Editing Sam & Max Hit the Road (section)

==Development==
''Sam & Max Hit the Road'' was developed by a small team at [[LucasArts]] with prior experience on [[LucasArts adventure games|their adventure games]], including [[Sean Clark]], [[Michael Stemmle]], and ''Sam & Max'' creator [[Steve Purcell]] and his future wife Collette Michaud.<ref name="Golden"/><ref name="retro making of"/> Prior to being employed at LucasArts, Steve Purcell had developed the Sam & Max characters and started publishing stories about them around 1987. These had caught attention of some of the LucasArts developers; through a suggestion that LucasArts artist Ken Macklin, Purcell was brought into the team by art director Gary Winnick. Purcell helped to draw the cover art for ''[[Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders]]'', then helped with the character animations in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis]]''.<ref name="pcgamer purcell">{{cite web | url = https://www.pcgamer.com/the-making-of-sam-max-hit-the-road/ | title = The making of Sam & Max Hit The Road | first = Ashley | last = Day | date = February 25, 2018 | access-date = February 25, 2018 | work = [[PC Gamer]] | archive-date = December 5, 2020 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20201205165754/https://www.pcgamer.com/the-making-of-sam-max-hit-the-road/ | url-status = live }}</ref> Sam and Max first appeared as video game characters as internal testing material for [[SCUMM]] [[game engine|engine]] programmers recently employed by LucasArts; Steve Purcell created animated versions of the characters and an office backdrop for the programmers to practice on. Soon after, ''Sam & Max'' comic strips by Steve Purcell were published in LucasArts' quarterly newsletter. After a positive reaction from fans to the strips<ref name="Golden"/> and out of a wish to use new characters and settings after the success of the ''[[Monkey Island (series)|Monkey Island]]'' and ''[[Maniac Mansion]]'' franchises, LucasArts offered in 1992 to create a video game out of the characters.<ref name="retro review">{{cite journal|title=''Sam & Max Hit the Road''|journal= [[gamesTM|gamesTM Retro]]|volume=1|pages=128–129|location=[[United Kingdom]]|publisher=Highbury Entertainment}}</ref><ref name="retro making of"/>

{{quote box | quoted=true | width = 25% | salign=center | quote=You try to be aware of the amount of time you have players sitting and watching as opposed to interacting. Fortunately a lot of the humor came out of the way that the characters would respond to the player's actions. Even observing something in the room could produce a funny response in which case the interactivity ''is'' doing the work of the story.|source=Steve Purcell on finding balance between story and puzzles<ref name="retro making of">{{cite magazine|date=March 2006|title=The Making of: ''Sam & Max Hit the Road''|magazine=[[Retro Gamer]]|first=Ashley|last=Day |issue=22|pages=32–35|publisher=[[Imagine Publishing]]|location=[[United Kingdom]]}}</ref>}}

The game was based on the 1989 ''[[Sam & Max]]'' comic ''On The Road'', which featured the two on a journey across the United States.<ref name="Golden">{{cite web |date=2007-06-26 |title=The Golden Age |url=http://www.telltalegames.com/summerofsamandmax/history/history2 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070630144852/http://www.telltalegames.com/summerofsamandmax/history/history2 |archive-date=2007-06-30 |access-date=2008-08-05 |work=The History of Sam & Max |publisher=[[Telltale Games]]}}</ref> Several of the game's [[tourist trap]]s were based on real locations experienced by the developers;<ref>{{cite magazine|date=December 1993|title=Buckle up - It's going to be a bumpy ride: ''Sam & Max Hit the Road''|magazine=[[Game Players PC Entertainment]]|first=Scott|last=Wolf |issue=6|pages=22–24 |url=https://archive.org/details/game-players-pc-entertainment-vol.-6-no.-6-november-december-1993/page/n23/mode/2up }}</ref> Steve Purcell recollects a childhood visit to a "Frog Rock" - one of the locations featured in the game - and remembered thinking "That's it? It doesn't even look like a frog!"<ref>{{cite web |date=2007-06-26 |title=Interview with Michael Stemmle and Steve Purcell |url=http://www.telltalegames.com/summerofsamandmax/history/history2b/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070707223642/http://www.telltalegames.com/summerofsamandmax/history/history2b/ |archive-date=2007-07-07 |access-date=2008-08-05 |work=The History of Sam & Max |publisher=[[Telltale Games]]}}</ref> A chain of "Snuckey's" roadside stores and attractions was a tribute to the [[Stuckey's]] chain which Purcell and his family often stopped at during road trips.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://spudvisionblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/sam-max-and-stuckeys.html |title=Sam and Max and Stuckey's |publisher=Spudvision |date=2009-08-12 |access-date=2009-08-12 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090812110133/http://spudvisionblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/sam-max-and-stuckeys.html |archive-date=2009-08-12}}</ref>

LucasArts planned a relatively short timetable for ''Sam & Max'' of about eight months, and the team opted to use [[storyboard]]ing for the first time at LucasArts to plan out the game.<ref name="pcgamer purcell"/> ''Sam & Max'' was one of the first games to include a full speech soundtrack and music,<ref name="retro making of"/> which for Steve Purcell was a "dream opportunity" to hear his creations speak. Steve Purcell describes casting [[Bill Farmer]] in the role of Sam as his audition tape "was very dry; he wasn't trying too hard to sell the lines".<ref name="retro making of"/> Actor [[Nick Jameson]] was cast to voice Max. The game's [[jazz]] score was composed by LucasArts' [[Clint Bajakian]], [[Michael Land]] and [[Peter McConnell]], and was incorporated into the game using Land and McConnell's [[iMUSE]] engine, which allowed for audio to be synchronized with the visuals. High quality versions of four of the game's tracks were included on the CD version of the game. ''Sam & Max Hit the Road'' was released simultaneously on [[floppy disk]] and [[CD-ROM]]; only the CD version of the game contained full in-game speech and music.<ref name="retro making of"/> 

As the ''Sam & Max'' comics had a more adult tone, Steve Purcell expected LucasArts to cut back "the edgier material" from the game, but expressed that he was pleased with how LucasArts allowed him to stay close to his original vision for the game.<ref name="retro making of"/> The game's various [[minigame]]s were included to allow players to take a break from solving the main game's puzzles and play something "short and silly".<ref name="retro making of"/> ''Sam & Max Hit the Road'' also signified a major change in development for games on the SCUMM engine.<ref name="retro making of"/> The user interface was entirely rehauled from that introduced in ''[[Maniac Mansion]]'' and built upon in subsequent games. Instead of selecting a verb function from a list at the bottom of the screen and clicking on an in-game entity, ''Sam & Max Hit the Road'' compressed all verb functions into the mouse cursor, which players could cycle through using the right-mouse button. The inventory was also moved off the main screen to a sub-screen accessible by a small icon on the screen. According to Steve Purcell, this cleared space on the screen to "expand on the excellent backgrounds and also made interaction much quicker and less laborious than LucasArts' previous adventure games"<ref name="retro making of"/> The [[conversation tree]]s were also affected by this; Michael Stemmle proposed removing the text-based selection menu used in previous LucasArts' adventure games in favor of icons representing topics of discussion as "nothing would kill a joke worse than reading it before you hear it".<ref name="retro making of"/> Several of these innovations were retained for future LucasArts adventure games.