all, it's mostly point and click. I can understand how people who are used to FPS or other action-y type games may have been bored with Season One as all you do is use the mouse and click one button (or another if you want to skip dialogue).

Season Two has shaken this up a bit with keyboard use in the minigames, and a wider variety of minigames as well.

But to me, all that doesn't matter in an adventure game. Gameplay (i.e. how you control things) is incidental, and needs to be pretty simple. Adventure games like Sam and Max are great because of the challenging puzzles and more importantly the hilarious dialogue. Seasons one and two have done great guns in both these areas.

I've found every episode to be rich in the humour (the most important part, to me) and the puzzles are generally pretty challenging without being too obtuse. Sure, 101-103 were a little short, but 104 onwards (including all of S2 so far) have been a great length, taking about 3-4 hours each to get through, each with at least one or two puzzles that have had me stumped and consulting Max for hints, and very little frustration.

Anyone who claims the games are 'too short' aren't taking their time exploring as many dialogue options as they can, trying all sorts of objects with other objects (deliberately avoiding solving a puzzle) just to see what Sam, Max and the other characters say... I love doing that, it's great trying to find all the wonderful jokes that Chuck and the team write.

And then there's the "Play it again" lists! There's usually /always/ something I didn't think to try, so I do need to play each episode at least twice in order to hear it all :) The second time through you don't have to worry about the puzzle solutions, so it's a lot of fun just making sure you try out everything on the "Play it again" list.

After writing all that, I will admit that PnC adventures (especially humourous ones) are my type of game, I don't really have the time, inclination, or hand-eye coordination to play FPSs or driving games, and Strategy games seem to be incredibly complex to learn how to play... I much prefer the easy game play and can still get enjoyment out of the game through other mechanisms.

[That said, I have quite enjoyed Guitar Hero, but not enough to get myself a console to play it or Rock Band, considering they'd be the only games I'd buy...]

[Mysterysheep]

When thinking about the Sam & Max Episodes I always think of them as more of an interactive TV series rather than a proper game. I play them for the story and comedy. The puzzles seem like more of an added bonus then a main factor to me. However, I wouldn't think of other P'n'C adventure games like that due to their length, pacing, and the way they're laid out. The Sam & Max episodes our laid out like your average episode of a TV show comedy and that's what I like about them.