[Maquisard]

When can we expect new shit, or at least more than a tease about new shit? Haven't gotten any real news in a while.

[Harald B]

Prayer answered.

edit: looks like the trailer has been taken down already; sorry for non-working link

[[toj.cc]Phantom]

I was hoping for more ToMI...but S&M is great too!

[Harald B]

And the trailer is now removed. Drat.

[Maquisard]

Right, I wasn't sure what I was supposed to see there. Ran a search though, and it lists May 31st as the release date.. Ouch. Well, I'm sure it'll be worth the wait!

[Harald B]

FWIW, the trailer said April.

[D.C.]

It's probably for the best not to announce Sam & Max officially on the same day as MI2:SE.

Hopefully we won't have to wait too much longer, though.

[D.C.]

The new season of Sam & Max has been officially announced and dated. There's a trailer and screenshots too. The Twilight Zone feel is all kinds of awesome.

[Monolith]

It was great to see Telltale Games at GDC today. I'm surely willing to submit an application. Can't wait for S&MS3

Plus I see self-shadowing on characters?!? Awesome!
http://www.adventuregamers.com/screenshot.php?id=12110

[Warthur]

I'm hoping this is the start of a pattern for Telltale - alternating seasons of Sam and Max with Tales of Monkey Island (and maybe even more Strong Bad, or even new projects). I'd much rather see them mix things up a bit to keep it fresh than crank out several series in the same franchise in a row and get burned out.

[DustyShinigami]

Great news! The graphics have improved nicely and even subtly.

[Dale Baldwin]

Giantbomb quicklook of the PSN version of the first episode.

Definitely looks better graphically.

[Maquisard]

This looks like it's gonna kick all kinds of ass.

[HaroldO]

Well, supposedly my PC can run the game with some adjustments (Windows XP; Pentium Dual Core E220; 2GB 666mhz; Intel GMA 3100 with 384mb of shared memory) and the pre-order offer seems really good, so I'll bite this hook.

[Shany]

Originally Posted by Dale Baldwin

Giantbomb quicklook of the PSN version of the first episode.

Looks great, and seems like there'll be a lot to interact with.
I'm still wondering about the 'dialogue wheel'. It is probably better for consoles, and the old dialogue tree style was a bit problematic (sometime Sam would say exactly what was written, sometimes not). But I dunno, I like seeing the joke and then hearing it out loud.

[HaroldO]

Chuck Jordan is doing a Q&A in the Freelance Police Dispatch forum (exclusive forum for people who pre-ordered the game). I'm going to post parts of it here, I hope they don't mind:

Originally Posted by SamnMad
In previous seasons of Sam and Max, the Street has featured as a sort of hub linking together the game's many varied locations. With the new series seemingly venturing away from our world and out into space, is the Street going to be left behind? And, if not, in what ways has it changed/expanded since the last season?
The new season is going to be centered around New York, not outer space! Sam & Max's street is still a major location in the game, but we're using it a little differently than in previous seasons. We wanted to use more of New York City, instead of seeing little glimpses of places from all over the world. And we wanted to make sure that the street was just one of the locations you'd visit, and the action was more spread out all over the city.

The biggest changes to the street happen in the first episode, when General Skun-ka'pe arrives.

Originally Posted by Tjibbbe
Max's new powers bring a whole new dynamic to the game, making the gameplay feel all fresh. It reminds me a bit of Loom. Was that an inspiration behind the choice to do it this way (or if it wasn't, what was?)? Will we see more weird new gameplay choices in future Telltale titles (which I'm very much in favor of!)?
I've actually never played "Loom," so it wasn't a conscious influence. (My first LEC game was "The Secret of Monkey Island.") It was more a result of looking at what worked best in previous episodes -- "Chariots of the Dogs" and "Moai Better Blues" in particular -- as well as what's going on in independent games and other puzzle games. In the indies, they usually take one core concept and do a bunch of variations on it: turning negative space into positive space, making clones of yourself, or, of course, using a portal gun to move from one place to another. I really liked that "Moai Better Blues" (which was designed before anybody here knew about Portal!) took the one concept of the Bermuda Triangles and built a bunch of puzzles around that. So the idea is that instead of having a bunch of inventory items, and you have to figure out what each one's specific purpose is; you have a smaller set of psychic powers and we tell you exactly how they work. Then, you have to figure out how to use those to fit the situation.

As for whether that kind of thing shows up in the future, it depends on the designers of future games, and of course the feedback we get from season 3.

