Before Sam & Max Save the World launched, we were coy about some of the changes we’d made because we wanted players to be surprised by all the refinements and new Easter eggs. When you sat down to play the game, we wanted it to have some of the same “new game” magic that playing the original had back in 2006. So we talked in general about what we’d done, but we didn’t list it all out for fear of spoiling that experience.
What we didn’t consider was that some people wanted to know exactly what had changed in order to decide whether to buy the game in the first place. We can’t turn back time, but in this post we’ll detail all of the significant updates and the reasons behind them, to help you make that decision or just to satisfy your curiosity.
We’ve spent the three weeks since launch working on this list to make it as complete as possible. We’ve also been working on version 1.0.3, which was just added to Steam and has several bug fixes and tweaks based on feedback we’ve received since launch. If you’re only interested in reading about those fixes,
head down to the bottom of this post.
[h2]What’s changed between the new Sam & Max Save The World and the original 2006/2007 release?[/h2]
The lists below are by no means 100% complete, but are intended to give a breakdown of the work we put into the new release. If you’re curious about something we haven’t mentioned here, please write to us at [email protected]![h3]The big stuff:[/h3]
- We re-lit the game from the ground up. This is probably the most apparent change, so it’s at the top of the list. This was partly done out of necessity (the latest version of the game's engine doesn't even support the pre-baked lighting from the original 2006/2007 release), but mostly because we knew the improvement would be huge. Lighting was one of the roughest parts of early Telltale releases, and updating it brings out the beauty and style of the original art while adding new features (like dynamic time-of-day shifts and moving shadows) and new ambiance. (Pay special attention to how the lighting in Sybil's office changes along with her jobs!)
- All environments and characters are higher resolution, in some cases with new added details. The original release was built to run on low-end Windows XP computers, and as a result the polygon count and texture detail was low even by 2006 standards. This was something we could finally fix! Some of the original source assets were higher resolution than what shipped originally, so we were able to use those. For other assets, we upped the detail by hand ourselves, in some cases (especially with characters) pushing the style further—sometimes going back and forth with Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell, sometimes referring back to ideas from the original concept art, and sometimes using our experience creating characters across all three seasons.
- Music, sound effects, and voice were remastered, and new music was added. We were able to go back to the original master recordings for voice, sound, and music and re-encode them to modern standards. (Unfortunately, we didn't have access to the foreign language dubs’ source files to put them through this process, so we had to leave those out of this release.) Some existing music was updated with new instrument samples, or was split apart to create new variant tracks. Plus, five new pieces of music were added throughout the season, written by long-time series composer Jared Emerson-Johnson and performed and produced by some of the same people as the original score.
- We recast the voice of Bosco. We understand that to some who played the original game, the voice performance is Bosco, and this isn’t a decision we made lightly. The bottom line is he was voiced by a white actor doing a stereotypical impression of an African American that made us cringe fourteen years later. We wanted to make this right by casting a black actor in the role. Though old fans may notice some differences in delivery, we’re very happy with the end result and we hope you’ll give him a chance!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]Because we were rerecording Bosco’s lines we had the opportunity to tweak a few jokes that also hadn’t aged well. We’ll lay those out in detail below, but altogether it comes out to around a dozen rewritten lines out of 11,967 total (plus a handful of continuity edits so the rewrites would make sense)—roughly 0.1% of the script. So if we say the script is 99.9% unchanged that's not a joke, it’s the actual math.
[h3]The still big (but not quite as big) stuff:[/h3]
- The whole season is bundled together as a single game. When we first shipped Sam & Max Season One, downloadable games were just getting started as a concept. The original season was distributed as six separate games—one .exe file for each episode. The new version is assembled more like later Telltale releases, with a season-wide launcher and new, modern UI and menus that unify the episodes and bring in some features from the later Sam & Max seasons.
- You can play with just a mouse, a mouse and keyboard, or a controller. The original release only had a mouse-driven point & click interface. On PC you can still play that way, but we’ve also added keyboard and gamepad support. The Nintendo Switch version also supports touch screen controls in handheld mode.
