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Sam And Max Developer Funded to Make 'Bone' 82

Posted by Zonk from the that's-a-lot-of-fart-jokes dept.
Next Generation reports that Telltale games, the current developer of the Sam and Max sequel, has been given $825,000 in a new round of funding. From the article: "Telltale CEO Dan Connors said, 'With our first titles based on Jeff Smith's popular comic books [Bone], Telltale is releasing accessible, innovative, interactive stories for the masses. This expansion funding gives us the ability to move even more aggressively in key areas of our business and further accelerate our company's strategy and growth.'"
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Sam And Max Developer Funded to Make 'Bone' More

Sam And Max Developer Funded to Make 'Bone'

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  • The Bone series [wikipedia.org] was excellent, and could translate into a wonderful line of games.
    The old Sam & Max video game [wikipedia.org] was one of my all-time favorites, and if they can make a Bone game even half as good as that, I'll defeinitely be buying it.

    • Re:Hope this is good... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Uhm, they already made a Bone game. The summary didn't make this clear. It was generally panned for taking only an hour to complete.
    • Sam & Max (the comic) was brilliant, of course, but the video game wasn't quite as good as other LucasArts games, so just in case you haven't done so yet, be sure to check out Monkey Island 2 and Day of the Tentacle in particular. Those are easily among my most favourite games of all times.
      • All excellent, but my all-time favorite has to be:

        Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

      • Full Throttle

        I keep that one aroud, just to see the beautiful 'bike fighting' sequence. Easily one of my favorite games of all time. Then there's the fun way Ben talks.

        How great was my joy when I learned they were making a sequel. How great my disappointment when I learned the sequel had been cancelled.

      • I urge you all to buy Psychonauts [doublefine.com] if you liked those, it is chock full of Tim Schafer goodness! When I heard that it was going to released on consoles, I thought "nah, pass", especially since the previews seemed to pitch it like a platformer. Well, after it won numerous end of year awards for plot, artwork, music, best adventure game, "best game no-one played", game of the year etc on several sites I decided to buy it when it finally was launched for the PC in Europe (a couple of weeks ago).

        It is brilliant!
    • I've never read Bone, so to me the real news is that there's another Sam & Max sequel in the works after LucasArts put an axe in the back of the last one. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go dancing around in circles giggling and making a fool of myself.

      It's a good thing most of my coworkers have gone home.
    • ...I just dug out of basement tonight my old floppies of Sam & Max and gave a shot to the game with scumm ; while I had already finished it a long time ago, I'm still nearly peeing myself in laughter every time Max is speaking. Great great great game.

      As the old saying goes, they don't make them like this anymore. Didn't you notice how games have become so boringly serious since the eve of "realistic 3D" everything ? At least, cartoon characters had to rely on humor to be entertaining. I miss them all,

  • That can only be a good thing. All I want to see, is Sam and Max make a return to gaming in the correct way - by starring in a game that befits their status.

    My fingers are crossed that Telltale are the guys for the job...

  • Recording it right now! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by yroJJory ( 559141 ) <me@joryEINSTEIN.org minus physicist> on Tuesday February 28, 2006 @06:00PM (#14821994) Homepage
    Funny, I'm recording the dialog for Bone 2 right as I read this!

    Jory

    http://studio.jory.org/ [jory.org]
    • As someone who is working with the team, are your impressions that they are a high quality outfit with a lot of creative potential who just maybe will be able to give us waiting fans the Sam & Max game we've always wanted... or do they seem perhaps a little over their heads?

      • Telltale rocks to work with (Score:5, Interesting)

        by yroJJory ( 559141 ) <me@joryEINSTEIN.org minus physicist> on Tuesday February 28, 2006 @07:51PM (#14822947) Homepage
        You should know, first off, that I am an adventure gamer. Most other games don't pique my interest, but I've been a longtime Sierra Online & LucasArts adventure game fan, beginning way back with the Infocom text adventures and through all the Space Quest series and more.

        So, when the folks who founded Telltale were let go from their projects at LucasArts, I was thrilled to see they were striking out on their own and made it a goal to be working on their new projects.

