Sam & Max Hit the Road is a graphic adventure video game created by LucasArts during the company's time making adventure games. The game was first released for MS-DOS in 1993 and for Mac OS in 1995. A version for Windows was added in 2002. The game features characters Sam and Max, known as the "Freelance Police," who are a human-like dog and a very energetic, rabbit-like creature. These characters were created by Steve Purcell and first appeared in a comic book series from 1987. The game is based on the 1989 comic Sam & Max: On the Road, in which the characters investigate the disappearance of a Bigfoot at a carnival, visiting many famous American tourist spots to solve the mystery.
LucasArts started making the game in 1992, aiming to use new settings and characters after the success of earlier games like Maniac Mansion and Monkey Island. Steve Purcell, who worked for LucasArts at the time, helped design the game. Sam & Max Hit the Road was the ninth game to use the SCUMM adventure game engine. It also used the iMUSE audio system, created by Michael Land and Peter McConnell. The game was among the first to include full voice acting. Sam and Max were voiced by Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson, while other characters were voiced by Irwin Keyes, Marsha Clark, Denny Delk, Tony Pope, and Beth Wernick.
The game was highly praised when it was released for its humor, voice acting, graphics, music, and gameplay. It is now considered a classic point-and-click adventure game and is often listed as one of the greatest video games of all time. Plans for follow-up games were canceled, leading the franchise to move from LucasArts to Telltale Games. Since October 2014, after Disney acquired LucasArts, the game has been sold by GOG.com. In November 2018, Disney Interactive re-released the game on Steam.
Gameplay
Sam & Max Hit the Road is a 2D adventure game where the player controls Sam from a third-person view. The player uses Sam to explore the game’s cartoon environments and solve puzzles using a simple point-and-click interface. The puzzles often have logical answers, but some solutions are unusual because the game has a cartoon style. The player can change the cursor’s mode to control how Sam interacts with the environment, such as walking, talking to characters, looking at objects, picking them up, or using them. The cursor’s image changes when it is near something Sam can interact with. When talking to a character, the player chooses topics from a list of icons at the bottom of the screen. These topics include plot-related ideas, and Sam can also say unrelated comments, questions, or random statements during conversations.
The game uses an inventory system to track items Sam collects. These items can be used on other characters or combined with other items to create new tools for solving puzzles. Max moves on his own, but Sam can use Max by clicking on an icon of Max’s head in the inventory, usually when a problem requires action. Sam and Max travel between locations in the game using their black-and-white 1960 DeSoto Adventurer car. Clicking on the car shows a map of the United States with all the places the pair can visit. As the game progresses, more locations appear on the map.
The game also includes several minigames. Some, like a carnival game similar to Whac-A-Mole but with live rats, are required to get new items and advance the story. Others, like a car-themed version of Battleship, are optional. Like most LucasArts adventure games, Sam & Max Hit the Road is designed so players cannot fail or reach a dead end.
Plot
Sam and Max, the Freelance Police, are comic book characters created by Steve Purcell. They work as private detectives and protectors. In the game Sam & Max Hit the Road, the characters follow a case that takes them from their office in New York City across the United States. The game begins like many comic stories, with Sam and Max receiving a phone call from an unseen Commissioner, who tells them to go to a nearby carnival. At the carnival, the owners say their star attraction, a frozen bigfoot named Bruno, has escaped, along with their second attraction, Trixie the Giraffe-Necked Girl. Sam and Max search for Bruno and Trixie to return them. As they investigate the carnival, they learn that Bruno and Trixie are in love and that Trixie freed Bruno.
The Freelance Police leave the carnival to follow clues at various tourist spots, such as The World's Largest Ball of Twine, a vortex controlled by giant underground magnets, and bungee jumping areas at Mount Rushmore. They discover that other bigfoots in different parts of the country have also been freed by Bruno. Bruno has been captured by Conroy Bumpus, a Liverpudlian country western singer who abuses animals and plans to use Bruno in his performances. Sam and Max travel to Bumpus' home, rescue Bruno and Trixie, but Bruno leaves with Trixie to join a bigfoot gathering at an inn in Nevada. Sam and Max disguise themselves as bigfoots to enter the party. Later, Conroy Bumpus and his helper, Lee Harvey, arrive to capture the bigfoots. Sam tricks Bumpus and Harvey into wearing the bigfoot disguise, and Max locks them in the inn's kitchen freezer.
