A Blast from the Past or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Turn a Mansion Into a Bomb

A legendary machine that got me started in the world of technology and gaming: The Commodore 64 – that 8-bit wonder that made its way into our homes and hearts back in 1982. Besides having the ability to program in its native BASIC language, it ran simplistic games pretty well – I’d like to start this off by talking about one of those games I had spent countless hours trying to beat. It must have taken me 30 minutes just to figure out how to get into the place, and another 30 minutes figuring out what a tentacle likes to eat!

If you haven’t figured out what game I’m talking about yet, it’s a gem from Lucasfilm Games called Maniac Mansion.

The story starts off simple enough – in an introduction cutscene, a sentient meteor crashes near the estate of Dr. Fred and Edna Edison 20 years before the events of the game. The meteor brainwashes the Edisons, and directs Dr. Fred to bring it human brains to experiment on – which leads him to kidnap Sandy Pantz, the girlfriend of Dave Miller – who has prepared to execute a rescue mission with a cadre of friends (two of which you choose, Dave is a mandatory third – and incidentally pretty useless.) There are multiple endings for the game, and the outcome is somewhat dependent on who you chose as the two other friends in the group.

Each of the remaining friends has an ability (with the exception of Jeff) that will help in some way to achieve an end to the story:

• Syd and Razor are both musicians, their musical ability will help inspire the green tentacle to rise out of his creative slump and side with Dave and his friends in rescuing Sandy.
• Bernard, president of the physics club – and winner of the college’s Geek Award – can fix electronics, namely.. the ham radio and telephone, to allow a call to the authorities to apprehend the sentient meteor. Incidentally, Bernard is the only one of Dave’s friends from the story to appear in the Day of the Tentacle sequel.
• Michael is a photographer for the college newspaper. His ability of developing prints from negatives will help sway Weird Ed, Fred and Edna’s son, into befriending you – and assisting in taking down the sentient meteor – which he is strongly passionate about.
• Wendy is an aspiring novelist whose way with words may help you change the meteor’s plans of continuing its “terrible acts of violence” – if only there was something in the mansion that detailed the “life story” of the meteor..
• Jeff.. basically responds to the name “Surfer Dude.” Choose him if you must, but understand that your rescue attempt will then be heavily carried by your third choice of friend – because Jeff is practically as useless as Dave is.

Personally, I choose Bernard and Michael to accompany Dave – who I use as fodder to be captured by the Edisons or the purple tentacle at given points of the game – and to man the “secret way out” of the dungeon should either of the other two get caught. Your mileage may vary with each combination – and that brings me to my last subject of the game – not all endings in this game are happy ones. (Remember this post's featured image? That's one possible outcome.)

• Take too long refilling the pool water (that doubles as coolant for the nuclear reactor rods poking out from the bottom) and.. kablooey.
• Leave the circuit breaker off for too long after keeping purple tentacle sufficiently occupied and.. kablooey.
• If by the off-chance you decide to microwave some pool water and inhale the steam.. kiss that friend goodbye.
• Microwaved Weird Ed’s hamster by accident (or was it, you monster?) He will definitely return the favor (this can only be achieved using Syd or Razor.)

Just like life, though – it’s about the journey, not about the destination. As you can see with that last one – things can go off the rails pretty quickly – and for such a small game (in relation to huge games such as Fallout 4 and Halo, which I will definitely get into here in the future) it has as many different paths as one of those “choose your own adventure” story books. The decisions you make on the journey will either help or hinder you down the line. There are multiple solutions, and multiple ways to achieve them.

At any rate, what I’m saying is: Maniac Mansion is a journey worth taking at least once, how you do it is up to you.