Telltale's Sam & Max Remastered - Seasons 1-3

[LESS T_T]

The original version is now available as free DLC.





https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1440440/view/3023573021317693525

Old-school Sam & Max Season One is now free DLC
Play the original episodes exactly as they were, warts and all.

Big news: Sam & Max Save the World version 1.0.4 is now live on Steam. See the patch notes below for a list of fixes.

Even bigger news: All six of the original Sam & Max Season One episodes are now available as free DLC for Sam & Max Save the World customers! If you’re curious to see where Telltale’s Sam & Max games got their start or nostalgic for the version you played back in the day, now you can—low resolution, compressed audio, the works.

After you download the DLC, the next time you start Sam & Max Save the World you’ll see a launcher like this. The Bonus Features button will take you to a selection of video extras that accompanied the episodes’ original launch and were included on the special edition DVD that Telltale made available to Sam & Max Season One customers back in 2007. (For now it's just a YouTube page but an entire website is in progress.)

Pick the episode you want and hold on tight little buddy, because you’re going back in time!



Look at me, Sam! I’m episodic!
In 2004, a sequel to the LucasArts adventure game Sam & Max Hit the Road was cancelled mid-development. Several people who worked on that game left LucasArts to form Telltale Games with the revolutionary idea of releasing games episodically, like a TV show.

When the Sam & Max game rights reverted to series creator Steve Purcell in 2005, he licensed the characters to Telltale. The young studio put the concept of episodic gaming to the test with Sam & Max Season One, six episodes that released approximately once a month between October 2006 and April 2007.

Back then, digital distribution was in its infancy. Initially the episodes were only available for streaming on GameTap (a “Netflix for games” type service owned by Turner Broadcasting) and for purchase from Telltale’s website. (They later came to Steam in June 2007.) Graphics and audio were highly compressed to keep download sizes low, and the games were designed to work on low-end computers to appeal to a mainstream audience.

What's this? Are we dead?
To avoid cluttering up the Steam store, we do not plan to sell the original Sam & Max Season One separately. Moving forward, this DLC is the way to get the Season One episodes on Steam. GOG also offers a free version of Season One to Sam & Max Save the World customers as a downloadable "Extra."

Due to insurmountable technical hurdles, these versions will not be updated and we can’t provide tech support. (Difficulty fixing bugs in the old game engine is a main reason we remastered Sam & Max Save the World in the first place!) We’re making them available for historical preservation purposes only. That said, if you’re having trouble running the old episodes, check our troubleshooting guide, where we've collected everything we know about some common problems and suggest workarounds.

Spoiler

Patch notes for today’s Sam & Max Save The World update (version 1.0.4):

Game-wide:

• Fixed Max behavior sometimes running during cutscenes. We thought this was fixed in the previous patch, but it turns out it was two separate bugs. Max is hard to pin down!
  
• Fixed Max sometimes staying attached to Sam after they collide with each other
  
• Fixed the back wall of Sam & Max's office being hidden in some cutscenes
  
• Fixed a bug causing characters to occasionally blink into their walk forward animations when they're just changing position in a cinematic sequence
  
• Fixed Bosco's bathroom terror level lights not changing and sounds not playing in later episodes
  
• Fixed Bluster Blaster duct tape material in later episodes
  
• Disabled save game button during closing credits

Episode 1:

• Fixed driving "pull over" sequence sometimes running when no vehicle is being tailed
  
• Fixed French translation of Brady "organ" joke

Episode 2:

• Fixed Peepers' cue cards floating in mid air after he sings for the first time
  
• Disabled Specs dialog choices about Whizzer’s birthday after Whizzer is gone

Episode 3:

• Fixed Leonard pop when using an item on him after you've beaten him at poker
  
• Fixed Leonard's arms clipping into table when talking to him after you've beaten him at poker

Episode 4:

• Restored camera cuts and acting in street newspaper chores
  
• Restored original Max timing in store "watching and judging" chore
  
• Fixed incorrect texture when firing missile at Bosco’s
  
• Fixed DeSoto logo and missing flags on TVs in the War Room

Episode 5:

• Fixed Max clipping with the desk when entering the VR Office
  
• Disabled line skipping during COPS song
  
• Fixed Bank VR lock disappearing when it was still there
  
• Fixed Sam awkwardly sliding off screen when trying to talk to Sybil while she's wearing googles

Episode 6:

• Fixed Bug voice line in Moon Retreat. Sometimes you fix a Bug bug.
  