Originally Posted by Secret Fawful
Is that Narrator dude with the rose and spiffy accent really the devil returning in another form or is The Devil's Playhouse just a catchy title.
The Narrator is just there because most of the TV shows and movies influencing the season have a narrator. There's Criswell from Plan 9 from Outer Space and Rod Serling from "Night Gallery" and "The Twilight Zone", plus the voice-over at the beginning of "The Outer Limits." Also, there's a great werewolf movie from the 70s called The Beast Must Die! with an opening narration. It was a great way to fit the tone, plus introduce people to Sam & Max if they'd never heard of them before, without just dropping them into a big weird story. Also, I didn't want people thinking they couldn't understand Sam & Max if they hadn't read the comics or played the previous two seasons.

To find out what "The Devil's Playhouse" means, you'll have to stay through the last episode.

Originally Posted by Soracha
Will this season be like the previous sam & max seasons, with seemingly separate cases, being linked together in the end, or will it be more like ToMI, where one episode starts where the one before it left off?
It's more like Tales of Monkey Island, with each episode being a chapter in a larger story. People seemed to like that a lot in Monkey Island, and also the final couple of episode in season 2 of Sam & Max.

Originally Posted by CannonMan
Will there be a Wii version of The Devil's Playhouse?
Not in the initial launch, which is for PC, Mac, and PS3 only. Our engine runs on the Wii and the Xbox 360, though, so releasing them on other platforms in the future is a definite possibility.

[Maquisard]

Thanks mate.

[HaroldO]

some of Chuck's more interesting answers:

Originally Posted by pwblaine
I've read on some previews that you're slightly changing the way we go about solving puzzles in this season over last, any chance of a little enlightenment on what that could mean?
It's probably in reference to Max's psychic powers. The idea is that a lot of adventure games work by having you collect a ton of stuff in your inventory and then making you figure out what each item's specific purpose is. In the new season, we're putting more emphasis on Max's powers -- there are fewer of them, but you know exactly how they work, and you can use them in multiple different ways.

One example is Max's future vision power. He can use it on most characters and some objects to get a short scene showing their future. The idea is how does it change traditional adventure game puzzles if you get the solution first, and then have to work backwards from that?

I loved this one:

Originally Posted by pwblaine
I've also seen that we have more control over max in this version does that mean we'll possibly be seeing a switch character control button in the regular environment vs just in dialog?
At just about any point of the game, you can hit a button and switch control from Sam to Max (and vice versa). In Max mode, you enter Max's mind and can look around through his eyes. Max mode is where you use Max's psychic powers. Sam mode works pretty much like it always has -- you can walk around, look at things, add stuff to your inventory, start dialogues, etc.

Originally Posted by Gman5852
Will we get to combine items like in tales.
Nope, still no inventory combination in Sam & Max. It's something that's inherent to Monkey Island games, so it would've felt odd if it hadn't made it into those. But the Sam & Max games never really seem to need it.

Originally Posted by indiana_helge
Is Max still president in Season 3?
Yes. How long he stays President, you'll have to play the games to find out.

Originally Posted by Nojh
Are there any easter eggs in any of the seasons?
Did you mean "episodes" instead of "seasons?" There are some cool moments that are off the critical path of the game; we usually cover them with the "Did you try?" walkthroughs we release after the game. On the PS3, each episode will have a set of trophies for doing different things. (Before anyone asks, the trophies aren't in the PC/Mac versions). And the chore guys crammed a lot weird stuff into Max mode; I still haven't seen all of it.

Originally Posted by zmally
I've been reading a lot recently about how TTG originally wanted to carry on production of the cancelled "Freelance Police". My question is, of all the Sam & Max games you've done, have you come close to the original plot of this mysterious game? Or will you ever consider maybe even having a crack at it now you're on good terms with LucasArts?
I suppose it's not absolutely impossible, now that we have Mike and Derek here along with most of the rest of the Freelance Police team. (I didn't start full-time at Telltale until season 2, so I wasn't aware of any of the Freelance Police stuff). I get the impression that after Telltale made the Bone games and started experimenting with Sam & Max, the type of games went off in a different direction from the game that was being made at LEC.

And, again, it's usually more fun to make new stuff instead of bringing back the old stuff. I've asked Mike about a couple of aspects of the old game, just to make sure we're not repeating anything, but he hasn't gone into a ton of detail for good reason: it's better that it doesn't color anything that's being made here.