Chief Vanuatu, the leader of the bigfoots, honors Sam and Max by making them members of the bigfoot tribe. He tells them about a spell that could make the world safe for bigfoots, but he needs help finding the spell's four ingredients: a vegetable that looks like John Muir, a hair restoration tonic, the tooth of a dinosaur (or a mechanical one), and a vortex inside a snow globe. The spell also requires a live bigfoot sacrifice, which Max replaces with a frozen block containing Bumpus and Harvey. When the spell is completed, large trees grow rapidly, destroying towns and cities and covering much of the western United States with forests. Sam and Max take the frozen block to the carnival. Thinking Bruno has been returned, the carnival owners give the Freelance Police a reward of skee ball tickets. The game ends with Sam and Max shooting targets at a carnival stall using real guns.
Development
Sam & Max Hit the Road was created by a small team at LucasArts. The team had experience making adventure games, including Sean Clark, Michael Stemmle, and Steve Purcell, who created the Sam & Max characters. Steve Purcell started drawing stories about Sam and Max in 1987. LucasArts developers noticed these stories, and artist Ken Macklin suggested Steve Purcell join the team. Art director Gary Winnick helped bring Steve Purcell into LucasArts. Steve Purcell drew cover art for Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders and helped animate characters in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Sam and Max first appeared in a video game as testing material for SCUMM engine programmers. Steve Purcell made animated versions of the characters and an office backdrop for the programmers to use. Later, Sam and Max comic strips by Steve Purcell were published in LucasArts' newsletter. After positive fan reactions and wanting to use new characters, LucasArts offered to make a video game based on Sam and Max in 1992.
Developers focused on keeping players engaged by making sure they interacted more than they watched. Much of the humor came from how characters responded to player actions. Even observing something in the room could lead to funny responses, showing how interactivity helped tell the story.
The game was based on the 1989 Sam & Max comic On The Road, which followed the characters on a journey across the United States. Some game locations were inspired by real places the developers visited. Steve Purcell remembered visiting a "Frog Rock" as a child and thinking it did not look like a frog. A chain of "Snuckey's" stores in the game was inspired by the real Stuckey's chain, which Steve Purcell and his family often visited during road trips.
LucasArts planned a short development time of about eight months for Sam & Max. The team used storyboarding for the first time at LucasArts to plan the game. Sam & Max was one of the first games to include a full speech soundtrack and music. Steve Purcell called this a "dream opportunity" to hear his characters speak. Bill Farmer was cast as Sam after his audition tape was very dry and not overly dramatic. Nick Jameson voiced Max. The game's jazz score was composed by Clint Bajakian, Michael Land, and Peter McConnell. The iMUSE engine allowed audio to sync with visuals. High-quality versions of four tracks were included on the game's CD. The game was released on floppy disk and CD-ROM at the same time, with only the CD version containing full speech and music.
The Sam & Max comics had an adult tone, so Steve Purcell expected LucasArts to remove some edgier material. However, he was happy LucasArts let him stay close to his original vision. The game included minigames to give players breaks from solving puzzles. These minigames were short and silly. Sam & Max Hit the Road marked a major change in SCUMM engine development. The user interface was redesigned from the one used in Maniac Mansion. Instead of selecting verbs from a list, players cycled through verb functions using the mouse cursor. The inventory was moved to a sub-screen accessed via an icon. Steve Purcell said this change helped show more detailed backgrounds and made interaction faster. Conversation trees used icons instead of text menus to avoid ruining jokes by having players read them before hearing them. These changes were used in future LucasArts adventure games.
Reception
According to Steve Purcell, Sam & Max Hit the Road sold well commercially. In 2000, he said the game's sales were not as high as Star Wars, but it sold enough to be considered a hit by most standards.
The game received good reviews from the gaming press. It had an 84% rating on the review site GameRankings. Charles Ardai of Computer Gaming World wrote in 1994 that Sam & Max was "measurably less" enjoyable than Day of the Tentacle. He compared Day of the Tentacle to a Looney Tunes cartoon and Sam & Max to an underground comic book. Ardai noted that the humor in Sam & Max was funny "only to a point" and that the main characters were not kind. He also said the story was unimportant even to the characters. Ardai pointed out that the minigames were optional and disconnected, making the game feel more like a collection of unrelated activities than a unified story. He praised the graphics and the simplified SCUMM interface but concluded that the game was "less than the sum of its parts" and offered only a few hours of similar fun to Day of the Tentacle.