• Removed water cooler from office and added water stain, since Mr. Spatula is on the moon now
  
• Fixed shadow lingering on camera once DeSoto is off screen when exiting street
  
• Fixed TV camera light blinking after taping has ended in opening cutscene to match original animation
  
• Fixed satellite disappearing from view when interacting with it
  
• Fixed Sam standing up on wheel or in saw box when using gastrokinesis or spoon bend items on him

Thanks to Laserschwert for use of his Max to the Future image!

 

[Neuromancer]

I don't know about Steam but for GOG this is no news at all.
The original version was available on GOG all the time.

The only problem was, since the release of the new version, you had to buy the declined "Remaster" for a higher price to get the old version as a bonus - but this seems to be also the case for this "DLC".

 

[prengle]

 

[Infinitron]

Here comes Season 2:





https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1747050/view/3133937847587462027

Announcing Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space Remastered!
This holiday season, Sam & Max are going to Hell...

It’s been 350 days since Sam & Max Save the World came out, and during this time we’ve been (mostly) quiet, but don’t be fooled! The Skunkape team has been cranking away at Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space (aka Season Two), and today we’re flinging open the reinforced bulletproof door so you can peek in and see what’s happening in our secret game-remastering bunker. But first...

We just announced that Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space will release on Steam (PC), Nintendo Switch, and Xbox on December 8! We’re not doing preorders on Steam this time, but add the game to your wishlist and mark your calendar, because launch day is only three weeks away.

You might be wondering if we’ll offer a legacy discount to owners of the original Sam & Max Season Two, like we did for Season One owners last year. Unfortunately Steam no longer supports this type of discount. We’re just as bummed about it as you are.

Instead, we’ve figured out a way to give a launch discount to people who already bought the Sam & Max Save the World remaster on Steam. We hope this will cover a lot of the people who would have benefitted from a Season Two legacy discount. We’ll announce details on December 8.

At launch we’ll also post a detailed mega-list of what’s new for those who want to see it before they make a purchase decision (or are just curious). For now, we’ll lay out the bigger updates to get you all tingly with anticipation. Starting with...

Spoiler

Updates You Can See

Sam & Max Season Two came out in 2007/2008, and it showed. The remaster has beautiful dynamic lighting, shadows, and ambiance that pull a fourteen-year-old game into the future. All graphical assets have been scaled up, which means more detailed environments and smoother animations.

We once again tweaked all of the character models to bring them closer to Steve Purcell’s aesthetic, in some cases under his guidance. Kid Sam, Kid Max, and Flint Paper look more like they do in the comics, while Jurgen is closer to Steve’s original concept sketch. Putting car keys on Jurgen’s nipple ring was a little too risqué in 2008, but in 2021 we went there.

We’ve also added visual effects that Telltale’s engine couldn’t support in 2007/2008, including falling snow in the North Pole and new ambiance in the Zombie Factory. You can get a glimpse of these in the trailer.




And a couple of cinematic artists with years of experience on Telltale series went through the whole game to improve camera angles, choreograph new sequences, and punch up character acting. There are several examples in this first look playthrough video. (Warning, contains spoilers!)




Updates You Can Hear

Believe it or not, a good number of people still had dial-up internet in 2007. Telltale was always looking for ways to keep download sizes small, and massively compressing audio was a favorite trick. Now that we’re living in the future, this isn’t necessary, so we went into the vault and scrounged up the original voice files to remaster and re-encode them at higher quality. Your ears will thank us.