- The game runs in 16:9 widescreen, at any resolution your monitor and operating system support. Built at the very end of the CRT monitor era, Sam & Max Season One was originally a 4:3 game that could only run at 800x600 or 1024x768. Fortunately now it should just work, whatever your resolution.
- Cinematography was updated across the game. When we first built Sam & Max Season One, many of us were still new to digital shot composition and TV-style scene direction. It’s been a long fourteen years, and we’ve learned a lot! We came back with new eyes and gave our old camera setups a helpful bump to provide more pleasing compositions during navigation, conversations, and cutscenes. We also adjusted some compositions for 16:9 compatibility, where the original framing would have revealed the edges of sets or characters who were meant to be off-screen, and we beefed up some of the sequences that play when Sam and Max leave or enter a location.
- We cleaned up the animation and visual effects. Along with increasing the resolution and the detail in models and textures, we’ve recompressed animations at a far higher quality, so they’re smoother now. More crucially, the entire lip sync system was overhauled to be crisper and support far more dynamic and expressive faces while the characters talk. We also took advantage of the new particle system (which Telltale’s engine didn’t support in 2006) to enhance visual effects like the spray paint and Hugh Bliss Bacteria.
- Shooting Sam’s gun and driving the DeSoto feels better and looks nicer than ever before. In case anyone doubts that Sam & Max Save the World is a video game, rest assured: it has both shooting and driving in it, and both are looking pretty nice. When Sam aims his gun, he now precisely targets where you’re pointing, instead of vaguely waving his arm toward that side of the screen. And the driving minigames now feature a “rolling horizon” effect, similar to games like Animal Crossing, where the city curves over an arched horizon instead of just disappearing into the center of your screen.
- Easter Eggs have been added throughout the game that reference later seasons, other Telltale games, and other Sam & Max media. We won’t spoil them by listing them out, but keep your eyes open!
[h2]What’s changed in the individual episodes?[/h2]
This is a slightly more detailed breakdown of what’s been changed in each episode. If you don’t want to be spoiled, tread lightly!
This doesn’t get down to every single change, or the list would be huge. For example: in the new release Bosco’s ketchup dispenser has a little picture of a tomato on it. The Soda Poppers have striped shorts instead of plain ones. Sam’s cufflinks have a little bump to them and can catch a glint in the light. There are something like twice as many polygons in the round cement ovals that cap the bannisters of the front stairs outside Sam & Max’s office. Life-changing stuff, all of it, but maybe not worth listing out.
That said, if you have a question about a little detail you’ve noticed and are wondering why we did it, let us know and we’ll do our best to answer. (You may have even spotted a bug, in which case we’ll be grateful to hear about it!)
[h3]Culture Shock[/h3]
- The Jimmy Two-Teeth interrogation has new lighting, camerawork, and music (called “Good Sam, Bad Max” on the soundtrack), all added to accentuate the mood and to make this early puzzle more rewarding.
- The spray paint can has been moved from its original location. Dating back to Culture Shock’s 2006 release, a lot of players had trouble finding the spray paint on the car parked behind the DeSoto, and we wanted to eliminate a frustration point in an early puzzle. Those of you with adventure game muscle memory who remember where it used to be, we apologize for the brief mental hiccup this will cause! (Spoiler: the new location is on the newspaper stand outside Bosco’s Inconvenience.)
- When chasing the Soda Poppers in their van, day slowly becomes night. In the original game, it was always night time outside Brady Culture’s Home for Former Child Stars, but when you went back to the street it was daytime again. Now the entire game switches to night for the finale. Also, the street environment features a new, more lonely variant track (“Empty Streets”), based on the original street music.
- The office looks a bit different during Sam’s psychoanalysis and the hypnotic dream sequence. Culture Shock was one of Telltale’s first episodes, and we were still figuring out how to reuse assets back then. Today we want to avoid the repetitive feeling of returning to the same location over and over, so we looked for ways to enhance these two scenes without changing the gameplay.