Edge magazine said that most adventure games make it hard for players to care about the characters they control, but Sam & Max Hit the Road broke this pattern by being "genuinely funny." The reviewer called the graphics "beautifully detailed" and the puzzles "intricate to solve," but noted some minigames were "dismal." Joonas Linkola of Adventure Gamers praised the cartoon-style graphics as "appropriately cheesy" and "colorful." He said the game's humor relied on witty dialogue, which gave it replay value because players might notice jokes they missed the first time. Linkola also praised the soundtrack and voice acting, saying the "very fitting voices" added to the characters' comical style.
Allgame reviewer Steve Honeywell said the game had an "interesting" plot, "appropriately cartoonish and fun" graphics, and "well-designed" locations. He said the humor was the main reason the game worked well. Honeywell noted that some puzzles were simple, while others were very difficult, but praised the game for having few useless items. He also said the audio work was excellent, with "stellar" voice talent, and called the game a "new high" for point-and-click adventures in terms of fun and comedy.
Sam & Max Hit the Road was one of four nominees for the 1994 Annie Award in the category Best Animated CD-ROM, but the award went to Star Wars: Rebel Assault. In 1994, PC Gamer US ranked it as the 8th best computer game ever. In 1998, PC Gamer listed it as the 10th best computer game ever, calling it "still the best graphic adventure for the PC."
Over time, Sam & Max Hit the Road became known as a classic adventure game and is often included in top 100 game lists. In 1996, Computer Gaming World ranked it 95th best game of all time, calling it "the adventure game that redefined 'wacky.'" The same year, Next Generation ranked it 27th best game, saying its "goofy charm" helped it win a spot over other LucasArts games like Day of the Tentacle. In 1999, Next Generation listed it as number 45 on their "Top 50 Games of All Time," noting its mix of a strange story, LucasArts' adventure game skills, and the SCUMM engine. In 2004, Adventure Gamers ranked it the 8th best adventure game ever, calling it "the most absurd and ridiculous game ever designed."
In 2007, IGN included Sam & Max Hit the Road in its top 100 games list, saying it was "known more for its story and characters" and that its gameplay was often overlooked. In 2006, David Olgarsson of Adventure Classic Gaming said the game had become "LucasArts' most critically acclaimed adventure game," citing its production quality, graphics, puzzles, and storytelling. In 2011, Adventure Gamers ranked Sam & Max as the 28th best adventure game ever released.
Sequels
In September 2001, the first attempt to make a sequel to the Sam & Max games began with Sam & Max Plunge Through Space. This game was only available for the Xbox and created by Infinite Machine, a small company made up of former LucasArts employees. The story was written by Steve Purcell, the series creator, and Chuck Jordan. It followed the Freelance Police as they traveled through space to find a stolen Statue of Liberty. However, Infinite Machine ran out of money within a year, and the project was stopped.
At the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo, LucasArts announced a new PC sequel called Sam & Max: Freelance Police. Like Sam & Max Hit the Road, this game was a point-and-click graphic adventure, using a new 3D game engine. Michael Stemmle, one of the original designers of Hit the Road, led the development. Steve Purcell helped by writing the story and creating concept art. The original voice actors, Bill Farmer and Nick Jameson, were also set to return. However, in March 2004, LucasArts canceled the game, explaining it was due to "marketplace realities and economic factors" in a short statement. Fans responded strongly, with a petition signed by 32,000 people expressing their disappointment.
After Steve Purcell’s license with LucasArts ended in 2005, the Sam & Max franchise moved to Telltale Games. Telltale was made up of former LucasArts employees who had worked on previous adventure games, including Freelance Police. Under Telltale, a new episodic series of Sam & Max games was created. Sam & Max Save the World was a point-and-click graphic adventure game, similar to Hit the Road and Freelance Police, but it did not use the original voice actors. The first season had six episodes, each with its own story but connected to a larger plot. The first episode was released on GameTap in October 2006, with new episodes following regularly until April 2007. A special compilation was released for the Wii in October 2008. A second season, Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space, started in November 2007 and ended in April 2008, also released as a Wii compilation. A third season, Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, was originally planned for 2009 but began in April 2010.