(We only had access to the English voice files, so there is no foreign language voice in the remaster. The game has subtitles in English, German, French, Spanish, and Italian, same as Sam & Max Season Two.)

As in Sam & Max Save the World, we once again rerecorded Bosco with voice actor Ogie Banks, but
no lines were rewritten this time. Longtime fans may notice some small changes due to the natural improvisation that happens during recording, but the script itself is untouched.

The music has also been spruced up, with some existing tracks embellished and eight new ones written by Jared Emerson-Johnson. The new tracks were performed by live musicians from the original Season Two soundtrack and the Sam & Max Save the World remaster.




Where did we find space for eight new tracks in a game that was crammed full of great music already? Well, you might have noticed that episodic games often reuse content. This saves time and money during production, but it can get old. We saw an opportunity to put a new spin on reused content with some themes in Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space that were either identical to a Season One track or would benefit from variations between episodes. For example, you’ll now hear a brand new street theme, City Streets Saunter, rather than the original City Streets that had been carried over from Season One.




The new music will be included on the Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space soundtrack, also coming out on or around December 8.

Updates You Can Play

While the story and puzzles haven’t changed, we did update the DeSoto decal system. Decals were a big deal when Season Two came out (and also a big headache for programmer Randy Tudor), because they were the first example of Telltale content that carried over from one episode to the next, laying the foundation for the game remembering your choices in later series like The Walking Dead.

But the decal system was punishing, because you couldn’t go back to collect the ones you missed in earlier episodes—you essentially had to 100% an episode before moving on to the next. Not anymore! In the remaster, you can go back to previous episodes and get decals you missed, and they’ll carry forward into future episodes without having to replay. We also added a decal poster next to the De Soto so you can see which decals you still need to get.

The same quality of life improvements in Sam & Max Save the World are present here, including a choice between mouse, mouse + keyboard, or gamepad controls; smoother shooting and driving; and optional subtitle backgrounds to make the text easier to read. In addition, we’ve added two new accessibility features: the option to skip driving mini-games, and a toggle to turn off lighting effects that could trigger seizures.

And it wouldn’t be a remaster without new Easter eggs, right? We’ve added those too. Not gonna tell you where they are, but we hope you enjoy finding them as much as we enjoyed hiding them.

Updates?! But what if I don’t want no stinkin’ updates?

We hear you. We walked twelve miles to school through the snow, uphill both ways, too. The original Sam & Max Season Two will live on in your game library (if you already own it), and on Steam it will be bundled with the Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space remaster as free DLC. So if you’re feeling nostalgic for those chunky polygons and crusty audio, or you want to compare the old Bosco voice to the new, or you just prefer to play your games on an 800x600 CRT monitor thank you very much, we’ll have you covered.


Of course, the Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space remaster has a lot more in store than we’ve covered here, and we can’t wait for you to see, hear, and play it! This big Sam & Max Save the World post goes into more detail about the big picture changes, if you missed it the first time around. And if you’re looking for more info about the remasters in general, check out our FAQ.

 

[Infinitron]

Released.



https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1747050/view/3131687405863357246

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space Remastered Is Here
Save Christmas (sort of), rave with zombies, and go to Hell… today!

Hey folks! Our second Sam & Max remaster, Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, is now out on Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and right here on Steam. Maybe you have a few questions before you hit that buy button? Luckily we have a few answers…

Dude, where’s my discount?
Last year, when Sam & Max Save the World came out, we were able to offer a special discount to owners of the original Sam & Max Season One. We wanted to do that this time for Season Two owners, but sadly Steam doesn’t support this type of legacy discount anymore. Instead, we’re offering a Save the World + Beyond Time and Space bundle for 25% off.

