Monkey Island is a series of adventure games. The first four games were produced and published by LucasArts, earlier known as Lucasfilm Games. The fifth was developed by Telltale Games with LucasArts, while the sixth was developed by Terrible Toybox with Lucasfilm Games and Devolver Digital.
Sam & Max is an American media franchise about Sam and Max, a pair of anthropomorphic vigilante private investigators. The characters, who occupy a universe that parodies American popular culture, were created by Steve Purcell in his youth, and later debuted in a 1987 comic book series. The characters have since been the subject of a graphic adventure video game developed by LucasArts, a television series produced for Fox in cooperation with Nelvana Limited, and a series of episodic adventure games developed by Telltale Games. In addition, a variety of machinima and a webcomic have been produced for the series.
Sam & Max Hit the Road is a graphic adventure video game released by LucasArts during the company's adventure games era. The game was originally released for MS-DOS in 1993 and for Mac OS in 1995. A 2002 re-release included compatibility with Windows. The game is based on the comic characters of Sam and Max, the "Freelance Police", an anthropomorphic dog and "hyperkinetic rabbity thing". The characters, created by Steve Purcell, originally debuted in a 1987 comic book series. Based on the 1989 Sam & Max comic On the Road, the duo take the case of a missing bigfoot from a nearby carnival, traveling to many American culture tourist sites to solve the mystery.
Escape from Monkey Island is an adventure game developed and released by LucasArts in 2000. It is the fourth game in the Monkey Island series, and the sequel to the 1997 videogame The Curse of Monkey Island. It is the first game in the series to use 3D graphics and the second game to use the GrimE engine, which was upgraded from its first use in Grim Fandango.
From the late 1980s to the early 2000s, LucasArts was well known for their point-and-click graphic adventure games, nearly all of which received high scoring reviews at the time of their release. Their style tended towards the humorous, often irreverent or slapstick humor, with the exceptions of Loom and The Dig. Their game design philosophy was that the player should never die or reach a complete dead-end, although there were exceptions.
Dave Grossman is an American game programmer and game designer, most known for his work at Telltale Games and early work at LucasArts. He has also written several children's books, and a book of "guy poetry" called Ode to the Stuff in the Sink.
Steven Ross Purcell is an American cartoonist, animator, game designer and voice actor. He is the creator of the media franchise Sam & Max, for which Purcell received an Eisner Award in 2007. The series has grown to incorporate an animated television series and several video games.
Telltale Incorporated was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. The company was founded in July 2004 by former LucasArts developers Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, following LucasArts' decision to leave the adventure game genre. Telltale established itself to focus on adventure games using a novel episodic release schedule over digital distribution, creating its own game engine, the Telltale Tool, to support this. It closed in October 2018 after filing for bankruptcy protection.
Sam & Max Save the World is a graphic adventure video game developed by Telltale Games. The game was originally released as Sam & Max: Season One before being renamed in early 2009. Save the World was developed in episodic fashion, comprising six episodes that were released for Microsoft Windows over the course of late 2006 and early 2007. The episodes were initially distributed online by GameTap and Telltale Games themselves, although the later retail releases of the game were published by The Adventure Company. A Wii port of the game was published in late 2008, and an Xbox Live Arcade version was released in mid-2009. A remaster of the game by Skunkape Games was released in December 2020 for Nintendo Switch and Microsoft Windows, in August 2021 for Xbox One, and in September 2022 for PlayStation 4.
Graham Annable is a Canadian cartoonist and animator. He is the creator of Grickle, published by Alternative Comics, and one of the founders of the Hickee humor anthology. Annable has created works for the television, film, video game, and comic book industries.
Jared Nathaniel Emerson-Johnson is an American video game music composer, sound designer, voice director and voice actor. Emerson-Johnson is the Music Supervisor and lead composer at Bay Area Sound, an audio production company specializing in sound design, music and voiceover for video games. His work has been predominantly featured in games developed by Telltale.
Tales of Monkey Island is a 2009 graphic adventure video game developed by Telltale Games under license from LucasArts. It is the fifth game in the Monkey Island series, released nearly a decade after the previous installment, Escape from Monkey Island. Developed for Windows and the Wii console, the game was released in five episodic segments, between July and December 2009. In contrast to Telltale's previous episodic adventure games, whose chapters told discrete stories, each chapter of Tales of Monkey Island is part of an ongoing narrative. The game was digitally distributed through WiiWare and Telltale's own website, and later through Steam and Amazon.com. Ports for OS X, the PlayStation Network, and iOS were released several months after the series ended.
Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse is a graphic adventure video game developed by Telltale Games. It is the third and final season of the Sam & Max episodic series created by Telltale, following Sam & Max Save the World and Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space. The first episode was released as one of the first apps for the iPad on April 2, 2010, and was released for Microsoft Windows, OS X, and the PlayStation 3 on April 15. A remaster by Skunkape Games was released on August 14, 2024 for Windows, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
Poker Night at the Inventory is a poker video game developed by Telltale Games. It features four characters from different franchises: Tycho Brahe from the Penny Arcade webcomic, Max from the Sam & Max franchise, the RED Heavy Weapons Guy from Team Fortress 2, and Strong Bad from the Homestar Runner web series. The game was released on November 22, 2010. A sequel, Poker Night 2, was released in 2013. The game was delisted from Steam on May 23rd, 2019.
Jake Rodkin is an American video game designer, writer, graphic designer, and podcaster. He was the co-project leader of Tales of Monkey Island and the co-project leader and co-writer of The Walking Dead, Poker Night at the Inventory, and Puzzle Agent 2. He was also the director of the fifth episode of Sam & Max: The Devil's Playhouse, and designer and writer of Firewatch.
Mark Darin is an American video game designer and writer. He was the co-designer of CSI: Hard Evidence, Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space, Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, Tales of Monkey Island, and Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent. He wrote the second episode of The Walking Dead, Starved for Help.
Jonathan Ackley is an American interactive theme park attraction and computer game designer, writer, and programmer. He is best known for being the Creative Director and Producer on Walt Disney World's Sorcerers of the Magic Kingdom and co-project leader, with Larry Ahern, for LucasArtsGamesThe Curse of Monkey Island.
Sean Vanaman is an American video game designer, writer, and podcaster. He was the co-project leader and lead writer of The Walking Dead, and Puzzle Agent 2. He also wrote the third episode of Tales of Monkey Island, and was the designer of Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures, and the writer of the third episode, Muzzled. He was one of the regular hosts of the Idle Thumbs podcast and is one of the co-founders of Campo Santo, the company that produced Firewatch.
Brendan Q. Ferguson is an American computer game designer, writer, programmer, and voice actor. He was the co-designer and co-writer of Sam & Max Save the World and Sam & Max Beyond Time and Space. He was also the co-designer of Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People.
Nicki Rapp, often credited as Nikki Rapp, is an American voice actress known for providing the voices for Lili Zanotto in Psychonauts, Morgan LeFlay in Tales of Monkey Island, Lilly in The Walking Dead video game, and the children in several games in The Sims franchise.
