It's Sam & Max Brrrainstorming Time!
TelltaleGames
Former Telltale Staff
This week's blog was written by our intern, Deirdra, who's so new to the company she doesn't even have a blog log-in yet! Deirdra is a student from Canada. If you're familiar with the underground adventure gaming scene, you may know her as the author of Cubert Badbone, P.I. and The Game That Takes Place on a Cruise Ship.
Hello, Telltale blog. My name is Deirdra Kiai, and I am completely and utterly new to you. However, I do hope that during my brief sojourn here at Telltale Games working as a programming intern, we will become the best of friends. That is, of course, unless those people in charge of me catch on to the fact that I actually have time to write blogs rather than do actual work and pile ten times more work upon me as a result. But I digress.
Anyway, today, I'm going to talk about Sam & Max brainstorming sessions. "What are Sam & Max brainstorming sessions," you ask? Well, they consist of our intrepid Sam & Max co-designers, Dave Grossman and Brendan Ferguson, inviting any member of the Telltale staff (yes, including lowly interns like myself) to help them come up with ideas as to what sorts of strange and wonderful stuff to put into the new Sam & Max games that we're all eagerly waiting for. However, since most of you reading the Telltale blog are not Telltale employees (or are just too busy with actual work to come out to any of the sessions), I shall attempt to recreate the Sam & Max brainstorming experience for you in writing. Ready? Here goes...
It's somewhere around 4:00 and 5:00 Pacific Daylight Time on a randomly-generated day between Monday and Friday. You're sitting at your desk, tapping away at your computer, when all of a sudden, Brendan's deep, deadpan, Ben Stein-esque voice fills the room. "SAM & MAX BRRRAINSTORMING TIME," he announces, and immediately afterwards, you feel a sudden urge to drop everything you're doing and wander over to the Maurice Richard Memorial Conference Room. (That's right, our conference room is dedicated to Maurice Richard. Because we're all Canadians at heart. Now, all we need is a copy of The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier in the office and we'll be set.)
You enter the conference room, plunk your bottom into one of the comfortable office chairs surrounding the big rectangular table, and survey the scene. You are immediately met with the tall, lanky, bespectacled Brendan Q. Ferguson and the leprechaun-esque (well, minus a high-pitched Irish accent, of course) Dave Grossman, as well as any of your other fellow Telltale coworkers who were unable to resist the siren call. You mumble a quiet "hello," and everyone else mumbles a quiet "hello" back to you. Then, the fun begins.[readmore]
First, the designers begin by carefully explaining to you exactly what the wacky premise of the latest Sam & Max episode is going to be. You listen intently, nodding and smiling while secretly wondering if they're nuts. (The answer, of course, being "duh!") Then, ideas start to get tossed around. Some are absolutely brilliant, and others are more than a little bit mediocre, but Brendan jots them all down on his notepad regardless.
All of a sudden, a strange sensation sweeps over your entire body, and you feel the compelling urge to say something. Involuntarily, you leap from your seat, and yell "What this episode needs is an interactive musical number!"
You regret your rather odd outburst immediately afterwards, slinking back into your chair and hoping that no one noticed. But it is too late. Out of nowhere, music starts to fill the room. It sounds like it comes from some sort of show tune, but it's not one you've ever heard before. Then, Dave jumps onto the top of the table and starts singing, "Interactive musical numbers are greeeeat!" And Brendan jumps up next to him, chiming in with "We find them oh so very fun to creee-aaaate!" And then, they break out into a perfectly-choreographed dance routine, surprisingly doing so without falling off the table.
Kevin Bruner, waiting for his code to finish compiling, wanders into the conference room from his office two doors down to see what all the commotion is about. "What's going on in here?" he inquires, only, for some strange reason, it comes out in perfect time with the song. Then, he pulls an accordion out of nowhere and plays a little riff on it whilst dancing a jig. When finished, he takes a short bow and scurries away.
Dave and Brendan continue to sing and dance on the conference room table -- only now the office walls have rolled away on casters, revealing a Broadway stage -- and they are joined not only by the entire Telltale staff, but also by the Bone cousins, the CSI Las Vegas cast, the Telltale Texas Hold'Em poker players, and Sam & Max themselves. You gaze at this display in awe and disbelief until finally, the song reaches its grand finale and everything morphs back to normal.
"So, does this mean there's going to be an interactive musical number in the next Sam & Max episode?" you ask. "Of course not," replies Brendan. "That's a terrible idea." Then, you slink out of the room, dejected, and go back to your coding.
