It’s safe to say that I learned some of my English from the great adventure games from LucasArts and Sierra. There was something magical about the Space Quest series, Indiana Joneses, Maniac Mansions, Monkey Islands and, yes, even Leisure Suit Larries that I’m afraid is lost to that era and can’t be resurrected (cf. the hopefully last Monkey Island and the boring puzzle-fests like Longest Journey and other pre-rendered 3D pixel hunting games.). The geniuses behind these games have, wisely, realised the same and have for most part abandoned the ideas of making a new epic. Instead, for example, one of the hilarious guys behind Day of the Tentacle, Tim Schafer, set up a new shop and couple of years ago released an underrated masterpiece, Psychonauts. If I’ve read the eccentric news items from Double Fine’s homepages correctly, he and his team is working on something new, which will probably be something totally awesome.

The other great mind behind Day of the Tentacle, Dave Grossman, did something similar when Telltale Games (which was founded by LucasArts veterans) released the Season One of Sam & Max, the long overdue sequel(s?) to one of the funniest adventure games ever, Sam & Max: Hit the Road.

What Telltale Games did was not release a game, but a series of games that were only available as digital downloads. After the release of the first episode on October 2006, they released a new episode about every month until they completed the six-episode season on May 2007. They reused many of the expensive resources involved in adventure games (like graphics, engine and voice) and could keep other costs at minimum partly thanks to the internet and partly thanks to the (almost) guaranteed interest by the hardcore adventure gaming community. 

Another LucasArts veteran, Ron Gilbert, had for a long time talked about how episodic gaming would be the future and I have to admit that he might be right. He’s also working on something right now.

One thing that, I think, Telltale Games did really well was to take care of the community. Between episodes they actively published tidbits on their blog and released little short animations or soundtrack pieces on the website. They also knew how to take care of their customers as the subscribers to the whole season could get the episodes couple of days earlier than the rest and also can now get the whole season on a DVD for just the cost of shipping. If this isn’t caring for your customers, I don’t know what is. Apparently there were some free space on the DVD, as they have also filled it to the brim with extras. The icing of the cake is that they really seem to know their audience and the tradition of the genre as for 5 additional dollars (which is like, what, 1 euro today?) they’ll put in a file full of little trinkets. I fondly remember the time when many games came with some extra stuff in the box. If I’m not mistaken, solutions to many of the puzzles in the Leisure Suit Larry 3 we hidden in the extra stuff. Today you’re lucky if there’s anything else in the DVD box than the game disc.

One really exciting turn was when someone somewhere realised that there was nothing stopping Telltale Games publishing Sam & Max on Wii – the only “next-gen” console with a suitable control device for adventure games. The two-button remote is ideal for adventure games (dare I say even better than a mouse?), the Wii itself is ideal for this kind of non-hardcore gaming (like Halo, Counterstrike or GTA) and does have a channel for digital delivery, the game itself is family friendly (aka Nintendo-friendly) in a non-Manhunt 2 way (unless you start to wonder where Max keeps his gun). I’d love to see this happen.

I have doubts that something that cool could ever get done, but then again, I was quite sure there’d never be a “proper” Sam & Max sequel. (Sam & Max: Freelance Police? Let’s never mention that anywhere ever again.)

I just realised I didn’t mention Grim Fandango, the finest adventure game ever with a fitting theme for a genre then singing its swan song. So, there.

 Kari has never owned a console, but the possibility of Sam & Max and the fun of Mario Strikers on Wii haunt him and keep him awake at night occasionally.