This is a “complete the set” bundle, which means you only pay for the items you don’t own yet. If Sam & Max Save the World is already in your Steam library, this bundle will get you just Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space for 25% off.
And if you don’t own either remaster yet, you can dive in headfirst with a 25% discount on both of them. This deal ends at midnight Eastern time on December 21.


For example, if you own Sam & Max Save the World, you can get Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space for 25% off by completing the set.

Hey, wait! What about...

• The original episodes DLC? If you buy Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space on Steam, you’ll get access to the original Season Two episodes as free DLC. We’re still getting this set up, but watch for it later in December. (Of course, if you already have these episodes in your Steam library, you can still access them there too.)
  
  
• A list of all the updates in the remaster? Around the Skunkape office (aka our Slack channel) we affectionately refer to this as the “mega-post,” and every time we think it’s finished we remember something else to add to it. We’re working on it! In the meantime, this regular-sized post lists out the biggest updates. (Spoiler: We did rerecord Bosco in this remaster, but we did not make any edits or deletions to the script before doing so. The details of why and why not are something we'll get into in the aforementioned mega-post!)
  
  
• The soundtrack? We’ll have this up on Steam and Bandcamp very soon! Until then, tide yourself over with “Maimtron 9000’s Pancake Breakfast,” one of the eight new tracks Jared Emerson-Johnson composed for the remaster.

 

[Infinitron]

Old trailers reuploaded: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbUMlPMdnU_bcCZv8OE7nJupsDw9GctwR

 

[Infinitron]

Released on GOG:



https://af.gog.com/game/sam_max_beyond_time_and_space?as=1649904300

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I don't know if it's still a thing, but I really could not stand the wave of popularity Sam & Max got after these "remasters" were released. Every time you looked up Sam & Max it was a bunch of fucking Twitteroids talking about how cute and gay Sam and Max are. Fucking disgusts me, man. Why can't the funny animal people just be friends? How come women want to make everything gay?

It's a shame that Steve Purcell signed off on the censorship, but whatever, I guess it's no big surprise that he was a faggot after all considering he works at Pixar. If it was just the tranny bit with Bosco then that'd be bad enough, but a lot of the jokes were just completely inoffensive. The joke about people pretending to be horny 15 year old girls on the internet was one of the jokes that I recall audibly laughing at, and they replaced it with some cringeworthy shit about trolls. And the new Bosco VA is fucking terrible compared to the old one; he used to be one of the funniest characters. Now he sounds like he belongs in a car insurance commercial.

 

[Mary Sue Leigh]

What a weird choice to remaster them at all. There's one word that springs to mind for those Telltale games, all of them, and it's "disposable". I have played the originals and thought they were alright, but I had no incentive to replay them ever again. Slightly different lighting notwithstanding.
Same for the Strong Bad, BttF, and Walking Dead.
I feel you can enjoy them once just fine but they lose all taste if reheated. Could be the case with many adventure games though, they have something of a novelty with puzzles and witty dialog which doesn't work so well if you've already seen them.
But somehow it seems especially true with Telltale adventures.

 

[Infinitron]

Final season:

Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered is coming in 2023! Somewhere in the infinite blackness beyond the limits of human comprehension, an ancient, terrible power lies waiting…

 

[Infinitron]

Next year:





https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2648050/view/3904120607111888360

Announcing the Sam & Max Holiday Contest
If you could make Steve Purcell a present, what would it be?

The past two years, we’ve held a Halloween arts and crafts contest for the Sam & Max community. This is a continuation of a tradition that started at Telltale, and we love seeing what you all come up with. Here are last year’s winners.

Then this year we were so busy working on The Devil’s Playhouse… we forgot about the contest!

Good news, Sam & Max fans. The contest has risen from the dead AND we have news about The Devil’s Playhouse!

The Power of Christmas Compels You
We’re calling this one the “Oops, We Missed Halloween So Let’s Do a Holiday Contest Instead” contest. Here’s how it works: the holiday season is upon us. Steve Purcell is a wonderful person who gave us all the gift of Sam & Max. We really should return the favor, don’t you think?

