Maybe…

…you’ve played one or two of the Sam & Max remasters, but haven’t completed the trilogy?

…you enjoyed Telltale’s Sam & Max games back in the day, but haven’t tried the spiffy new remasters?

…you’ve never been on a case with the Freelance Police, but you’re intrigued?

Well, we have a sale for you! And you! And you!

Welcome to the Sam & Max Trilogy Sale—a weeklong celebration of the episodic adventures that put Telltale Games (of The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us fame) on the map in the early 2000s, and have recently been revived by Skunkape Games, a small crew of the original developers. (Hey, that's us!)

When Telltale shut down in 2018, we acquired the rights and spruced up all three episodic Sam & Max seasons for modern platforms. And now we want you to play them!

Through Thursday, April 24, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time, you can save 50% on Sam & Max Save the World (aka Season One) and Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space (aka Season Two). Our newest remaster, Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse (aka Season Three) is 25% off. Each game comes with the original Telltale episodes as free DLC, for those who prefer the old-school experience. And if you pick up the Complete Trilogy bundle, you'll save even more!

We’ve also marked down Jared Emerson-Johnson’s amazing Sam & Max soundtracks, including the long-awaited The Devil’s Playhouse soundtrack, newly available for the very first time.

Want to hear a bit about the remastering process right from the horses’ developers’ mouths? We’ve dug three streams out of the archives so you can do just that. Tune in on the sale page.

And what if you’re the Sam & Max fan who already has it all? Hey, tell your friends! These deals will be on Steam for one week only.

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space has been updated to version 2.0.0, which sounds like a big huge patch, but mostly it's a few long-gestating fixes, and a new build of the game engine to fix a few deeply-rooted bugs. We published a similar patch for Sam & Max Save the World earlier this week, which is why this might all sound a bit familiar.

Speaking of sounding familiar... it's that time of year again. That spoOooOoky time. You know the one: The Skunkape Halloween Contest is back! If you're in the mood to make some Sam & Max fan art and be materially rewarded for it, now's your chance! Check out the contest post for a rundown of the rules and prizes. (Spoiler: they include Sam & Max plushies from Uncute, and the still-in-development Devil's Playhouse Original Soundtrack!)

• Fixed instances where setting the game's resolution higher than your screen's physical resolution would cause the cursor to get trapped in a small corner of the screen.
  
• Fixed crashes that occurred in rare edge cases when the engine tried to change the list of loaded dialog files when the list was in use. It feels strange explaining a bug in a decades-old proprietary game engine in the patch notes, but here we are reading it together.
  
• Reduced situations that would cause the engine's audio system to get confused and play a sound or piece of music a second time.
  
• Fixed buttons and episode thumbnails not animating when transitioning between the episode menu and chapter menu.

• Fixed Sam & Max sometimes staying attached to the DeSoto in Stuttgart, which caused Sam to spin around wildly.
  
• One of the torches in Jurgen's Lair wasn't casting light on the wall, and now it is. Finally Brett our lighting guy can sleep through the night, knowing this is fixed.
  
• Fixed Lincoln's brain not rendering when walking around in the Zombie Factory (Switch only).

• Fixed Max not looking into the camera when he mentions "...no flashback?" in the 1960s.

• Fixed lava cylinder disappearing during epilogue in Hell Pit.
  
• Fixed lite music track looping incorrectly in Street.

That's all for now! And as usual if you find a bug please point it out in the appropriate forum or the comments below, and we'll do our best to fix it in a future patch!

Here’s a scary story: last year we completely forgot to hold our annual Halloween contest. 😱

We rectified that for the holidays,[x.com] but this year we’re (just barely) better prepared. We hereby kick off 2024’s Halloween contest, with entries due by 11:59pm Pacific time on October 31. That gives you three weeks to get all artsy craftsy in the spirit of the spooky season… let's go!

• Send pics (or other files as appropriate) of your Sam & Max themed entry to contest@skunkapegames.com by 11:59pm Pacific time on Sunday, October 31. 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.)
  
  
• Your entry can be fan art, sculpture, cosplay, music, video, words... anything, really! (As long as it won't make our lawyers mad. Keep it legal!) Check out the winners from 2023[x.com], 2022[x.com], and 2021 to see which entries we’ve gone for in the past.
  