        Last year, we did sound for Bone: Out from Boneville and a CSI game Telltale produced for Ubisoft (which will be shipping very shortly). The writing has been excellent all the way through. The actors we are using are all top-notch. And the company's goals really are on making adventure games that people want. Bone: The Great Cow Race has been in dialog production for about 2.5 weeks (and we wrap up tomorrow) and has, again, been very high quality.

        The game is funny. It is clever. It is true to the comic book. And I think adventure gamers like me will love it. (I know that I'm eager to play it!)

        • That is excellent to hear... myself being an enormous fan of all things Lucasarts and Sierra in the world of Adventure gaming... and to hear that they are ex Lucasarts and talented people doing a top job makes me very excited for future games they will release... I am currently downloading the Bone demo to see what it's all like!

          Thanks for the feedback, and good luck with the future of your excellent looking studio.
        • That's really excellent to hear. :) I got a new issue of the UK magazine Retro Gamer in the mail yesterday and it had a huge feature on Sam & Max and Telltale. It's worth reading if you can find a place to pick it up.
        • I want to play more adventure games, Monkey Island 3 was excellent, Myst, even Zork Nemesis, I was disappointed when Sam and Max got cancelled.

          I kind of expect them all to move to web based games though, because then the game engine can stay on the server and so piracy stops being a problem and distribution cost drops to pennies. Rather than these $40-$70 shiny boxes with big expensive printed colour manuals on retail shelves.
    • Please replace the woman who voiced Thorn and Grandma Ben with someone competent.
  • Wow...four comments so far, and not a one of them at all relevant to anything. If you don't have anything to say, keep your damn mouth shut.

    I for one can't wait for the new Sam & Max game. It's been far too long. Glad to see that development hasn't completely died yet.

  • It would seem that Telltale games is releasing games in an 'episodic' format, which conveniently makes them more money. I can only assume the same will apply to their Sam and Max game, which can surely only be a bad thing.

    >> Will games be episodic?

    You will certainly see a series of episodic PC games. Sam & Max will likely appear in other places as well. Perhaps in entertainment formats not yet imagined by our fragile little brains. Perhaps, ... Circle-vision!... Or not.

    • "It would seem that Telltale games is releasing games in an 'episodic' format, which conveniently makes them more money. I can only assume the same will apply to their Sam and Max game, which can surely only be a bad thing."

      Which conveniently makes them money more quickly. They're making adventure games, a genre mainstream gaming has labelled as dead. They're lucky to have gotten what investment money they did. Up to this point they lacked the funding to do an entire game in one shot. Episodic releas

      • Games like DOTT, Monkey Island and Sam and Max were so much fun, and I never felt that Doom came close to providing that level of enjoyment.

        I realise that many people prefer FPS but are there really so few Sam and Max (resisting the opportunity to abbreviate it) fans out there?
        • ### I realise that many people prefer FPS but are there really so few Sam and Max (resisting the opportunity to abbreviate it) fans out there?

          I think the main problem is that the publishers tend to only support the stuff that works for the mainstream, adventures don't do that, while FPS do, at least in the eyes of the publishers. That doesn't mean that there arn't enough adventure fans out there to break even, but it means that the big money lies elsewhere and thats where the publishers send there money. It
        • It's not that there aren't fans. Clearly there are. The real "problem" is that adventure games don't sell a million copies. They receive critical acclaim (when well done) and help promote the company as a top-notch developer, but they rarely (over the past decade) do much beyond breaking even, and that typically is at around 50-100k copies.

          Sam & Max (at LucasArts) was canceled for this very reason. It wasn't that a bad game was going to be made or that it wouldn't sell. But it wouldn't sell nearly
      • Other adventure developers stay in business without resoting to overpriced episodic content, why can't Telltale?
        • Name one. LucasArts? Dead. Funcom? Moved on to MMOs. Publishers of Syberia? Don't see Syberia 3? Uru? Dead. I could go on.
          • Tim Schafer, one of the greatest game-designers from Lucas Arts have his own developing studio Double Fine,
            they made the absolutely fantastic game Psychonauts - while a 'platformer' - it has all the spirit and soul of
            the lucas arts classics - in addition to being immensely funny. Telltale games has a lot of other people from Lucas
            Arts. Ron Gilbert who together with Tim Schafer created the two first Monkey Island games are currently working
            on a yet un-disclosed adventure-rpg game. Funcom is working on a sequ
          • Revistronic [revistronic.com] was the one I was looking at before posting.

