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Episode length ?

Wa1shWa1sh
edited September 2008 in Sam & Max
just played the demo of the first sam and max "culture shock" and it lasted the whole of 5 minutes. Im just wondering how long an actual episode is compared to the extremely short demo. As soon as i step outside of the office it goes back to desktop and asks me to buy the full version which i would gladly do so long as it has a while to g0 and not just another 30 seconds.

Comments

  • MolokovMolokov
    edited August 2008
    Most of the episodes are about 3-5 hours of gameplay, if you take your time and explore areas and dialogue trees a bit.

    101-103 are reasonably short, but 104-106 and all of Season 2 are fairly long with several tough puzzles you really have to think about.

    The demo for 101 is pretty short, buy you can get demos for all episodes, and the entire of 104 is free, so you can download it and play to see if you like it. It doesn't spoil very much of what happens in 101-103.
  • TrogLlamaTrogLlama
    edited August 2008
    Yeah, 101 has the shortest demo because the first area serves as a nice little standalone tutorial, and after that there's no good place to stop until about halfway through the game.
  • Wa1shWa1sh
    edited August 2008
    ah yes thank you for pointing out episode 4 - i played through it - took me about 4 hours - i got stuck and didn't think to use the cockroach tape on the phone :P and needed help. if most of the episodes are that length - buying the season for $ 30 US is a pretty good price :) - just wonder how much extra i will pay once it is converted to Aussie dollars ;P. 2 months ago it would be like $ 2 now it will be ... larger
  • Rather DashingRather Dashing
    edited August 2008
    I don't know about Austrailia's money, other than that you guys usually get gipped on video game purchases.

    They're basically all the same length, depending on how long it takes you to figure out the puzzles. The last two episodes took me longer than the first four. Anyway, I think it's a great deal, and overall you're paying a pretty good price for what amounts to a lot of funny.

    And yeaheah, I'd take my time and get as few hints as possible if I were you. I can spend a week or two on a Sam and Max game with short bursts of playtime.

    ...also, remember. You're asking a bunch of Sam and Max fans if Sam and Max is worth buying. There's a bit of bias there. But yeah, they're all around the same length-wise, with maybe the first couple episodes being a bit shorter than the last maybe? I'm not sure. =p

    All in all, you'll spend a lot of hours with Season 1 if you want to go around and try everything you can. The fun of an adventure game is always in the exploration and the feeling you get when it clicks in your head that you solved a really hard puzzle. If possible, find an FAQ that only gives hints in layers, like:

    "Puzzle 1: Getting swiss cheese.

    Well, you have to find some cheese.

    Try clicking around the office.

    Check inside everything.

    There's cheese in the closet.

    But it's not swiss cheese.

    What's different here?

    Check your tools.

    Remember what makes Swiss Cheese different from the cheese in the closet."

    Etc etc. I always preferred guides to hint me in the right direction, rather than blatantly say "USE BLANK ON BLANK, THEN AFTER WHO SAYS BLANK, GO TO BLANK."
  • Wa1shWa1sh
    edited August 2008
    :) solved that one with the pistol :P is there a hints bar in season 1 because i didnt notice it - but i just played the demo for season to hell level and it set it up for me :)
  • Rather DashingRather Dashing
    edited August 2008
    The hints system was put into place in Season 2, it was one of the little upgrades we got in the second season. I personally kept it set to "off" unless I was particularly stuck.
  • Wa1shWa1sh
    edited August 2008
    i quiet like it. put it on rare and then they don't seem to do anything. so when you get stuck put it up on full and wait for a hint which is much better then hitting the walkthroughs online and ruining the game.
  • Rather DashingRather Dashing
    edited August 2008
    The thing about the hints in season 2 is, they're set to only go off after "so many" actions/observations that don't go towards solving the current puzzle. So if they're on Rare, they probably won't go off unless you're struggling with a puzzle for awhile, or(and this is why I turn them "off" unless I'm stuck) you're like me and you're clicking everything and doing crazy combinations just for the fun of it first before addressing the puzzle.

    Besides, clicking everything for the fun of it always equips you better to solve whatever the puzzle at hand is.
  • MolokovMolokov
    edited August 2008
    In Season 1, you could always talk to Max to get hints, but sometimes they weren't very obvious and sometimes they were too obvious. In 106, they changed the dialogue tree with Max so that you actually had to specifically say "I need a hint" before getting to the hints section.
  • Wa1shWa1sh
    edited August 2008
    ohrly ? whenever i talked to max he just made smart remarks or made fun of sam :P
  • Rather DashingRather Dashing
    edited August 2008
    Oh, right. I forgot about that.

    Yeah, the remarks or the making fun of Sam? Those are usually well-concealed hints. Apparently too well-concealed, because I played through all of Season 1 without realizing that they were!
  • Wa1shWa1sh
    edited August 2008
    lol ok so im not a stupid as a thought :P at least 1 other person has failed to realize they where hints :)
  • Harley QuinnHarley Quinn
    edited September 2008
    Molokov wrote: »
    Most of the episodes are about 3-5 hours of gameplay, if you take your time and explore areas and dialogue trees a bit.

    Heh, takes me alot longer cos I'm retarded :D
  • UdvarnokyUdvarnoky
    edited September 2008
    Rather Dashing wrote: »
    Oh, right. I forgot about that.

    Yeah, the remarks or the making fun of Sam? Those are usually well-concealed hints. Apparently too well-concealed, because I played through all of Season 1 without realizing that they were!

    I think the other problem was that people who didn't necessarily want hints were talking to Max because they wanted to hear all the dialog.
  • AwesomepantsmanAwesomepantsman
    edited September 2008
    TrogLlama wrote: »
    Yeah, 101 has the shortest demo because the first area serves as a nice little standalone tutorial, and after that there's no good place to stop until about halfway through the game.

    The funny thing is that SBCG4AP's demo ended at about halfway through.
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited September 2008
    The Google currency converter says that US $30 = about Australian $35, for what it's worth.
  • Wa1shWa1sh
    edited September 2008
    yep thanks jake - i purchased the full first season on the weekend. They where really good. I think the hardest bit is getting your Mind into thinking using the abstract logic that the game uses that and finding all the things you can click on in the first episode because most of the props are recycled in later episodes example of this is the ketchup pump in bosco's shop. I kept looking for tomato's in the Cooking stage show when all along it was back at bosco's just like in another episode.
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