- The cinematography inside Brady Culture’s asylum is plussed up. When we went back and looked at the set for Brady’s theater-turned-asylum, we realized it was huge and really beautifully built, but almost none of it was visible from the original camera angles. We reframed much of the sequence to give it a more expansive and epic feel, both to make Brady seem more formidable and interesting and to better show off the great art.
- One line of dialog was shortened: Instead of saying his latest BoscoTech innovation will “clear out a room of militant college students in no time, guaranteed,” Bosco now says it will “clear out a room in no time, guaranteed.”
[h3]Situation: Comedy[/h3]
- This episode features new music in Bosco’s Inconvenience (“Inconvenienced”). Bosco’s has always felt repetitive when visiting it from episode to episode. We were able to use Sybil’s new jobs as an excuse to redecorate her office, but Bosco’s doesn’t have such a fictional conceit. We decided music would help alleviate that feeling of sameness and make Bosco’s a little more surprising when Sam and Max walk into it for the first time in episode 2, so we invented a B-side for the only cassette Bosco seems to own. This music appears in all of the even numbered episodes.
- WARP TV feels a little bigger! Episodes 2 and 3 were originally developed almost simultaneously, and that meant smaller budgets and scopes than other episodes had. One result of this was that their central locations had no exterior shots, which contributed to these episodes feeling more claustrophobic than the rest. We designed and built the outside of WARP TV and added a collection of TV show–style establishing shots that play whenever Sam and Max return.
- The TV studio is also home to another new piece of music (“WARP”). In the original release, the TV studio had one big piece of music. It’s mysterious, eerie jazz that sounds like it’s coming out of the dark corners of the empty TV studio, but it was the only background music for most of the episode. We wanted to mix up the mood and decided on something more upbeat and “classic Sam & Max.” The new track takes over each TV studio room after you complete its main puzzle, which we hope makes it feel like Sam & Max are slowly taking over the place.
- The WARP sound stages now have live TV monitors in the rafters. We’re always looking for ways to make the environments a little more alive and dynamic, and it made perfect sense that you’d see yourself on TV in a TV studio. If you watch carefully, there are a couple places around the studio where Max can notice he’s on TV and act accordingly.
- One line of dialog was changed: Instead of saying the Skinbodies are like “skinheads, but ten times worse,” Bosco now says they’re like “those hairless cats, but ten times worse.”
[h3]The Mole, The Mob, and The Meatball[/h3]
- Ted E. Bear’s Mafia-Free Playland and Casino now has an exterior! Similar to WARP TV above, we thought the casino would benefit from an establishing shot, to make it feel more like a real place. It also gave us an opportunity to hint at the Hypnobear factory behind the casino, and to add a nod to the buffet that Max can’t stop bringing up.
- There’s a new piece of music when interrogating Leonard, called “Oh, Mama!” We thought an upbeat change in music would make the office feel fresh and complement how Sam and Max were playfully toying with Leonard.
- Sam and Max are now fully inducted into the Toy Mafia. (What mafia?)
- A change to dialog: Instead of saying you may call him “Jean-Francois Sissypants, the cowardly French anarchist,” Bosco now says you may call him “Jean-Francois Band-A-Parte, the new wave French anarchist,” and refers to himself again by that name in another line. (Originally Sam and Max still referred to Bosco by the old name, which was an editing oversight that has been fixed in version 1.0.3.)
[h3]Abe Lincoln Must Die![/h3]
- The War Song got a lot of lighting polish. It probably won’t come as a surprise to learn that the War Song was one of the first things we thought about when considering a full lighting remaster of the game. In addition to swinging spotlights and lights shaped like stars, we added some industrial shutters that seal off the Oval Office when war is declared, to give the later half of the game a different feeling and to add some theatrical flair to the beginning of the song. We also added a cymbal monkey to the song, because it felt right.