If you could make Steve a Christmas gift, what would it be?
Get creative! The only rules are that your entry has to relate to Sam & Max in some way, and it’s gotta be legal. Nothing that would make Baby Jesus cry (on his birthday, no less).

Send a picture (or other files as appropriate) of your entry to contest@skunkapegames.com by December 17 at 11:59pm (PST). We’ll pick our favorites and reveal them during a holiday Twitch stream the week of the 18th. (Before sending in your entry, please review the fine print below.)

Two grand prize winners will score a bundle of Sam & Max goodies:

• Boss Fight Studio’s brand new Sam & Max Wave 2 action figures (Scuba Max & Ratso and the Rubber Pants Commandos)
• Limited Run Games’ Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space Collector’s Edition for PC
• A game key for the platform of your choice when Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered launches in Spring 2024

Since we always have trouble picking our favorite entries, there will most likely be a bunch of runners up, too. Those people will also win a Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered game key.

The Fine Print

• If your file is too big to play nicely with email, sending us a link to a Google Drive, Dropbox, etc. works too. Also tell us how you want to be credited if we share your entry. (Your name or handle, website URL, Twitter, etc.)
  
  
• You can submit multiple entries, but only win once. By submitting, you grant us permission to use your entry (with attribution) for promotion on social media, the Skunkape website, and other places where promotion happens.
  
  
• To select the winners, the Sam & Max Remastered team will hold a democratic vote overseen by a panel of objective nonpartisan observers (okay, maybe not). In case of a tie, Steve Purcell gets the final say.

Wait, what was that? Did you say The Devil’s Playhouse is launching in Spring 2024?!
Yes! We’d originally expected to release Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered this year, but we’ve been keeping quiet until we could be more certain of the date. Now that 2023 is almost over, we can say for sure that the game won’t be out this year. (Sorry!)

But we’re super close, and within a few months you’ll be playing the final game in the episodic Sam & Max trilogy, in all its remastered glory.

 

[Maxie]

what is there to remaster in devil's playhouse
it plays just fine and looks just fine

 

[Infinitron]

Coming August 14th:

 

[Infinitron]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2648050/view/4324104099033012358

Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse is here!
What's new in the remaster, how to get the best price, and where to find the original version DLC.

Somewhere, in the infinite blackness beyond the limits of human comprehension, an ancient, terrible power lies waiting. Since the dawn of time, villains throughout the galaxy have searched for a way to tap into that power, bending all of creation to their own twisted ends. But you needn’t freak out, my friends. There’s nothing to fear... Unless, of course, this power should somehow fall into the wrong hands.

Welcome, my friends, to Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse Remastered.

After three years of hard work, we’re beyond excited to bring you the most ambitious of Telltale’s Sam & Max seasons, gloriously remastered for today’s video game playing devices. Read on for a long list of what we’ve done in the remaster—or bookmark this post for later if you want to go in blind! But first…

Launch Discount Details
The Devil’s Playhouse has a 10% launch discount on Steam through August 27. It’s a good way to save a few bucks!

But hey, if you own our other Sam & Max remasters, here’s an even better way: buy the Complete Trilogy bundle.

On Wishlist

Sam & Max: The Complete Trilogy
Includes 3 items



Add to Cart
-25%
-28%
₪221.85
₪160.83

You’ll get 25% off PLUS the 10% launch discount, and the games you already own will be subtracted from the purchase price. That comes out to $13.49 (or equivalent in your local currency) for The Devil's Playhouse if you already own Save the World and Beyond Time and Space.

Free DLC: The Original 2010 Version
Want to compare and contrast between the original and the remaster? We have you covered! The 2010 episodes will be included with the remaster as free DLC, arriving very soon.

Once you add the DLC, when you start the game from your Steam library, you’ll see this launcher:

We’re still pulling together the bonus features, but when those are ready you’ll be able to access them through the launcher too. We'll update this post once the DLC is live, and when the archival special features start to drop.