            That B. Sokal guy who made (or more exactly led development of) Syberia is still working on new games at Microïds.

            Anaconda [anaconda-game.com] is fairly active.
  • As long as its not made by Phone Bone Inc I'm sure it will all turn out great! There be dragons...

  • New interactive comic for Sam & Max too... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RyanFenton ( 230700 ) on Tuesday February 28, 2006 @06:29PM (#14822276)
    Steve Purcell has created some interesting interactive online comics on their site at:

    http://www.telltalegames.com/comics/samnmax/?perma link=8367058FE9CC052C2FEB69468A83EE4C.txt [telltalegames.com]

    Fairly entertaining, but only a few pages so far. He doesn't seem to have lost much of his sense of humor after all these years.

    On a related note - I checked ebay recently. Steve Purcell's comics have become surprisingly valuable - found out my copy of "Sam & Max: Surfing the Highway" is worth hundreds. I'm keeping it though - it's the one comic I own, and it's worth the humor.

    • On a related note - I checked ebay recently. Steve Purcell's comics have become surprisingly valuable - found out my copy of "Sam & Max: Surfing the Highway" is worth hundreds. I'm keeping it though - it's the one comic I own, and it's worth the humor.

      I wouldn't put too much stock in that. Like any collectible, a comic book is only "worth" what people will pay [milehighcomics.com] for it. I was in a local comic book store here in San Francisco once and overheard a phone conversation with the owner: "Buy your comic books?

  • Personally, I think it would be great if they could Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson to reprise their roles. The voices in the cartoon were okay, but still couldn't measure up to the Lucasarts game.
  • And even though I couldn't afford to buy into continuing the game, I can say it's definitely worth playing. Great voice acting, good amount of interactive material, overall a good game from the sampler alone.
  • > Telltale is releasing accessible, innovative, interactive stories for the masses.
    Read: Another project to ride the bandwagon of the most basic games imaginable for 4th generation computer users who just discovered computer games.

    I guess this is not going to be a game for us geeky folk.

    • If the first episode they released is any indication, the Bone series is definitely "all ages," aimed at being approachable by anyone.
       
      The Sam & Max games, though, I'd imagine will be aimed more at the hardcore gaming audience who grew up with the insane puzzle-driven adventures of the 90s.

  • HA (Score:2)

    by AugstWest ( 79042 )
    This expansion funding gives us the ability to move even more aggressively in key areas of our business and further accelerate our company's strategy and growth.

    Schmmock schmock schmock schmock schmock schmock schmockity schmock schmock schmock schmock schmockly schmock schmock schmock schmock schmock business anf schmock schmock schmock's schmock schmock schmock.

    I'm glad they got money, bu jesus, this is like scraping my brain with sandpaper. Please speak English about what you;re actually doing, we're hap
  • Perhaps Telltale can use some of that money to hire voice talent that doesn't suck donkey balls for the next few installments of the game. The Bone siblings were OK, but everyone else was mostly shit. Mostly.
    • So far, you're the only one who hasn't liked the voice acting in general. Apart from two characters that we wanted to re-cast before the initial release (but couldn't due to budget limitations), everyone else who acted in the game was excellent. They are actors we use all the time on LOTS of projects.

  • I really enjoyed the graphics, sound, etc. on the first game, but for $20, it took maybe an hour to finish and the play wasn't that interesting - definately not worth paying that much for each chapter. I hope that additional chapters will be cheaper, or I'm pretty sure they won't be getting my money.
  • can't wait. Not entirely sure what "Bone" is thou... Sam and Max is a classic, and LucasArts were fools to let it drop. Lets hope the new guys can do it justice.
  • Succulent little bone creatures, marbled in fat?

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