- We eliminated unnecessary backtracking to and from the White House. Late in the game, you arrive directly inside the Oval Office (skipping the front lawn), and you can leave straight from the War Room (click the security TV by the War Room door).
- There are lots of little art changes and enhancements around the episode. For example: The submarine in the White House pool is now fully modeled. It’s a nice detail we thought you’d want to know about. The leaves on the trees rustle in the breeze now, which we hope players will find relaxing. The rubble created when Abe Lincoln is destroyed by the Washington Monument also looks a lot nicer. Keep an eye out for these when you play.
[h3]Reality 2.0[/h3]
- Originally this episode was the visual powerhouse of the season, or at least the surprise combo breaker that came in and shook up Season One’s aesthetic at a point when people thought they knew what the world looked and felt like. We wanted that to be true of the new release, too, and pushed Reality 2.0 into even more of a stylized “cartoon cyberspace.” We took inspiration from Tron, of course, and also the covers of 90s issues of Wired magazine, and movie posters and promotional material from hacking and early-internet techno thrillers of that era. Reality 2.0 felt of its time when it came out in 2007 and now almost feels quaint, and preserving and enhancing that feeling of “the early Internet” was important. (Miss the original lighting? You can catch a quick glimpse of it just before Max yells “there go the graphics!”)
- The Banco Lavadero minigame’s visuals are completely overhauled. We didn’t want to touch the puzzle design, but the look of that sequence never really matched the bubbly digital weirdness of the rest of the episode. We also added some animation effects to help communicate where your money is going as it stumbles around the internet.
- A change to two lines of dialog with the COPS: When Sam and Max get their Reality 2.0 goggles, Bob now says they have a pair of wide-fit goggles for Max, designed for “playing while bicycling or enjoying full-contact sports” and Curt chimes in “Safety first!” The original joke was that they were designed for “special-needs children so that the little ones can play along.”
- A change to two lines of dialog with Bosco: When talking about his half-elf form in Reality 2.0, Bosco used to say everyone on the internet has to pick an avatar like a dwarf or an orc or a “hot young fifteen-year-old girl curious about the adult world and willing to experiment.” Now he says “like a dwarf, or an orc, or a troll... but we’ve got enough trolls.” He also calls Max a “troll” instead of a “foo’” in a follow-up line.
[h3]Bright Side of the Moon[/h3]
- In the tradition of creating exotic Sam & Max locations without any research or reference material, we added fog to the Moon. It looks pretty good, and is something the real Moon should consider to liven things up over there.
- Riding the Collide-O-Scope now features a kaleidoscopic experience, as promised (or strongly implied) by its name.
- One dialog exchange with Bosco was removed: Max asked if Bosco’s disguise as his mom was done surgically or hormonally, and Bosco threatened to beat him for bringing it up. Initially the removal of this exchange from the dialog tree meant that the follow-up joke about Bosco being “all natural” and Max “liking ’em bosomy” was also unavailable, but we have restored this second exchange in today's update.
[h2]Some things that seem like changes, but were actually bugs (and are fixed now):[/h2]
When we pushed Sam & Max Save the World through almost a decade and a half of game engine updates, a few things broke or flew under the radar. These weren’t deliberate changes! We’ve caught and fixed these (and many smaller bugs) in today’s update. If you notice a bug not listed here or in the patch notes at the bottom of this update, let us know by emailing
[email protected] and we’ll do our best to track it down.
- In Abe Lincoln Must Die!, the War Room monitor was not immediately updating when you fired at some targets. The way the game engine handles texture animations changed for the new release, and we missed updating a few of textures on the War Room monitors. Fixed in version 1.0.3.
- Max occasionally spoke with the wrong voice. Back in 2006, a scheduling problem required Max’s original voice actor, Andrew Chaikin, to be replaced by William Kasten after the first episode. When we remastered the audio for the new release, the few lines that are shared across episodes were accidentally replaced with Andrew Chaikin’s line reads, resulting in Max having “two voices” in episodes 2–6. We believe we’ve caught and fixed all of these in version 1.0.3.