And now take your seats, turn off your cell phones and pagers, and prepare yourselves for an epic list of everything* that’s changed in Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse Remastered.
*Maybe not everything. We have the memory of a dried trout. If you’re curious about something you notice in the remaster that’s not mentioned on this list, please ask us about it!

The Big Stuff

• We re-lit the game from the ground up.
  Like our first two Sam & Max remasters, The Devil's Playhouse is lit head to toe in beautiful cinematic lighting, dynamic shadows, and color grading, with an eye toward keeping its original "old stinky film" look while letting the world shine through in a way meant to evoke Steve Purcell's original comics. We touched all the lighting in the game, from the biggest environments to the tiniest cutscenes. We also added some new atmospheric effects to this season, most notably some soft volumetric sun shafts that appear in the occasional shot.

• Every environment and character are higher resolution, allowing for added detail and smoother animation.
  This season has always featured the beautiful work of concept artist Ryan Jones, and we were able to work from his original drawings to add extra detail to the characters and environments that couldn’t be done with the original 2010 polygon counts. We pushed the environments as far as we could toward feeling like the comics come to life. We also re-exported and cleaned up all the game's original animation files to remove the compression and shaky jank that plagued them, and redid the lip sync animations with more modern tools. And there are a ton of new little Easter eggs hidden in the dark corners of the world, so keep an eye out.

• We added full point-and-click support.
  When The Devil's Playhouse came out in 2010, Telltale was at a crossroads regrading what type of games they wanted to make and which platforms they were prioritizing. As a result, they ditched the traditional point-and-click adventure game controls in favor of a gamepad-first approach. We decided for the remaster, why not both? So we went back and worked full point-and-click mouse support into the game. You can also still play using a gamepad, arrow keys, the old click-and-drag mouse approach, or a touchscreen if you're on a Steam Deck or Nintendo Switch. With point-and-click added to The Devil's Playhouse, and full gamepad support added to the first two remasters, all input types are finally supported across the entire Sam & Max trilogy and you can play the whole series however you'd like.
  
  
• The audio quality is improved across the board, almost every piece of music has been remixed and mastered by the original composer, and there are a few new pieces here and there.
  The original release of The Devil's Playhouse sounded better than either of the previous seasons, but it still suffered from intense audio compression, resulting in scratchy voices and muddy sound effects. We went back to the source files and re-exported everything at far higher quality. We also worked with series composer Jared Emerson-Johnson, who dug out his original composition files, updated many of the sampled instruments to something more modern, and finished off the tracks with a new mix and mastering pass. We also brought back series regular Jordan Wardlow to record live saxophone for a few key story moments in the game that were previously MIDI synth only.
  ("But where is the soundtrack?" you're probably asking. It's on the way and we'll have news soon!)

• Nutri-Specs are available on all platforms, hidden somewhere in the game for you to find.
  Long ago, when The Devil's Playhouse was first in development, the Telltale team had an idea for a bonus Toy of Power that could only be found by players who solved a series of puzzles outside the game. (If any of you remember Treasure Hunting in the original release of Tales of Monkey Island, it was likely going to be something like that.) This toy, the Nutri-Specs, was a pair of glasses Max could wear to learn the nutritional content of various items in the world. It gave you a good excuse to poke around The Penal Zone and hunt for things that Max might be able to make fun of.
  
  Unfortunately for everyone, the web game was canceled before it was finished, and as a result the Nutri-Specs were never available to PC players. On PlayStation, you received the toy after talking to the COPS early in the game.
  
  In the remastered version,
  Nutri-Specs are back
  , available for all players on all platforms, but we have hidden them inside the game itself. Keep a lookout as you play the game, to see if you can figure out how to unlock them.