  
• 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. (Pretty sure we’ve got some of those around here somewhere…) In the event of a tie, Steve Purcell gets the tie-breaking vote.

• 10ish runners-up will get your choice of a Sam & Max Save the World, Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, or Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse key on your preferred platform
  
  
• 3ish honorable mentions will get a game key AND a Steam key for the brand new Devil’s Playhouse soundtrack (so new we haven’t even released it yet!)
  
  
• 1 grand prize winner will get a game key, a Devil’s Playhouse soundtrack key, AND a set of Sam & Max plushies courtesy of our buddies at Uncute[www.uncute.com]!

Let the creativity commence! We'll announce the winners the week of November 4.

Tomorrow, the Skunkape team and a special guest or two will take over https://www.twitch.tv/gamehistoryorg for a festive holiday stream. 🎄🎅 🎁

First we’ll reveal the winners of our holiday contest. Then we’ll play Sam & Max: Ice Station Santa and chime in with our memories of working on Telltale’s Sam & Max games and Skunkape’s remasters. And the whole time, we’ll be raising money for an incredible cause: the Video Game History Foundation[www.gamehistory.org], a nonprofit dedicated to preserving, celebrating, and teaching the history of video games.

So far, the VGHF has raised about $38K toward their $50K goal winter fundraising goal. Let's help them get over the finish line!

Besides the chance to hear about the development of the Sam & Max games from people who made them, we have donation incentives!

We’ve dug through the vault (aka our closets) to find an eclectic mix of swag to appeal to the discerning adventure game fan. Check out the Tiltify campaign and click Rewards to see the full list.[tiltify.com]

Since announcing the charity stream on Twitter last night, we’ve already raised almost $2,500! Many of our initial rewards have already sold out, but we’re digging deeper and will add more rare artifacts before the stream starts.

We’ll give away three Friendly Demon Song mini-CDs and a signed Sam & Max Save the World vinyl soundtrack during the stream, and we have a few exciting stretch goals planned. What are they? You’ll have to tune in to find out!

We’ll start streaming around 11am PT / 2pm ET / 7pm GMT on December 20, and go for a couple hours. Follow the Video Game History Foundation’s Twitch channel[www.twitch.tv] to get an alert when we go live.

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!

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). (Copy/paste that address into your email -- if you try clicking it, Steam will give you a "blocked link" message.)

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.

• Boss Fight Studio’s brand new Sam & Max Wave 2 action figures (Scuba Max & Ratso[www.bossfightshop.com] and the Rubber Pants Commandos[www.bossfightshop.com])
  
• Limited Run Games’ Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space Collector’s Edition[limitedrungames.com] 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.

• 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.

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.

Hey there, Sam & Max community! It's the spooky time of year again—the time when the Skunkape team innocently proposes a Halloween contest and gets bombarded with so much awesome fan art and other creative goodies that we have to stop all work for a week just to sift through it and vote on our favorittes.

In other words, it's time for the 2nd Annual Skunkape Sam & Max Halloween Contest (loosely based on the Telltale "Do What You Will" Halloween contests of the mid-aughts).

Here's how it works:

• Send pics (or other files as appropriate) of your arts & craftsy Sam & Max themed entry to http://contest@skunkapegames.com by 11:59pm Pacific time on Sunday, October 30. 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.)
  
  
• Your entry can be fan art, sculpture, cosplay, music, video, words, pictures of delicious cookies shaped like Max's head... anything, really! (Well, anything that won't make our lawyers mad. Keep it legal, folks!) Check out last year's Twitter thread to see which entries caught our fancy in 2021.
  
  
• 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). How many winners? Who knows! Last year we had twelve.
  
  
• Each winner can either select a Sam & Max Save the World or Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space game key for their platform of choice (PC, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, or PlayStation), OR a Sam & Max Save the World or Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space soundtrack key for Steam. But wait, there's more! We'll also be awarding a super secret GRAND PRIZE for our favorite entry—we can't tell you what it is yet, but it's probably not what you're expecting...

So, go! Make some cool art, maybe win a thing! We're counting on you.

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space version 1.0.5 is now live on Steam, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and GOG! This is a tiny update that fixes a few bugs we found when replaying, or bugs pointed out by you, the viewers at home. If anyone was just losing their minds about Hugh Bliss's spike collar not being around his neck in the Cooking Show diorama, you can finally sleep well tonight.

