The reason I am sending you this e-mail is because you are one of the over 32,000 people who have signed the legendary petition to convince LucasArts to bring Sam and Max: Freelance Police back.
Since March 3, 2004, a lot has changed: while LucasArts no longer owns the rights to develop games for the Sam and Max franchise, they do own the programming code for Sam and Max: Freelance Police, as well as Sam and Max Hit the Road. Telltale, the current owner of the Sam and Max license, has already worked on sixteen episodes of its Sam and Max series - in fact, many of the people who worked on those games also worked on Freelance Police!
Despite the petition, there is still no plan to resurrect this forgotten victim of development hell.
However, I am attempting to change that.
We are currently in the year 2012, which makes it 25 years since the Freelance Police solved their first case in an exotic country drawn without reference material. A year ago, in 2011, the 25th anniversary of the Legend of Zelda franchise was celebrated with not only a remake of Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 3DS, but also the release of Skyward Sword for the Wii, along with the release of the official Zelda timeline.
As for what happened with LucasArts and Telltale in 2011?
LucasArts, a year after its previous president resigned and was replaced with a new one, has focused mainly on Star Wars games, and not much on graphic adventure games. In fact, some of its classic games are still in the vault (including Sam and Max Hit the Road), and have not been released on Steam or Good Old Games.
Telltale worked on a whopping six licenses last year, but neither of them were Sam and Max games. Some of its games, particularly Jurassic Park, were met with controversy and negative reviews.
However, if either or both of these two companies were to work on bringing Sam and Max: Freelance Police back from the dead, and on the 25th anniversary of the franchise, it would be seen as an act of redemption.
I am currently planning to attend PAX East in Boston, Massachusetts from Friday, April 6 to Sunday, April 8. Should any representative from either of those two companies show up, I will campaign as hard as I can to raise awareness of this game, and hopefully change gaming history forever. What was started eight years ago deserves to be finished!
I worked on a campaign video, which can be found here, if you haven't seen it already:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jb4engGLLeM
Those who have seen the video know that I am the creator of Sam and Max: The Abridged Series. I supply the voices of Sam, and a few other characters. I've finished "abridging" all the episodes of Season 1 of Telltale's series, and am currently working on Season 2.
My Facebook group is the Freelance Police Resurrection Project, which can be found at the following link. If you haven't done so already, feel free to join and invite your friends! We could always use some more members!
https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/127576343930702/
Any questions, suggestions, or comments in general regarding the campaign would be appreciated!
Sincerely,
David DeLorenzo