• Film grain looks nicer, and you can turn it off if you want.
  The Devil's Playhouse was always supposed to feel a little bit like an old movie you're watching at a rep screening (or maybe on an old haunted film projector in the basement below your office). The original release had a film grain effect that we loved, but not only was it turned on all the time, it used something like six layers of full screen transparency, which absolutely murdered the frame rate on low spec PCs and in the PlayStation and iPad ports. We've redone the film grain effect to be both more authentic
  and
  more performant, and most importantly it now has an on/off toggle in the game's settings screen for the haters.
  
  
• The game's user interface got an overhaul.
  We love the weird and wacky interfaces present across The Devil's Playhouse, and wanted them to truly shine in the remaster. In the case of Max Mode, we LITERALLY wanted it to shine: the Max Mode wheel has been completely rebuilt, inspired by the original concept renderings, and is now a beautiful piece of chrome glinting in the light, emitting all sorts of radiant beams and sound effects. Sam's detective notebook was also given an overhaul, with a cleaner graphic design treatment as well as fancier animations of him opening, closing, and turning the pages. And in the dialogue selection interface, Sam has gone 2D! He's now a keyframe-animated character who follows the mouse around, drawn by Calis (an artist in the animation industry) and supervised by Steve Purcell. Keep an eye out for his costume changes!

• A few lost voice lines have been restored.
  When working our way through the game's content, we found a few places where a line or two of dialogue were intended to play, but couldn't. This usually happened because of a bug in the game's logic that meant the right conditions for the line to be heard could never occur, or something simpler: the object in question was never on camera, so the player couldn't click on it. We've restored about a half dozen of these across the game. Other than this restoration of some lost lines, no voice recording or dialogue has been altered in the game.

Spoilers Begin Here
If you've never played The Devil's Playhouse before, we recommend you stop reading here, as the game has many story and puzzle spoilers that build on each other as it progresses.
If you've played before but don't want to be spoiled by what's new so you can find it for yourself, we also recommend stopping here! If you must know all the new stuff though, read away...

Per-episode changes

Episode 1: The Penal Zone

• "These are completely different streets."
  The Devil's Playhouse takes place around Manhattan on city streets that, for budgetary reasons, were cheaply built out of shared parts instead of being unique locations. We took many of the streets around this episode and rebuilt them entirely, starting from new concept art and modeled them from scratch. When you leave Sam & Max's neighborhood and start to visit their version of New York, we wanted each destination to feel like its own unique place, and to really feel like you're getting to see the city. The flatiron building you visit now has a traffic jam and a neighborhood bodega across the street. BoscoTech Labs is now a haunted old brownstone on a sleepy neighborhood block. The toy store is nestled up against an elevated train line. Most of the streets in the original ended in dead-end alleys out of performance concerns, and we've opened many of those up to complete city blocks, to make them feel more like part of a bigger city. We also added random New Yorkers walking around in the background of some scenes to add some more life.
  
  
• Straignt & Narrow is once again straight and narrow.
  In the earliest days of The Devli's Playhouse development, the team thought Sam & Max's street might feature more centrally in the story, like it did in the previous games. There was a belief that it was difficult to shoot because it was so long, and a belief that it should match the rest of the (cheaply built) city street environments. As a result, the street was given a big elbow bend in the middle, and was rebuilt out of parts that had less care and attention than the original. For the remaster, we restored the street to its original un-bent, hand-built glory, using the assets from Beyond Time and Space as a starting point, and then re-added The Devil's Playhouse's special touches. Stinky's has its new paint job. Bosco's is abandoned and covered in graffiti. Sam & Max's building is boarded up following the fallout of a Maimtron 9000 attack in the last game. We took things a little further too: you can now see into the construction site next door to the office, to give the street a little continuity between games. And careful viewers will catch a glimpse of Sybil's in the opening scene before it's squished.

• The Crime-Tron got an upgrade.
  It's now easier to place clues directly on the scanner bed from your inventory, and the state of the scanner is far more readable. Also, when you do find a match the city map screen has gotten an overhaul inspired by cheesy motion graphics of '70s/'80s movies.
  