• Fixed Rat on Street floating, jump animations not playing correctly.
  
• Updated driving music with the version from Save the World, which has some mix cleanups that didn't make the jump to Beyond Time and Space initially.

• Fixed Jimmy and boxing glove shadow staying on screen when Max kicks him into the air.
  
• Added missing longer version of the "look at" line that plays when looking at the plane in Santa's Workshop.

• The ambient Cow Bosco and Sam dialog wasn't playing on the UFO. Now it is!

• Fixed Hugh Bliss' collar missing in the Cooking Show.
  
• Fixed Soda Poppers floating in Hell Office cutscene when they change outfits.
  
• Fixed Peepers referring to Sam as Max in French subtitles in Office (a common and forgivable mistake in any language.)

Thanks everyone who has been playing and enjoying the game since launch! And as always, a bonus thanks to everyone who found an issue and reported it! For a complete history of our patches you can visit the Skunkape support website[skunkape.zendesk.com]. And as usual if you find a bug please point it out in the appropriate forum and we'll do our best to fix it in a future patch!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1909350

Here’s our long-overdue post announcing that the original Sam & Max Season Two episodes are now available as free DLC!

After you download the DLC, the next time you start Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space you’ll see a launcher like this:

From here, you can play the remaster, jump to any of the original episodes, or press the tantalizing Bonus Features button. The bonus features are video extras that accompanied the episodes’ original launch and were included on the Sam & Max Season Two DVD that Telltale offered back in 2008. (For now the button just leads to a YouTube page, but an entire website is being built very slowly.)

And remember, if you already own the originals on Steam you can still access them from your Steam Library, even though the episodes have been removed from individual sale. These have been updated with full Steam Library art assets, so the next time you take a look at your old favorites, they should look a lot more complete.

What about tech support? A main reason we created the new version of Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, rather than just updating the original episodes, is that more than a decade of technological evolution made patching those old versions nigh impossible. At this point, the 2007/2008 originals are relics from that specific period of time and we can’t update them or provide technical support. If you need help getting the original episodes to run, check out the troubleshooting guide[skunkape.zendesk.com].


If this post were a Highlights magazine, we would show you two pictures and ask you to pick out everything that’s changed.

Instead, we’re going to list it all out for you… well, most of it.

Though the game's been out quite a while at this point, and most of you have probably figured out what's been updated since the original (or got the broad strokes in our very first post about Beyond Time and Space Remastered), we promised you we'd write way too much about it anyway, so here we are! Working on this game was a labor of love for everyone involved, and we're more than happy to just keep talking about it forever; we don't mind!

The following list doesn’t account for every little thing that’s been updated, in some cases because the updates aren’t that exciting and in others because we can’t remember it all. But we’ve tried to collect the biggest and most interesting differences between the two game versions here, and also to pull back the curtain to give a glimpse into why we did what we did. That said, if you have a question about a little detail you’ve noticed and are wondering why we did it, let us know and we’ll do our best to answer. You may have even spotted a bug, in which case we’ll be grateful to hear about it!

Also, Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space has all the same quality of life improvements as our first remaster, Sam & Max Save the World… stuff like reprogramming the game in a new engine based on the latest version of the Telltale Tool, collecting all five episodes into one game with a unified menu, and adding controller support. We’re not going to rehash all of those global changes here, but you can check out this Sam & Max Save the World post to learn more.

Now, without further ado…


Sam & Max Season Two, as Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space was originally named, was made in 2007–2008 to run on 2007–2008 technology. For context: Windows computers were still using Vista, widescreen displays were just coming into fashion, and about 25% of Americans were still using dial-up internet.

Not surprisingly, our primary goal in remastering Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space was to make it look and feel right at home on today's technology, and the biggest updates are in service of that goal:

• We re-lit the game from the ground up. The remaster has beautiful dynamic lighting, shadows, and ambiance that pull a fourteen-year-old game into the future.
  
  
• Every environment and every character are higher resolution, allowing for added detail and smoother animation. The episode breakdowns talk more about this for specific episodes, but Flint Paper is one example. In his case, we followed Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell’s guidance to make him look more like he does in the comics.

