2004 saw the cancellation of LucasArts' point-and-click adventure title Sam & Max: Freelance Police, the planned sequel to the 1993 release Sam & Max Hit The Road. Gamers around the world were terribly upset at the news - and it seems some of the developers were as well, with a group of former LucasArts employees leaving the company in order to start their own. That new game company was Telltale Games, and in the five years since, they've carved quite the little niche for themselves in the games industry.

While recently at GDC in San Francisco, we caught up with Telltale's Design Director, industry veteran Dave Grossman (known for his work on The Secret of Monkey Island, Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge, Day of the Tentacle and others), to find out more about Telltale, what they've been up to, and what their plans are, now that they are five.

Download the Telltale Games Interview from GDC SF 2009

So. As you may be able to figure out, Telltale have had two main themes for their work - episodic gaming and digital distribution. To that end, they've used such methods as Steam and GameTap to get their games out into the wild, and now are using the Xbox Live Marketplace, PlayStation Network and WiiWare for their console releases, as well as using their own dedicated channel for PC downloads.

While they've experienced a lot of media attention in the past few years since the release of the new Sam & Max series, the company's first game was an original IP, released back in February 2005. Telltale Texas Hold'em is -you guessed it- a poker simulator, reportedly the funniest poker game around (or so say Telltale, anyway).


One of these things is not like the other... Sam & Max, Bone: Out from Boneville, CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder
Since then, they've worked mainly with licensed franchises, starting with Jeff Smith's Bone comic book series (Bone: Out from Boneville arrived in 2005 with Bone: The Great Cow Race quickly following in 2006). Up next were cult heroes, the dog and rabbity-thing that comprise the freelance police, and possibly the reason for Telltale's existence: Sam & Max: Season 1, initially for PC and later for Wii (with an Xbox 360 release in the works!).

Taking a break from the more comicky, animated storylines, Telltale got a bit darker in 2006, with the release of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation: 3 Dimensions of Murder for Ubisoft. This was the first game in that series to use a 3D engine (hence the title), and there were marked differences between the PC release and the PS2 version, due to certain requests from Sony America. While the PC copy involved a fixed camera, the PS2 had to include free movement as well as control of the camera - a requirement that posed certain challenges for Telltale's programmers. While it wasn't a best-seller, the game rated relatively well and suggested that Telltale shouldn't be typecast into a purely comic role.

...that said, they jumped right back into some animated goodness with the 2008 release of Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People, based on the cult flash hit, Homestar Runner. This was developed in partnership with Videlectrix, a fictional company devised by the artists, and debuted on both WiiWare and PC in August. Each of the game's five episodes (released roughly once a month) featured a classic point-and-click interface, plus a bonus arcade-style minigame.


If you haven't yet caught up with Strong Bad and pals, we do have demo versions of all five episodes - choose from Homestar Ruiner, Strong Badia the Free Baddest of the Bands, Dangeresque 3: The Criminal Projective or 8-Bit Is Enough (or just grab the lot, if you're that way inclined!).

While that was all being released, Telltale sent out a note, advising gamers that their next project would be a slightly more British, cheese-filled affair: this turned out to be Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, for PC and Xbox Live Arcade.

Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures

Developed in close collaboration with Nick Park and Aardman Animations, the single-player graphic adventure follows the experiences of Wallace and his canine companion, with four episodes currently announced. The newest episode, The Last Resort was released earlier this month, to rave reviews across the board, while the demo of the first episode, Fright of the Bumblebees is available to download, but has also been included on both the Blu-Ray and UK Region 2 DVD releases of A Matter of Loaf and Death as bonus content.

So - it's now five years since a decision by LucasArts allegedly lead to the development of a new company, which has grown into arguably the best adventure game developer around. Fans of point-and-click gaming, quirky humour and episodic content that actually delivers on time who don't know the name... you've got some catching up to do! We were told this week that in those five years since 2004, Telltale have officially sold more than one million of their game episodes. Here's to another five years, and another million episodes!

(...want to help celebrate? Until June 17th, Telltale are giving all subscribers to their newsletter (old and new!) a special code that you can use to purchase any episode of any of their games for US$5. For more details, head over to their website!)