- One of the background car license plates changed from “DRG DLR” to “RMS DLR.” We hate drug dealers but love arms dealers! Really this was the result of a mistake in the texture upscale process. The game’s generic cars have three possible license plates (“DRG DLR,” “RMS DLR,” and “CON MAN”) and these textures share a Photoshop file with each plate on a different layer. When we upscaled the textures, the “RMS DLR” layer was left on for ⅔ of the plates instead of ⅓ of them. This has been fixed in version 1.0.3 and the DRG DLR is now back on the streets.
- The comic timing changed when the Who’s Never Going To Be A Millionaire set blows up. The music used to loop, and that got cut off in the newer version of the engine we’re using. Fixed in version 1.0.3.
- A few camera cuts in the War Song happened in slightly different places than they used to. When we added new lighting to this cutscene, a few of the camera keyframes got bumped around. Fixed in version 1.0.3.
- Graffiti was missing from Sybil’s shop window after she’s jilted by Abe. Similar to the War Room computer screen not updating, this is a texture swap change that slipped through the cracks. Fixed in version 1.0.3.
- The “Max-ified” Director didn’t pull out a gun in the closing credits. She does now! The system that attaches props to characters changed between the original release and now, and Max’s Luger was floating somewhere off camera instead of being attached to the Director’s hand. The gun has returned to her hand in version 1.0.3.
[h2]Some things you might think changed in the new release, but didn’t:[/h2]
- The Artificial Personality Disorder test in Culture Shock has always been randomized. If you remember the test being different the first time you played, it probably was! All of the possible symptoms remain exactly as they were in 2006, you just got a different one on this playthrough.
- Hot Bunny magazine at Bosco’s never had a look-at line in Culture Shock. If it strikes you as strange that Culture Shock’s Max doesn’t have anything to say about the magazines at Bosco’s, you’re probably remembering later episodes when he does have something to say. Even the original version of Culture Shock had no line hooked up there. (We have no idea why!)
- You can skip dialog. Pressing the period key will skip dialog (just like in old SCUMM adventure games), except in a few very specific situations where skipping would break game state, like in the middle of musical numbers. You can also right-click, or press the B button on a gamepad.
[h2]And some new features and bug fixes:[/h2]
- New! Improvements to the subtitle colors and contrast. Some people have said the subtitles are hard to read. We’ve tweaked these to be higher contrast and added an option to display a transparent black background for even higher contrast (in Gameplay Settings). You can see how the optional subtitle background looks in the video at the top of this post.
- New! An option to disable v-sync. On some adaptive and high framerate monitors, the game was continuing to force waiting for vertical sync. Now you can turn it off. If you were having issues with the framerate jumping up and down aggressively on your high framerate or adaptive sync display, try disabling v-sync (in Graphics Settings).
- Tweaked: Bosco’s opening lines. We want the new Bosco performance to be as good as it can be, including making a strong first impression. As we’ve evaluated feedback to the new acting, one recurring comment we’ve seen is that Bosco doesn’t sound at first like the paranoid shopkeeper players remember. We think his first few lines—which happen to be the very first lines the new actor recorded, as he was still finding his way in the role—have to do with that, so we returned to the studio to rerecord a handful of iconic lines from the beginning of Culture Shock. These new line reads are in version 1.0.3. You can get a preview of some of them in the video at the top of this post.
- Fixed: Lots of small bugs. See below for the version 1.0.3 patch notes.
[h2]What about the original releases?[/h2]
A main reason we created this new version of Sam & Max Save the World, rather than just updating the original episodes, is that fourteen years of technological evolution made patching those old versions nigh impossible. At this point, the 2006/2007 originals are relics from that specific period of time.
But even though we won't be updating them, we are committed to keeping the originals available for people who want the old-school experience. Here’s what that means for Steam users:
- If you already own the originals you can still access them in your Steam Library, even though the episodes have been removed from individual sale.