Okay, so I made most of that up, as you can probably tell. But the part about Sam & Max brainstorming sessions existing is one hundred percent true, I swear! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to whatever I was doing before writing this blog. Ta-ta!
Hello, Telltale blog. My name is Deirdra Kiai, and I am completely and utterly new to you. However, I do hope that during my brief sojourn here at Telltale Games working as a programming intern, we will become the best of friends. That is, of course, unless those people in charge of me catch on to the fact that I actually have time to write blogs rather than do actual work and pile ten times more work upon me as a result. But I digress.
Anyway, today, I'm going to talk about Sam & Max brainstorming sessions. "What are Sam & Max brainstorming sessions," you ask? Well, they consist of our intrepid Sam & Max co-designers, Dave Grossman and Brendan Ferguson, inviting any member of the Telltale staff (yes, including lowly interns like myself) to help them come up with ideas as to what sorts of strange and wonderful stuff to put into the new Sam & Max games that we're all eagerly waiting for. However, since most of you reading the Telltale blog are not Telltale employees (or are just too busy with actual work to come out to any of the sessions), I shall attempt to recreate the Sam & Max brainstorming experience for you in writing. Ready? Here goes...
It's somewhere around 4:00 and 5:00 Pacific Daylight Time on a randomly-generated day between Monday and Friday. You're sitting at your desk, tapping away at your computer, when all of a sudden, Brendan's deep, deadpan, Ben Stein-esque voice fills the room. "SAM & MAX BRRRAINSTORMING TIME," he announces, and immediately afterwards, you feel a sudden urge to drop everything you're doing and wander over to the Maurice Richard Memorial Conference Room. (That's right, our conference room is dedicated to Maurice Richard. Because we're all Canadians at heart. Now, all we need is a copy of The Hockey Sweater by Roch Carrier in the office and we'll be set.)You enter the conference room, plunk your bottom into one of the comfortable office chairs surrounding the big rectangular table, and survey the scene. You are immediately met with the tall, lanky, bespectacled Brendan Q. Ferguson and the leprechaun-esque (well, minus a high-pitched Irish accent, of course) Dave Grossman, as well as any of your other fellow Telltale coworkers who were unable to resist the siren call. You mumble a quiet "hello," and everyone else mumbles a quiet "hello" back to you. Then, the fun begins.[readmore]
First, the designers begin by carefully explaining to you exactly what the wacky premise of the latest Sam & Max episode is going to be. You listen intently, nodding and smiling while secretly wondering if they're nuts. (The answer, of course, being "duh!") Then, ideas start to get tossed around. Some are absolutely brilliant, and others are more than a little bit mediocre, but Brendan jots them all down on his notepad regardless.
All of a sudden, a strange sensation sweeps over your entire body, and you feel the compelling urge to say something. Involuntarily, you leap from your seat, and yell "What this episode needs is an interactive musical number!"
You regret your rather odd outburst immediately afterwards, slinking back into your chair and hoping that no one noticed. But it is too late. Out of nowhere, music starts to fill the room. It sounds like it comes from some sort of show tune, but it's not one you've ever heard before. Then, Dave jumps onto the top of the table and starts singing, "Interactive musical numbers are greeeeat!" And Brendan jumps up next to him, chiming in with "We find them oh so very fun to creee-aaaate!" And then, they break out into a perfectly-choreographed dance routine, surprisingly doing so without falling off the table.
Kevin Bruner, waiting for his code to finish compiling, wanders into the conference room from his office two doors down to see what all the commotion is about. "What's going on in here?" he inquires, only, for some strange reason, it comes out in perfect time with the song. Then, he pulls an accordion out of nowhere and plays a little riff on it whilst dancing a jig. When finished, he takes a short bow and scurries away.
Dave and Brendan continue to sing and dance on the conference room table -- only now the office walls have rolled away on casters, revealing a Broadway stage -- and they are joined not only by the entire Telltale staff, but also by the Bone cousins, the CSI Las Vegas cast, the Telltale Texas Hold'Em poker players, and Sam & Max themselves. You gaze at this display in awe and disbelief until finally, the song reaches its grand finale and everything morphs back to normal.
"So, does this mean there's going to be an interactive musical number in the next Sam & Max episode?" you ask. "Of course not," replies Brendan. "That's a terrible idea." Then, you slink out of the room, dejected, and go back to your coding.
Okay, so I made most of that up, as you can probably tell. But the part about Sam & Max brainstorming sessions existing is one hundred percent true, I swear! Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to whatever I was doing before writing this blog. Ta-ta!
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