Season 2 DVD Audio Commentary Questions List

edited June 2008 in Sam & Max
It just dawned on me that we could have a very nice potentially community-driving commentary for Season 2 on the DVD. Reason being is because I remember how the forums came up a number of times in the commentaries in one sense or another.

So, I think this thread should be a list of questions (relavent or not) involving Season 2. For practicality reasons, the questions asked my be directed to either the Designers, Sound Guys, or Production team a la last seasons commentaries. For now, it is just for Episode 201, but hopefully, as the episodes come out, this thread will grow with more questions with the vain hope they will be picked and answered on the commentary somewhere.

Who knows?! Maybe you're question will end up being answer and you could be immortalized forever on the DVD that comes with your Season 2 purchase form TTG!


Questions for the Design Team

What was your main reason behind redesigning the main street...
besides the obvious want to use the Maimtron 9000 in a fun and chaotic puzzle
?

How many boxing levels were there when that mini-game was originally planed out?

Questions for the Production Team

Was it difficult to include keyboard commands for the mini-games that use them?

The lighting and even that single explosion at the beginning were all really well done! How big of a challenge was that compared to Season 1 which didn't have as much ambiant lighting or any explosions at all?

Question for the Sound Guys

What the hell is being said in the final puzzle's BGM?
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Comments

  • edited November 2007
    Zeek wrote: »
    What was your main reason behind redesigning the main street...
    besides the obvious want to use the Maimtron 9000 in a fun and chaotic puzzle
    ?

    I think even I can answer this one ;) - it is because by the end of the season one, pretty much everyone was getting tired of seeing the same street in every single episode.
  • edited November 2007
    Close :)

    Also, this thread is a great idea.
  • MelMel
    edited November 2007
    If you uncensored Timmy, what did he really say? :D
    GT wrote:
    I think even I can answer this one - it is because by the end of the season one, pretty much everyone was getting tired of seeing the same street in every single episode.

    No one got sick of looking at the same Sesame Street. :p (j/k)
  • edited November 2007
    That reminds me, who did the rag-doll animation for the Elmers?
  • edited November 2007
    Something for the Production team that got me curious:

    The Brady Culture Chia pet grew rather fast in 201. I, and probably like many others, were expecting it to be one of those slow growth that would change from episode to episode. Is this one of those secret status bars that indicates how far you are in the plot of the episode by how much flora has grown on the clay statuette?

    *can't wait to see how big the fro gets come 205* :D

    And for the Designers:

    How long did it take you guys to write the acronym for PARANOID? :D LOL
  • edited December 2007
    Question for the Production Team

    This will probably be answered when the actual episode releases, but I'm curious as to how much of the character animations made it from the trailers into the game, particularly with Episode 202. And in a related "for fun" question, which animation did you guys do exclusively for the trailer for 202 that you wish was in the game?:D
  • edited December 2007
    We almost never do custom animations for the episode trailers, actually.
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited December 2007
    I think Chia Brady in 201 grows more and more every time you come and go from the office, and yeah, what Doug said about the trailer is right. Nick built that out of animations from the game, either shots which were directly captured straight out of the game (with handheld camera effect), or pieced shots together from a bunch of animations and moments in the game, reconfigured for the trailer.
  • edited December 2007
    Care to explain the different animated sequences then in the trailer for 201?

    I don't remember Sam crouching down during the Snow Devil description or the Soda Popers climbing a snow bank and then looking over it ever appearing in the episode.:p
  • edited December 2007
    Those were existing animations, the scenes just didn't appear that way in the game. They're two different things.
  • edited December 2007
    Beaten by a technicality. I guess that means we'll see Sam put his hand in his jacket pocket in this episode. :D
  • edited December 2007
    I would like to listen to an audio commentary by David Nowlin and William Kasten. I would also like to actually SEE them while recording the lines. We saw a bit of David in an old BASound featurette, but William is still undercover. ;)
  • edited December 2007
    Oh, I'd like to see some of the faces of the VAs as well! I can't help but wonder what the voice of Bosco looks like. And if Vegas comes back to do a voice, I'd REALLY like to see what he looks like.

    Actually, to be honest, I just want to see a thread started here questioning if the VAtress who does Sybil is as hot as she sounds.:D
  • edited December 2007
    Zeek wrote: »
    Oh, I'd like to see some of the faces of the VAs as well! I can't help but wonder what the voice of Bosco looks like. And if Vegas comes back to do a voice, I'd REALLY like to see what he looks like.

    Actually, to be honest, I just want to see a thread started here questioning if the VAtress who does Sybil is as hot as she sounds.:D

    Didn't Jake post a link to her on IMDb? I think that had a picture of her on it.
    I'll do a search.

