Sam & Max Hit the Road

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Sam & Max Hit the Road {{#if:{{{image\|}}}\|<tr><td colspan="2" style="text-align: center;">{{{image\|}}}
Developer(s)	LucasArts {{#if:{{{publisher\|}}}\|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Publisher(s)<td>{{{publisher\|}}}
Release date(s)	1993 (DOS) 1995 (Mac)
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player {{#if:{{{ratings\|}}}\|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Rating(s)<td>{{{ratings\|}}}
Platform(s)	DOS, Mac {{#if:{{{media\|}}}\|<tr><th style="background-color: #ccccff;">Media<td>{{{media\|}}}

Sam & Max Hit the Road is a graphical adventure game, originally developed and released by LucasArts in 1993 for DOS and Macintosh computers. It is the ninth game to use the SCUMM adventure game engine.

Based on Sam & Max: Freelance Police comic book characters created by Steve Purcell, it follows the detective duo (Sam: a 6 foot anthropomorphic dog, and Max: a 3 foot "hyperkinetic rabbity thing") across a kitsch, tourist trap pastiche of America (featuring The World's Largest Ball of Twine) in search of an escaped sasquatch.

Image:Sam max.jpg

It introduced a slightly modified SCUMM interface - instead of the inventory and a panel with the control verbs appearing at the bottom of the screen, a right-click of the mouse cycles through a set of icons representing different control verbs, with the inventory as a separate screen. A similar interface was later used in The Dig and all SCUMM games that followed it.

It was written and designed by Steve Purcell along with Sean Clark, Collette Michaud and Michael Stemmle and commonly applauded for its substantial amount of humour. It was released simultaneously on floppy disk and CD-ROM; the CD version had a full voiceover soundtrack.

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Technical issues

Though still available in stores, usually as a budget release, a major problem found by users of modern PCs is that no music can be heard. This problem is easily solved by one of two methods. Firstly an updated executable file can be obtained from the Unofficial Sam & Max Website,[1] which also includes basic anti-aliasing code to improve the visuals of the game.

Alternatively, ScummVM (or DOSBox) can be used to run this and many other LucasArts adventure games on a number of originally unsupported platforms while also having a number of optional filter settings for improved image quality.

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Sequel

Nearly a decade since the release of the original adventure game, LucasArts issued a statement to the press on August 23, 2002 announcing a sequel to Sam & Max Hit the Road titled Sam & Max Freelance Police. The sequel, like the original, was to be a classic point-and-click adventure game, although this time utilising 3D computer graphics. Mike Stemmle, co-designer of Sam & Max Hit the Road, was the lead director on this project with Steve Purcell contributing story design and concept art.

Image:SamMaxFreelancePolice.jpg

Although concept images, a promotional E3 teaser video [2] and screenshots were released, LucasArts announced the cancellation of the anticipated title on March 3, 2004, citing "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" in a short two-sentence press release. The announcement was made near the end of the game's development, just before advertisements and previews for the game were scheduled to appear in magazines. The abruptness of the cancellation shocked fans and incited numerous angry letters, online petitions and website articles directed at LucasArts. [3]

The cancellation caused a number of LucasArts employees involved with the Sam & Max sequel to leave and form Telltale Games, a smaller company dedicated to creating the adventure games that LucasArts, evidently, no longer wished to produce. Their first order of business was an attempt to acquire rights to complete the game, an action which rival publisher Bad Brain Entertainment had already begun. LucasArts broke off negotiations with Bad Brain on the 2nd of March, 2005 to no avail. Since then, all traces of Sam & Max have been wiped from the LucasArts website including the press releases issued regarding its announcement and cancellation, presumably because of the intense fan reaction. LucasArts' license with Steve Purcell expired in May of 2005.

In September of 2005, four months after LucasArts' license expired, Steve Purcell announced that he would be working with Telltale Games on a new and unrelated Sam and Max project. The game is to be released in an episodic nature, similar to Telltale's previous games, and commenced pre-production in February of 2006.

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