Sam & Max & PAX
TelltaleGames
Former Telltale Staff
A few months ago, Kevin came up with this great idea for a PAX panel, to make a Sam & Max episode on the fly. Not a full episode, of course, but a mini episode with dialogue and inventory puzzles and exploration and plenty of jokes. When the panel was over, we'd take the design back to the office, complete the mini episode, and post it on our site for all to download.
Well, those of us who wouldn't actually have to be involved in the making of the episode thought it was a great idea. Then we pitched it to the people who would have to be involved -- specifically, Dave and Brendan on the design side, and Jon on the technical side -- and were convinced that the scope might need to be reined in a little. The final decision was that we would use the panel to write a 15(ish) line dialogue, with the help of hundreds of audience members, and then animate it on the spot. The basic flow of the panel is already described here, so I'll just cut to the end:
[readmore]
(Thanks very much to our impromptu voice actors, whose names I scribbled down on a piece of paper that I now can't find. One of them was a guy from Evil Avatar, and one was our former intern Deirdra, and one was a guy who recently came back from Iraq and couldn't wait to finally play the whole season.)
This scene was written, recorded, and animated right there during the hour-long panel (Dave, Brendan, and Kevin did a Q&A while Jon and Marco had their heads down working on the technical stuff). And it went surprisingly well, compared to some of the technical-difficulty-riddled rehearsals we did here at the office in preparation...
So, yeah, all in all making a Sam & Max scene in a completely artificial environment with the help of 400 strangers is a lot of fun. Shall we do it again next year?
Note: PAX write-up and pictures coming soon. The camera hasn't made it back into the office yet.
Well, those of us who wouldn't actually have to be involved in the making of the episode thought it was a great idea. Then we pitched it to the people who would have to be involved -- specifically, Dave and Brendan on the design side, and Jon on the technical side -- and were convinced that the scope might need to be reined in a little. The final decision was that we would use the panel to write a 15(ish) line dialogue, with the help of hundreds of audience members, and then animate it on the spot. The basic flow of the panel is already described here, so I'll just cut to the end:
(Thanks very much to our impromptu voice actors, whose names I scribbled down on a piece of paper that I now can't find. One of them was a guy from Evil Avatar, and one was our former intern Deirdra, and one was a guy who recently came back from Iraq and couldn't wait to finally play the whole season.)
This scene was written, recorded, and animated right there during the hour-long panel (Dave, Brendan, and Kevin did a Q&A while Jon and Marco had their heads down working on the technical stuff). And it went surprisingly well, compared to some of the technical-difficulty-riddled rehearsals we did here at the office in preparation...
So, yeah, all in all making a Sam & Max scene in a completely artificial environment with the help of 400 strangers is a lot of fun. Shall we do it again next year?
Note: PAX write-up and pictures coming soon. The camera hasn't made it back into the office yet.
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