Back in April we looked at Sam & Max Hit the Road, the first game featuring Steve Purcell’s crime fighting comic strip duo. Tasked with finding an escaped bigfoot from the circus, Sam & Max find themselves on a big road trip adventure all across the USA, featuring many road side attractions of questionable quality. And somehow a country singer from Liverpool, England also fits into this?

Joining hosts Martijn (“Tijn”) and Florian (“rnlf”) we have three guests. First of all we have returning DGC members Patrick (“patrick_wd”) and Eino (“evil_taco”). Last but not least we are joined by digital artist and game developer Nathalie Lawhead (“alienmelon”), who made a lot of retro-inspired works that are very much worth checking out (see links below).

Enjoy!

https://www.dosgameclub.com/podcast/2026/06/ep118.mp3

[ download mp3 ] (216 mins, 248 MB)

Thanks to our producer Pix for helping to organise the recording, and thanks to DGC member Console for editing the audio.

Thanks to all who make this show possible, we couldn’t do this without you!

RELEVANT LINKS:

• Nathalie Lawhead’ss is a digital artist and game developer with a large, wonderfully varied catalog at alienmelon.itch.io, as well as their own website at nathalielawhead.com.

• PC Gamer did an interview with Steve Purcell in 2002, where they talk extensively about how Sam & Max Hit the Road came to be.

• Telltale’s “History of Sam & Max”: Part 1 and Part 2

• Sam & Max were featured in Lucas’ quarterly newsletter the Adventurer before they decided to turn them into a game

• Ron Gilbert’ss classic essay on adventure game design, Why adventure games suck

• Yes, the biggest ball of twine is a real roadside attraction in the US.