• The audio quality is improved across the board, and there’s a ton of new music. The original Sam & Max episodes were compressed like crazy to keep download sizes small for dial-up users. That’s no longer necessary, so we went back to the original source files to remaster all of the audio. We rerecorded Bosco with voice actor Ogie Banks for reasons that are explained here, but no lines were rewritten. You’ll also find eight new tracks in Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, as well as embellishments made to existing tracks. The episode breakdowns have more details.
  
  
• We added new accessibility options. The driving, boxing, and surfing mini-games can now be skipped, thanks to a toggle in the brand new accessibility menu. Flashing lights and other photosensitive effects can also be turned off here.

• DeSoto decals are easier to collect. Speaking of driving, another big update is the ability to go back to previous episodes and get the car decals you missed. These will carry forward into future episodes without having to replay. Check out the decal poster next to the DeSoto to see which decals you still need to get.

​​
This is a slightly more detailed breakdown of what’s been changed in each episode. If you don’t want to be spoiled, tread lightly!

• The hole in the back wall of Sam & Max’s office is much, much larger. While it would be fun to just claim we wanted everything to be bigger and bolder in the remaster, including the size of holes in walls, there's a reason behind this. (Actually, there are two!)
  
  One, we wanted to better highlight Flint Paper. Flint becomes a major character over the course of the season, but in the original release of Ice Station Santa, there was really only room in the budget to show Flint through a tiny hole in the wall, with no other detail. In the remaster, you can get a look at his whole office (based on its appearance in the comics), along with the goons he’s been pummeling.
  
  And two, now that the hole is huge, we can shoot Sam and Max’s office through it. This gives Beyond Time and Space’s version of the office its own unique look.
  
  
• The Maimtron attack has new music. In the original release, when the Maimtron attacked, it was scored with an edit of the opening credits theme. We worked with series composer Jared Emerson-Johnson to create a new track just for this scene. Called “Maintron 9000’s Pancake Breakfast” on the Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space soundtrack, it plays whenever the Maimtron is smashing the building. (If you miss the old track, don’t worry! The game transitions to it whenever the Maimtron is pondering one of life’s great questions.)
  
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9ERC0kNFcU
• The street looks and sounds a bit different. We added more rubble and the tunnel from Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, and the time of day has shifted to kick off the season at sunrise (it was midday in the original). Once the robot's done beating everything up, the Street gets a brand new piece of music, called "City Streets Saunter" on the soundtrack. We figured six episodes of the original Street track was enough, and Season Two could use a tune of its own. This way each season has its own take on the Street theme!
  
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9ERC0kNFcU
  (Note: This track is great and guaranteed to put you in a very Sam & Max mood, and we recommend you leave it playing while reading the rest of the update.)
  
  
• The North Pole is much moodier. Watch out for the barbed wire, the working searchlight from the candy cane watchtower, and the new short opening cutscene that shows Sam and Max’s nighttime drive through the snow to get there. Yes, you heard that right: it’s snowing at the North Pole! In the original 2007 release, the game’s engine had no particle system, so effects like snow were very difficult to do convincingly. Now we have particles, and as a result we have lots and lots of fluffy snow falling from the sky. The passage of time in the episode is marked by the moon rising over Santa’s Workshop in the second act.
  
  
• We heavily reworked the inside of Santa’s Workshop. The original version of the workshop was built quickly by an outsourcing studio, and never delivered on the intended vibe of “cozy… but a little creepy, actually,” and we’ve gone in and added a lot of new art to try and get it there. The room was also built far huger than it needed to be, and we filled the empty space with a decorative second floor loft filled with abandoned elf workstations, and a huge window to let moonlight in for the final showdown. A new cutscene that plays when Sam & Max enter the workshop for the first time shows off some of the new decor. Keep an eye out for the Bop Buddy, who was a staple of the early Telltale office until someone punched him too hard (RIP), and the plate of waffles, because everything is better with waffles.
  
  
• Boxing is more stylish (and less annoying). We added a new intro cutscene when Boxing Betty enters the ring and spruced up the rats watching from the stands. More importantly, we updated the UI and controls so the controls are better aligned between keyboard and gamepad, and the UI is more out of the way. This mini-game can now be skipped if you toggle that option on in the accessibility menu.
  
  
• Stinky’s got a facelift. We added the center tables from Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse, upgraded the jukebox, and reworked the trivia board so it actually shows the trivia questions, even when you’re just walking around the scene. (There’s also a second trivia board, which be seen from the scene’s new camera angle.) Additionally, you can now see the street through the window, including the DeSoto and whatever upgrades and decals you might have found.
  
  
• Christmas Past has new music. Attentive players will notice a holiday-infused version of the Leonard interrogation music from episode 3 of the Sam & Max Save the World remaster. The new track is called “Jingle Mama” on the soundtrack. Christmas Past has a longer opening cutscene now, too, so keep an eye out for that.
  
  
• Christmas Future looks more like Hell. When Ice Station Santa was made, we knew Christmas Future would be a scene out of the finale. Hell hadn’t yet been designed or modeled, though, so the Christmas Future we came up with at the time was a lot less detailed than the sequence that eventually played out in What’s New, Beelzebub? We’ve rectified this in the remaster, including swapping future Sam and Max’s positions to be consistent with the later scene.
  
  
• A bunch of character models have been updated. The elves' heads have been remodeled, and their outfits updated to look more like the Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse elves. The Shambling Corporate Presence now has twice as many arms. The Soda Poppers have subtle changes to their long underwear. And the Maimtron was updated to match its appearance in The Devil’s Playhouse. Not exactly a model update, but along the same lines, the Christmas spirits and the rest of the ghosts and wandering souls across the season are now translucent, and cast light into the world as they move around.

• The Bermuda Triangle has new music and effects. Like the Maimtron attack in Ice Station Santa, the opening Bermuda Triangle chase scene was originally scored with a reuse of the opening credits track. Now it’s got music all its own, including a keyboard solo emitting from the Triangle itself. Look for “Bermuda Boogie” on the soundtrack to hear it yourself. The Bermuda Triangle now also emits a bright triangular light, bringing it in line with the real Bermuda Triangle.
  
  
• The street is gloomy. We’re always looking for ways to change up the locations that appear again and again, and in this episode we did so by making the street gray and overcast. This provides a good contrast to the lush, tropical Easter Island environment.
  
  
• Easter Island is a little more kitschy. The biggest change is a new piece of music, “Easter Exotica,” that adds a little cheesy flair to the place. (The original music for this scene isn’t gone though—it can still be heard when you converse with characters in the scene, and during the finale.) The Secret Hidden Underground Cave sign has been redone to look more like the sort of tourist trap advertising found in Sam & Max’s other adventures. Other Easter Island updates include grass, sand, water effects, and an exit sign to make leaving the Tiki Bar area easier.
  
  
• Kid Sam & Max are cuter. Steve Purcell gave feedback on their character models, which we followed to make them look closer to the comics. We also updated one of Kid Sam’s shirts (not the one shown below) to use a drawing by Steve Purcell. By the way, if you’re thinking, “Wait, what do they mean *one* of Kid Sam’s shirts?!” then there’s an Easter egg you haven’t noticed yet! This is not new, but we made it easier to find in the remaster.
  
  
• The gong in Stinky’s Diner is no longer gold by default. This caused a lot of confusion in one of the game’s late puzzles, where the color of gongs and triangles is important. The puzzle solution itself hasn’t changed, but we did tweak the hints around this puzzle, again because it often confused the heck out of people.
  
  
• Baby Lindbergh has hair. He had hair built for his original character model, but for some reason we can’t remember, it never shipped. We have returned it to him, to give him something gloat about around the other babies. This is a crucial update we know many fans have been waiting for, and we’re happy to have delivered on it.
  
  
• The chimps come in more colors now. Before they were all exactly the same. Now they’re each a little bit different. Thank you to the thousands who wrote in and signed petitions over the last decade demanding this change.

• Jurgen is marginally cooler. His character model has been updated to include the long nails and the nipple ring car keys that Steve Purcell drew in the original concept art back in 2008, and actual smoke comes out of his garlic clove cigarettes. Also, check out his lair for a Devil’s Playhouse Easter egg.
  
  
• Sam & Max’s street is littered with more zombies than ever before, and has music to match. A new zombified version of “City Streets Saunter,” called “Fright & Harrow,” plays on the street during the zombie attack and ratchets up in intensity when Sam and Max become zombies themselves.
  
  
• It’s raining in Stuttgart. Actually, that was always the case, but we did update the ground to make it look wet. Also, the trash can outside the Zombie Factory is now easier to identify as a trash can, thanks to a newly added sign. You're welcome.
  
  
• The Zombie Factory is a totally happening place! The disco ball, smoke machine, and strobe lights add to the ravey-feel (but if you’re sensitive to these types of effects, you can turn them off in the accessibility menu). The upgraded DJ booth can play five unique remixes of the club theme, four of them brand new to this remaster, versus in the original game where only the underlying drum loop changed from mix to mix. These changes seem to have paid off, because while Jurgen’s “army” continues to be pathetic and the club is by no means full, if you look around the edges you’ll see more zombies passed out on the couches or trying to enjoy a drink in peace at one of the outer tables.
  
  
• The camera angles in the shootout with Jesse James’ hand have been updated. Players have been long-confused by the way Jesse James’ hand moves, which is unfortunate since the movement of his hand is critical to the puzzle. We’ve tweaked the camera angles to make it more clear how his hand changes position during the shootout.
  
  
• Sybil’s and the TV studio received cosmetic tweaks. Sybil’s window shades are open, she’s received more presents and flowers from her suitors, and the Dating Game cards have been spruced up. The TV studio was updated in line with updates we made to it in Sam & Max Save the World.
  
  
• Two Walking Dead Easter eggs are hidden in the game. You know, that other zombie game Telltale made? The Skunkape team worked on that too, and we would have been fools to remaster an episode about zombies without giving it a nod.

• Boscow looks better. The most notable update is the addition of a nose ring, but the way his head connects to the cow torso was updated as well. Moo.
  
  
• There’s new music to be found… in the past! In the original game, when you traveled to Stinky’s in the 1980s or Sam & Max’s office in the far future you were treated to new music appropriate for that era, but traveling to Bosco’s or the Oval Office in the 1960s gave you warmed-over tracks reused from the first season. Not anymore! Now Sam & Max’s visit to the Kennedy White House features a swingin’ sixties version of the Oval Office theme (“Camelot a Go-Go”), and retro Bosco’s has a low-key Motown tune with just a hint of the classic Bosco’s melody laced in (“Mama B’s”).
  
  
• The Oval Office has blue sky outside the windows. Less pollution in the sixties, y’know. (This probably isn’t true, but we aren’t scientists.)
  
  
• When you stop time, it really stops! Sam can stick his fingers into the literal inner workings of time and make everything freeze for a few seconds. In the original release, this played a sound effect and that was it. Now, just because we can, the music will slow down and stop from wherever it was playing, as if Sam slowly pressed down on a record player in the middle of a song (ask your parents). The time-stopping finale also has a brand new piece of music, to add a little more tension and underscore that the clock is ticking. Look for “Secuencia de Autodestruccion” on the soundtrack.
  
  
• We’ve hidden Easter eggs galore. Bosco’s bunker (both past and present) and the far future office are full of them. Happy hunting.

• Hell, LLC now looks more like the Telltale Games office. Haha, we’re kidding… or are we? Either way, you can now walk around the whole Hell office, so take a productivity break and judge for yourself. (But don’t let Satan catch you. You’re on the clock!)
  
  
• Visual and continuity tweaks were made to various Hell dioramas. Peepers is no longer referred to as Max. The Toy Mafia is no longer associated with this version of the factory. The addition of toxic smoke to the action figure package makes that puzzle a little more intuitive. The cooking show background, camera, and chairs have been spruced up. And there are no waffles in Santa’s Workshop… because this is Hell.
  
  
• Satan, Momma Bosco, and the subway station now look like their Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse counterparts. In a sense, these assets were remastered for The Devil’s Playhouse, so we used the refinements already made as a jumping off point for their appearance in Beyond Time and Space. Also, since Momma Bosco and the subway station are prominent in the first episode of The Devil’s Playhouse, their consistency across games will now provide continuity between the two seasons.
  
  
• You can catch Harry Moleman—sorry, we mean Death—doing some filing. Jimmy Two-Teeth’s file was easily missed, so we added a cutscene to help call attention to it. We also added logos to the files that are lying near Timmy at Pimp Le Car, so his folder is more clearly meant for the afterlife and not an unrelated prop.
  
  
• When Hell freezes over, it snows! Adding snow to the North Pole in Ice Station Santa gave us the excuse to reuse it here, making the closing scene a lot more exciting.
  
  
• Jurgen was uninvited to Sybil and Abe’s wedding. A lot of debate went into this one. The fact is, he’s a vampire, and he wouldn’t be out in the sunlight. Sure, everyone loves a wedding, but Jurgen’s not the type of guy who would risk his reanimated booty to dance the Electric Slide.
  
  
• Peepers’ eyes fall out and float away in a river of hot lava. Oh, actually this has always been in the game, for some reason. Okay then.

Thanks for reading all of this. Now you know way more than anyone has ever wanted to know about what’s changed in a remaster of a fourteen-year-old point & click adventure game about two animal detectives.

If you really, really like reading lists of changes to video games, we refuse to kink shame and will actually go so far as to further enable your weird-ass behavior. Since the game’s initial release in December, we’ve put out a few updates to Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space, and they have patch notes! If you want to see the things we’ve fixed since the game first shipped, take a look at the Beyond Time and Space patch notes page[skunkape.zendesk.com].

Sam & Max: Beyond Time and Space version 1.0.4 is now live on Steam! This is a small update that fixes a bunch of little bugs and quality of life issues across the game. Most of the bugfixes in this update are little bits of lighting polish we didn't get done for the original release. You may not notice any of them specifically, but hopefully these scenes just seem a little nicer when you replay. Enjoy!

• Fixed pause menu button text not being perfectly centered.

• Improved shadow quality on Sam & Max when talking to Moai and Lincoln on Easter Island.
  
• Fixed Sam's head disappearing for one frame when using the Easter Island fountain the first time.
  
• Fixed Sam visible at bottom of screen in shot of pressure gauge after completing prophecies in Chimp Colony (SM2-1833).

• Improved shadow quality in Street (Switch only).
  
• Improved lighting during shootout in Stinky's.
  
• Improved Sam's lighting during Sitcom filming.
  
• Improved Max's lighting when talking to Director in Sitcom.
  
• Improved Max's lighting during rap battle in Zombie Factory.
  
• Fixed Spanish subtitle when using the "Letters" ("Cartas") button in Zombie Factory.

• Adjusted Flint's lighting when talking to him in Store.
  
• Added Max lighting influence from tractor beam floor when talking to mariachis in UFO Entrance.
  
• Fixed table bases being too bright in Stinky's Past.
  
• Fixed trim board around jukebox being too dark in Stinky's Past.
  
• Fixed wall shadow not connecting to light fall off in Far Future Office.

• Restored interaction with one-armed bandit (now one-armed doll) in Factory. We thought that line was an old re-used line from Save the World and was here by mistake, and removed it along with the casino-relevant art. But now it's back and better than ever. Thanks everyone who pointed it out!
  
• Fixed lighting around right pillar in Train Station so Sam doesn't look like he's floating on darkness. (Only Herr Featherly understands the darkness.)
  
• Fixed flickering shadows near crack in Street.
  
• Fixed DeSoto highlights being light too bright in Street.
  
• Fixed bright edge around Stinky's door sign in Street .
  
• Fixed bright outline on plaque in Office.
  
• Balanced lighting on Sam & Max to better match environment when entering Stinky's.
  
• Fixed rim light issue on Stinky when talking to her.
  
• Toned down red carpet bounce light on characters during White House exterior credits.
  
• Improved lighting & shadow quality during White House credits.
  
• Fixed Spanish translation of "That's what she said!" in Office.
  
• Fixed Italian translation of "GOOOAAALLL!" in Driving Rats.
  
• Fixed demon baby idle animation glitch in Workshop.

Thanks everyone who has been playing and enjoying the game since launch! We also know many of you are waiting for the original versions of the episodes to go live as free DLC. That's in progress, and will be happening very soon! We'll let you know when it's live.

And as always, a bonus thanks to everyone who found an issue and reported it! For a complete history of our patches you can visit the Skunkape support website[skunkape.zendesk.com]. And as usual if you find a bug please point it out in the appropriate forum and we'll do our best to fix it in a future patch!