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Continuity? In Sam & Max!? (SPOILERS)

questionthemajorityquestionthemajority
edited January 2008 in Sam & Max
Wow. I'm smack-dab in the middle of the latest Sam & Max game and, as usual, it's great stuff! However, I'm flabbergasted at the unsettling recurrence of various themes and concepts from the previous season. Max is still President of the U.S.A., Sybil and Abe are still dating, the Bug recalls events from prior episodes as do the Soda Poppers...

Don't get me wrong, I like recurring jokes and I was thrilled to see that the Soda Poppers weren't going anywhere. But one of the things that's always made Sam & Max so funny was the sitcom quality to it in that the stories could be read or watched in any order without having to worry about being confused. No matter how weird things got by the end of an adventure, it would all be right back to normal once the next one started. While I expected some continuity to show up throughout the seasons, what with each episode being more like one chapter of a longer story, it's disconcerting to actually see the consequences of the Freelance Police's recklessness carrying on to other stories.

Is anybody else with me on this or am I just a lone raving derelict?

Comments

  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited January 2008
    The amount of continuity varies from episode to episode, for sure. Most of what happened in Season One isn't actually relevant in Season Two, though. There were things that people liked which ended up carrying over, but they could have just as easily been something else. If there was no season one, and season two had opened with Sam & Max's neighbor dating a gigantic stone head, I think that would be about the same as their neighbor dating a stone head which you helped Sam & Max decapitate on a previous case. Also, there have been some recurring characters in other Sam & Max stories (Flint Paper being the notable example, and Mack Salmon and The Geek if you want to count the cartoon... if you want.) The things that the writers like to write seem to come back more. Maybe I'm making that up. I think its nice that the games mix some familiarity and longer-form storytelling in with the new randomness that shows up each episode. Sometimes it may tip too far into continuity (as evidenced by peoples responses to seeing the Soda Poppers in 201... and I agree that maybe it is a little weird that Max has been president for so long), but usually I think the line is balanced pretty well.
  • mishmish
    edited January 2008
    See, man (questiononthemajority), I am totally with you on this.

    Jake, recurring characters have little to do with continuity.

    I'd love to see the day that each Sam & Max episode released is its own story, with a majority of its own characters and locations, although I do realize it's not the easiest thing to deliver each month.
    UNLESS
    You had some sort of a form with IK implemented in, where you could just adjust the features of a character, specifically human creatures, though I could see animals being implemented within the frame, but that doesn't really help out with the animation, of which, I'm sure, is still plenty to be done each month.

    I wanna make a Sam & Max feature film. Someone fetch me Purcell :D
  • Murray the ChaoMurray the Chao
    edited January 2008
    Just make sure that Sam doesn't sound like he did in the cartoon!
  • questionthemajorityquestionthemajority
    edited January 2008
    Jake wrote: »
    The amount of continuity varies from episode to episode, for sure. Most of what happened in Season One isn't actually relevant in Season Two, though. There were things that people liked which ended up carrying over, but they could have just as easily been something else. If there was no season one, and season two had opened with Sam & Max's neighbor dating a gigantic stone head, I think that would be about the same as their neighbor dating a stone head which you helped Sam & Max decapitate on a previous case. Also, there have been some recurring characters in other Sam & Max stories (Flint Paper being the notable example, and Mack Salmon and The Geek if you want to count the cartoon... if you want.) The things that the writers like to write seem to come back more. Maybe I'm making that up. I think its nice that the games mix some familiarity and longer-form storytelling in with the new randomness that shows up each episode. Sometimes it may tip too far into continuity (as evidenced by peoples responses to seeing the Soda Poppers in 201... and I agree that maybe it is a little weird that Max has been president for so long), but usually I think the line is balanced pretty well.

    Don't think that I'm overly concerned about this, really. All in all, I love the series and you guys have done an excellent job of writing for Sam and Max's weird world. Dating a giant stone head is certainly not out of the question for someone in their universe! I just mean it's a little eerie actually seeing the results of their actions lingering for longer than a few seconds. I've gotten used to Sam and Max being like many slapstick Toons whose antics never have long-lasting repercussions.
  • questionthemajorityquestionthemajority
    edited January 2008
    Murray the Chao wrote: »
    Just make sure that Sam doesn't sound like he did in the cartoon!
    I loved Sam's cartoon voice!
  • NickTTGNickTTG Telltale Alumni
    edited January 2008
    I think the season as a whole feels like a real game. When you break everything up, you do get more of a disconnect. Which arguably is closer to the style of the original comics, but you have to consider the fact that we aren't making a game just for the Sam and Max comic fans. There are people who watched the TV show growing up, and didn't even know that there was a comic or a game prior to that.

    Also, you might wanna let Season 2 play out a little bit before you say too much more.

    And if you hate continuity, you could always wait for the rest of the episodes to come out and play them in a random order.

    Nick's Favorite Random Episode Sequence: 4, 1, 3, 5, 2 (get your own!)
  • ZeekZeek
    edited January 2008
    mish wrote: »
    I wanna make a Sam & Max feature film. Someone fetch me Purcell :D
    He's probably drawing storyboards for Pixar... or designing more monsters for their shorts.

    I'm just waiting for the day Brad Bird and/or John Lassenter goes into his office and says to him "You know, Steve, those Sam & Max characters of yours are kind of your signature characters and are very popular with people that don't know you work for us. We need some new R&D, and I was thinking... how about making a short film based around those guys?"

    Research and Development is one of the main reasons they continue to produce short films, so I can only imagine what kind of new computer animation tech would come out of a Sam & Max project. *cough*automatedlipsynch*cough*
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited January 2008
    Why would Pixar develop automated lip sync?
  • ZeekZeek
    edited January 2008
    Why did you guys make one? :p
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited January 2008
    we have probably 5 to 10 times as much spoken dialog as a pixar film, and probably fewer than even one tenth as many animators per project!
  • Maximillian IMaximillian I
    edited January 2008
    You're just a lone raving derelict!
  • ChazFoxChazFox
    edited January 2008
    I don't mind continuity in Sam and Max. The most obvious continuity is the closet in the office in each episode, which always contains souvenirs from all previous episodes.

    Incidentally, 104's souvenir had me in stitches when I saw it for the first time.
  • ThatNickGuyThatNickGuy
    edited January 2008
    I think the one little bit of continuity that cracked me up was in 106, when you sold the US to Sybil. Right after that, the desoto had Canadian decals all over it, along with Canadian flags.

    It was such a little detail that I didn't notice the first time playing, but couldn't stop laughing when I played through it again. As a Canadian, I thought any of the Canadian jokes were hilarious.

    My point is that it was a little detail that wasn't even NEEDED in the game, but added so much more to the game. It's the little details like that that made me impatient for Season 2 to start.
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