Finished playing Sam and Max Hit the Road for the first time today. I've watched people play it before, but sporadically, not very frequently, so I was probably "new enough" for both the jokes and puzzles to work fine. I liked it enough to draw this fan art in Krita, and I guess I have a few thoughts on it too!
It feels like the humour's aged really well for the most part, other than probably a handful of slapstick gags about fake tribal dances. In both the game and the comics, Sam and Max jokes are often filled with tons of dialogue, but never feel like you're just reading "mountains" of text. They throw so many ridiculous observations, with an almost poetic rhythm and irreverence, with such fun art surrounding them, that you just enjoy the ride. There's a very "deadpan slapstick" vibe to the whole thing, similar to some old Leslie Nielsen movies.
Compared to some of the S&M comics I've read (no thanks to Comixology thinking I was trying to steal my own account years ago), the game feels less rapid-fire, and more meandering, though still just as funny. Probably due to the slower-paced nature of most adventure games in general, since they have to wait for you to do the right stuff to give you more content.
The character pixel art also looks a bit weird, and I guess "unprofessional", compared to the slick dynamic inked art of the comics and Purcell's promo illustrations, but that's an understandable limitation of the medium, since they have to work at low resolutions, and then have to be able to shrink and grow in the environment. It's also just damn charming sometimes anyway.
I haven't beaten or played many adventure games (though I've probably watched a lot), but the puzzles never felt too crazy. I never really reacted more negatively than thinking sometimes "bit of a stretch but ok".
The old school interaction commands, with multiple cursor icons, as well as the cycling order for those commands that my brain somehow never memorised, was probably the only "grievance" I had.
Oh, not knowing in advance which dialogs would loop also was a bit annoying. And if there was a way to skip dialog I had read already, my ass just couldn't find it. Finding the exact clickable spots to walk to other screens, and not just stand there off-screen, was a bit silly sometimes too.
I'd love to write comedies on par with this, either as a game or a comic, and one day I definitely want to play the TellTale games too. I've heard they're some of the best comedy from TellTale's writing overall.