  
• Skun-ka'pe's ship is a little more alive.
  As part of our new lighting pass, you can see the sun sweeping across the bridge when Skun-ka'pe steers his ship around the city. The water in the bottle by Sam & Max's cage bobbles around. Stinky's chair is actually hovering. The bubbles in the Alien Brain's tank actually bounce and move around him. It's the little things, but we think they add up!

Episode 2: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak

• Maximus got his hat back.
  Let's get the biggest news out of the way: after being relegated to the original character concept art, Maximus's little hat has finally been reunited with its rightful owner. Hat enjoyers, your day has arrived.
  
  
• The Tomb is now lit by cauldrons of flame, and is damp.
  If you've ever seen the original concept illustrations for the Tomb of Sammun-Mak, you may have noticed there are huge bowls of fire held aloft by the hippo statues in the center of the room, but in the original game that whole center area was dark. We've re-lit the flames for the remaster, and also added the icky pools of water surrounding the inaccessible areas at the bottom of the scene.

• Sammeth & Maximus' street got... longer?
  Years ago fans noticed the Esperanto Bookstore is missing from the street in the 1900s, even though it wasn't removed until a giant battle robot attacked the street in Beyond Time and Space. We put it back! It's now a brand new Esperanto newspaper store. If we hadn't said anything, we're not sure anyone would have noticed it was added, but now you know. Also, it's snowing now!
  
  
• The theater now has an establishing shot.
  To keep this in line with many of our other environments across the trilogy, we thought it'd be nice to add an exterior establishing shot for the theater. Does it look familiar? Maybe you've been here before... or will be here again one day, depending on your perspective.
  
  
• The mole family basement got a fresh coat of paint.
  The original concept of the mole people apartment showed a freshly whitewashed brick room, and we loved that look so we brought it into the game proper. Also, the basement environment is now more architecturally consistent across all its appearances in various episodes and various times in history.

Episode 3: They Stole Max's Brain!

• Flint gives you interrogation advice from his own office.
  Instead of appearing in front of a low-resolution brick wall, now Sam's memory is more clear and he can picture exactly what Flint's office looked like on the day he was teaching Sam how to interrogate a suspect.
  
  
• Max's brain is now sloshing around in liquid.
  We went back to the original concept art and learned that Max's brain was supposed to be floating in a jar of demon broth, but that got lost or cut along the way, and in the original game he was just floating mid-jar with no explanation. We added the fluid back and gave it a little satisfying slosh, as a treat.
  
  
• The city streets got a Sammun-Mak glow-up.
  We went through and gave the world you experience in the second half of this episode an art pass, adding detail and atmospherics wherever it made sense.

Episode 4: Beyond the Alley of the Dolls

• The Clone Chamber is more foggy and ominous.
  When Ryan Jones first drew a concept of the Clone Chamber, he painted it with an eerie green haze that filled the entire back of the room, with just the lights of the clone pods shining through. This looked great, except for one problem: the Telltale engine didn't support fog at the time. Whoops! Now we have so much fog we don't know what to do with it, so we put some of it in the remastered version of the Clone Chamber, restoring Ryan's eerie glow to the place.
  
  
• The golden shorts the clones wear are sparkly.
  Finally!
  
  
• The lever on the toaster actually animates and the toast toasts.
  Finally! Wait, nobody ever noticed this before? Okay, fine. But it does do those things now.

Episode 5: The City That Dares Not Sleep

• The hologram in BoscoTech Labs stays on for the entire episode.
  The hologram has always been one of our favorite details in this episode, but it was previously only used for one shot in the opening cutscene. This is a small change, but was a nice way to set this version of the environment apart from its appearances earlier in the game.
  
  And finally...
  
  
• Cloned minions now have gold underwear, too.
  We're not sure how the original shipped without this, but at last with this fix, we can declare this the definitive release of Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse.