Review:
Sam & Max: The Tomb of Sammun-Mak

‘The Tomb of Sammun-Mak’ is the second episode of The Devil’s Playhouse, a new series of game adventures featuring the Sam & Max characters designed and owned by Steve Purcell. I already discussed the background and origin of the characters in my previous review for the first episode ‘The Penal Zone’, which can be found here:

http://www.alltern8.com/library/pc_console_games/sam_max_the_penal_zone/l-5557.html

The story for episode two picks up immediately from the end of first instalment, with Sam & Max confronted by their own skeletons. They also find an antique film projector and a number of reels of old film stock. When they play one of the reels at random it turns out to be the story of Sam & Max’s great grandfathers Sammeth and Maximus, who went to Egypt a century ago and were originally responsible for discovering the Devil’s Toybox. The footage zooms in and you the player take on the roles of Sammeth and Maximus, just is if they were the modern characters.

Like the first episode, Tomb plays fast and loose with the chronology of the narrative of the story. The first reel played is actually the third in a series of four reels that tells the story. After the first scene you are encouraged to use Maximus’s psychic powers to change the reels to play through a different part of the story. In fact, it eventually becomes apparent that this parallel narrative approach is the key to unlocking the puzzles on each of the reels – sometimes the answer for one reel can be found on a different reel.

The beginning of the story can be found on the first reel marked ‘The Sphunx Challenge’ where Sammeth and Maximus go to a stage show run by a man named Paperwaite who promises that whoever can beat his ‘Challenge of the Sphunx’ will get train tickets to Egypt and an opportunity to find and bring back the Devil’s Toybox. Reel two labelled ‘The Train to Egypt’ concerns Sameth and Maximus’s trip on the Disorient Express and their subsequent investigations when they arrive in Egypt. ‘The Standoff’ is the third reel, which begins with Sameth and Maximus trying to escape the clutches of Nicholas St. Kringle. The final reel marked ‘The Big Reward’ where the characters return to see Paperwaite and are double-crossed. The conclusion of the story returns to present-day and provides another cliff-hanger which segues into the events of Episode 3 ‘They Stole Max’s Brain!’