    Found it!
  • edited December 2007
    That's Stinky. Sybil is Amy Provenzano: http://imdb.com/name/nm1754297/
  • MelMel
    edited December 2007
    Diduz wrote: »
    I would like to listen to an audio commentary by David Nowlin and William Kasten. I would also like to actually SEE them while recording the lines. We saw a bit of David in an old BASound featurette, but William is still undercover. ;)

    There is a blog post that has a video of Jared Emerson Johnson doing some of the sound work and they show David Nowlin doing some of his lines. I think it was from late spring/summer.
  • edited December 2007
    I think that's the BASD featurette Diduz was referring to :)

    It was in the Interim Theatre, btw.
  • edited December 2007
    tabacco wrote: »
    That's Stinky. Sybil is Amy Provenzano: http://imdb.com/name/nm1754297/

    I swear it said Stinky... I even read it and thought "Stinky sounds hot?!".
    I need sleep. :D
  • edited December 2007
    I swear it said Stinky... I even read it and thought "Stinky sounds hot?!".
    I need sleep. :D

    If it's any consolation, I did too D:
  • edited December 2007
    tabacco wrote: »
    I think that's the BASD featurette Diduz was referring to :)

    It was in the Interim Theatre, btw.

    Exactly, but Kasten wasn't in it and I'm terribly curious to see his face. :cool:
  • edited December 2007
    Yeah, who is that sexy beast behind Max' voice?;)
    And how does he really sound?

    Oh yeah, and it would be great if you guys could animate Max pointing at his gun and singing "You can't touch this". And the MC Hammer moves...:cool:
  • JakeJake Telltale Alumni
    edited December 2007
    It's not creepy that you guys are scouring the Internet for pictures of our female voice actors. Not at all.
  • edited December 2007
    They're internet geeks, what do you expect? :p
  • EmilyEmily Telltale Alumni
    edited December 2007
    Beaten by a technicality. I guess that means we'll see Sam put his hand in his jacket pocket in this episode.

    I'm not sure if it happens in this episode, but you'll see it at some point.
  • jmmjmm
    edited December 2007
    tobar wrote: »
    They're internet geeks, what do you expect? :p

    I wasn't searching for that picture, just remembered I read the article way back and it just happened to have a picture.

    (Almost convinced myself)


    BTW, discarding the flies, Stinky looks and sounds hot.
  • edited January 2008
    Questions for the Production Team involving 202

    Who had the honor of designing, rigging, and animating
    baby Sam & Max
    ? :D

    For the Design Team

    How difficult was it to design puzzles for this episode that were more or less designed to act as one giant puzzle with several obsticles to over-come?

    How did you guys arrive at the Fountain of Youth puzzle and its level of semi-illogical complexity? Serious,
    the gong part of that puzzle
    had me going "huh?" until after I looked at the walkthru.

    For the Sound Guys

    Are the bagpipes live or synth? Just curious. :p
  • edited January 2008
    Bah, can't edit my last post. Oh well.

    For the Design Team

    There are a lot of lost items all over Easter Island, most of which are refferances to other games and popular lost items like the left socks. What were some of the items you wanted to sneak in to the environments but couldn't? What were the reasons they had to be taken out? (This question is probably best suited for Kim.)
  • edited January 2008
    I don't think we really remove things from environments for time reasons. Once they're modeled in, it's more time to remove things than leave them.
  • edited January 2008
    But certainly there must have been something lost between the concept art stage and the actual 3D modeling part, right?
  • edited January 2008
    For the Writers:

    Who defines if a joke or reference is to obscure? I think the "lost babies" in episode 202 was pretty hilarious, but I doubt if anyone knew all 5.
  • edited January 2008
    FOR ANYONE THAT KNOWS

    Just how many shirts does Kid Sam wear and how are they selected?

    I'm willing to wait until the Audio Commentary to find out, but you guys are really starting to mess with my head with all the randomly appearing shirts.
  • edited January 2008
    FOR THE PRODUCTION TEAM INVOLVING 203'S TRAILER

    Who did the German translation? And how much of it was purposily mistranslated?

    For Jared

    Happy you got to produce more techno for Sam & Max outside of the Embarrasing Idol theme from Season 1? :D
  • NickTTGNickTTG Telltale Alumni
    edited January 2008
    the English subtitles were translated poorly on purpose. we are finding that people who's native tongue isn't English are missing that joke lol
  • edited January 2008
    NickTTG wrote: »
    the English subtitles were translated poorly on purpose. we are finding that people who's native tongue isn't English are missing that joke lol

    I'm not! :D And I'm a native English speaker from America! So I guess that makes me a native American speaker... but not in the sense that I know Navajo, that is...
  • jmmjmm
    edited January 2008
    jmm: I enjoyed the cheesy retro-ambiance!
    Sam: jmm, what the hell are you talking about?"

    Well, I loved the cheesy translations, it added a lot of punch to the old-silent-movie part of the trailer.

    As for the second part... meh, I'm not particularly fond of techno so...
  • edited February 2008
    For the Production Team involving 203

    From the look of the gameplay video, the big challenge this time around was rain and lightning effects. How difficult was it to impliment these, particularly the lightning since it affects environment lighting situations?
  • jmmjmm
    edited February 2008
    For anyone that can answer:

    About the decals:
    -Who is the mastermind behind the selection of objects you must shoot or run over to get the decals?
    -Were some decals/upgrades planned but cut due to technical or time constraints?
    -Will decals/upgrades carry over season 3 (and 4, and ...)?
  • BrendanBrendan Telltale Alumni
    edited February 2008
    Sorry, I couldn't wait for the audio commentary anymore.
    Zeek wrote: »
    What was your main reason behind redesigning the main street...
    besides the obvious want to use the Maimtron 9000 in a fun and chaotic puzzle
    ?