- The original episodes will be available soon as free DLC to Sam & Max Save the World owners. We’d hoped to have this ready at launch but it turned out to be a little trickier than we anticipated. It’s in the works, though, and we’ll post an update when the DLC is ready. (Update: The original episodes are now available as free DLC!)
- The original releases are getting Steam Library assets. This is a common request, and is something we started working on before announcing the remaster, but it was temporarily put on the back burner. Expect the old games to look a lot more at home in your Steam Library very soon!
[h2]Patch notes for today’s Sam & Max Save The World update (version 1.0.3):[/h2]
[h3]Game-wide:[/h3]
- Updated subtitle colors to be more readable, and added option to draw a background behind subtitles (in Gameplay Settings)
- Added option to disable v-sync (in Graphics Settings)
- Replaced repeated Max voice lines in episodes 2-6 with William Kasten instead of Andrew Chaikin, and updated lip sync animations
- Fixed points where scene music was not resuming after cutscenes
- Fixed mouseover pop-up text splitting in the middle of a word
- Fixed a small seam in Max's belly visible on 4K monitors
- Fixed a foreground car clipping through the camera when looking at the One Way sign on the street in episodes 2 and 3
- Fixed inconsistencies with lettering on the awning outside Sybil's
- Fixed missing license plate textures on background vehicles (“DRG DLR” rejoins “RMS DLR” and “CON MAN”) and updated the license plates to match style of the DeSoto’s license plate
- Fixed Czech translation of "Presents"
[h3]Episode 1:[/h3]
- Fixed Jimmy Two-Teeth interrogation music sometimes failing to play when switching between Sam and Max
- Fixed the theater interior background being misaligned when watching Brady Culture on TV
- Fixed cheese floating next to table at Bosco’s
- Fixed Czech translation of "separate your bliss"
- Fixed Sam appearing inside the DeSoto hood when arriving at the asylum without Max
- Fixed blown out lampshade during Soda Poppers TV scenes
- Replaced a few Bosco lines with new reads and updated animation and lip sync to match
[h3]Episode 2:[/h3]
- Fixed instance where Sybil’s tattoo chair could be selected even when it’s off camera
- Fixed Sam sliding and clipping through door when entering Sybil's
- Fixed Hypnobear’s head turn animation when hypnotizing Myra
- Fixed Who’s Never Going to be a Millionaire music loop
- Fixed Russian translation of "Situation: Comedy"
[h3]Episode 3:[/h3]
- Fixed Casino music not playing when visiting the casino for the first time
- Fixed instances of Sam and Max calling Bosco by the wrong name
- Fixed missing ketchup texture on Sybil and intercom
[h3]Episode 4:[/h3]
- Fixed instance where the timing of some camera cuts slipped from original in the War Song
- Fixed War Room console texture animations
- Fixed Sybil's storefront graffiti and increased graffiti texture resolution
- Fixed Chuckles briefly popping back in after he drags Whizzer out of the Oval Office
- Disabled dialog skipping during War Song
[h3]Episode 5:[/h3]
- Fixed Sybil's pencil being visible while she's wearing the VR goggles
- Fixed Italian translation of “Uncook” button
- Trimmed Russian text that was too long in text adventure dialog choices
[h3]Episode 6:[/h3]
- Fixed retreat music still playing during laser room cutscene
- Fixed Sam standing up during finale when examining an inventory item
- Fixed street not scrolling during end credits
- Fixed Max teleporting after using gastrokinesis on Leonard
- Fixed Director's gun missing in closing credits
- Fixed Sam picking up an invisible Deed
- Fixed the Lunar Lander leg turning invisible at an inopportune moment
- Disabled skipping dialog during the closing credits
- Re-added some of the conversation with Bosco talking about his “mom” disguise (since this is a change to game logic, the new line won't show up in a save game where you've already asked Bosco about his mother; in that case you'll need to start the episode over)
[h3]Menu Text:[/h3]
- Fixed Russian translations of “Soda Poppers,” “Myra Stump,” and “Ted E. Bear”
- Fixed Czech translation of “Resume”
