Telltale brings the holiday special (and innovation) to Machinima

One machinima production that I've often wanted to write about, but became equally-oft sidetracked is Telltale's wonderful Sam and Max series. Yesterday (December 19th), they released their Sam and Max holiday special, Sam and Max Nearly Save Christmas, which I found to be a great hoot as usual. The episode, built from the Sam and Max Ice Station Santa game, weighs in at a bit over 20 minutes (an interesting length, given a typical TV half-hour show is 22 minutes long).


Spoiler Alert!
This machinima includes various reveals tied into the Ice Station Santa game.

Telltale deserves some major props for this series. They are one of the few developers, if not the only, who are creating high-quality Machinima episodes in tandem with their game episodes - both of which assist each other in generating overall visibility. I had the pleasure of meeting with Telltale CEO Dan Connors at this year's GDC and he gave me some insights into Sam and Max's production. There are two teams developing content - a game dev team putting together the gameplay episodes, plus their machinima team, which produces their work using all the in-game assets/animations with their own custom Machinima tool. The entire Sam & Max series, is extremely polished--with clever writing, rewarding gameplay and a great visual aesthetic.

The Sam and Max franchise was long overdue for some love and Telltale has really stepped up in that regard. Not only have they revitalized a great property, but they're also paving the way into new territory - one I hope more game developers consider. These grand steps aside, I'm seflishly looking forward to even more Sam and Max machinima in the coming year.