    How many boxing levels were there when that mini-game was originally planed out?

    We redesigned the street because we wanted to add Stinky's diner, but I was too lazy to walk all the way from there to Sybil's.

    There were three levels in the boxing game when we originally planned it. We generally don't design more stuff than we have time to build. :-)

    Zeek wrote: »
    How long did it take you guys to write the acronym for PARANOID? :D LOL

    That was written by our talented contract writer Jeff Lester. You'll have to ask him! But he billed us for 800 hours, so that's 100 hours per letter.

    Mel wrote: »
    If you uncensored Timmy, what did he really say? :D

    Timmy is played by Joey Camen and in the spirit of authenticity, he actually says things extremely bleep-worthy. Something about a candiru fish...

    Zeek wrote: »
    Oh, I'd like to see some of the faces of the VAs as well! I can't help but wonder what the voice of Bosco looks like.

    The voice of Bosco is also Joey Camen. He has a MySpace page:

    www.myspace.com/joeycamen

    Zeek wrote: »
    How difficult was it to design puzzles for this episode that were more or less designed to act as one giant puzzle with several obsticles to over-come?

    How did you guys arrive at the Fountain of Youth puzzle and its level of semi-illogical complexity? Serious,
    the gong part of that puzzle
    had me going "huh?" until after I looked at the walkthru.

    The design for Episode 202 wasn't particularly any more difficult than any other episode. It's easy for all the steps to be clear in our mind -- we already know what you have to do. The tricky bit is making sure you have clues that will point you in the right direction, without giving it away.

    Massive spoilers for 202:
    I'm sorry the puzzle of getting into Stinky's turned out to be semi-illogical for many people. The hope was that you'd go through the red triangle as kids and say, "Darn, Stinky's is too far away," and eventually have the Mohammed-must-come-to-the-mountain moment where you thought, "If only the triangle were closer to Stinky's." Since all game long you had been moving gold triangles by hitting gold gongs and silver triangles by hitting silver gongs, I thought it was a reasonable leap that if you wanted to move the red triangle, you'd need a red gong. In the original design we just had a sea sponge dipped in a mysterious bright red liquid, but we later decided to make it a sea snail that oozes red because it seemed more amusing.

    Zeek wrote: »
    There are a lot of lost items all over Easter Island, most of which are refferances to other games and popular lost items like the left socks. What were some of the items you wanted to sneak in to the environments but couldn't? What were the reasons they had to be taken out? (This question is probably best suited for Kim.)

    We brainstormed several possibilities, but we just chose objects that would easily evoke the feel of "missing" items and could be made in our timeframe. There were no detailed concept drawings done of those environments because Kim and Brian are very good at mocking things up in 3D, so we just thought of what objects we wanted right before they built them.

    By the way, Sam & Max don't comment on the cloth on the ground near the SS Minnow life preserver, but it's supposed to be the shroud of Durante. Pretty obscure, huh?

    Sp0tted wrote: »
    Who defines if a joke or reference is to obscure? I think the "lost babies" in episode 202 was pretty hilarious, but I doubt if anyone knew all 5.

    No one defines if something is too obscure. It's okay if people don't get every joke, but we do try to make sure that no puzzle depends on you knowing obscure facts.

    As for the lost babies, well the writers knew all five of them! But since it wasn't necessary to know who they were to get on with the game, we just wanted them to be entertaining.

    jmm wrote: »
    -Who is the mastermind behind the selection of objects you must shoot or run over to get the decals?
    -Were some decals/upgrades planned but cut due to technical or time constraints?
    -Will decals/upgrades carry over season 3 (and 4, and ...)?

    -Coming up with the objects is a collaborative process, but the key people responsible for the driving in Season 2 are Brian Gillies (who creates the art) and John Drake (who programs the games).

    -It's quite easy to think of possible decals and upgrades, but we only plan to do objects that can be made in our tight schedule. That said, John did some really cool stuff with the objects in Episode 203 to make them even more entertaining than I'd hoped.

    -I sincerely doubt that we'll be able to carry over stuff into subsequent seasons. The DeSoto is just too crowded with junk!
  • edited February 2008
    Zeek wrote: »
    FOR THE PRODUCTION TEAM INVOLVING 203'S TRAILER

    Who did the German translation? And how much of it was purposely mistranslated?
    I wrote the English text for the title cards, handed them over to lead animator and former German resident Andy Welihozkiy to translate to German (without a keyboard that supports umlauts), which I then translated back into English using the Mac Dashboard language translator, babel fish, and just faking it -- trying to find the result that sounded most clumsy. All of it was mistranslated on purpose.
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