My 100 Video Game Challenge (2024) #29: Maniac Mansion

Played on: NES, PC

It's no secret that I've gone hard on point-and-click adventure games this year. As it happens, I also finally found my way to one of the most influential offerings in the genre; Maniac Mansion.

Designed by LucasArts greats, Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick (the former of whom would then go on to create one of the most famous point-and-click adventure game franchises, Monkey Island), Maniac Mansion is the game that effectively shed the early PC-style adventure game foundation of text inputs. With Gilbert pioneering the SCUMM system through this game (standing for 'Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion'), Maniac Mansion thus gave players a list of pre-determined commands that they could trigger with a simple click of their mouse, following that with a click on an object or character to execute a command that OG PC-style adventure game series like Zork and King's Quest would have forced them to type out in its entirety. So, in Maniac Mansion's case, you could open a door by simply clicking the 'Open' command at the bottom of the screen, and then the door, for example, rather than trying to get the game to recognize a typed command like 'Open North Door', which it wouldn't always be able to interpret.

Even beyond the nerdy applications of its then-revolutionary new gameplay input system however, Maniac Mansion presents a very cool hook that, honestly, felt very ahead of its time, considering that this game was first released in 1987! The game allows players to choose two allies for its protagonist, Dave, whose girlfriend, Sandy Pantz (yes, really), has been kidnapped by mad scientist, Dr. Fred Edison. Dr. Fred and his family now hold Sandy captive in their eponymous mansion, forcing Dave to take two of his teenage friends along on a mission to rescue her, and discover the secret behind the Edison family's twisted experiments.

Dave himself is a blank slate and generic character, ironically making him the least remarkable and useful character in the game. Any combination of Dave's potential allies can allow you to complete the game regardless, but understanding each character, along with both their passive and active skills, is often the key to victory. The six choices for Dave's duo of allies include: Bernard, a physics nerd with tech know-how, Wendy, a skilled writer, Michael, a photographer for the school paper, Syd, a musician who can play instruments, Razor, a female musician that's otherwise mechanically identical to Syd (Razor was apparently included as an homage to artist, Gary Winnick's-then girlfriend, fun fact), and Jeff, a surfer (and evident stoner) who can fix broken phones (a skill shared by Bernard), and otherwise has no special abilities.

Selecting a character comes with an added twist in Maniac Mansion's NES version to boot, as each character is given their own backing music track whenever you play as them. Through a series of happy accidents, I actually played Maniac Mansion's NES port before its PC original as well, and while that version is clunkier, having stiff pointer controls that naturally don't translate all that well to an NES Control Pad, I did find the NES version's style to be more charming and memorable than the PC build made for DOS. It helps that the NES version of Maniac Mansion actually has backing music, while the main DOS release is mostly silent, and only offers some sound effects during gameplay, but the NES-ified visuals also carry a certain quaint charm, even if they aren't as good as the rather gorgeous (for the time anyway) DOS graphics. Honestly, it would be pretty cool if the NES version of Maniac Mansion was made available on Nintendo Switch Online someday, since quite a few people seem to be just as nostalgic for that one as they are for the main DOS release, but that's probably a big 'if', considering that the rights to Maniac Mansion are now owned by Disney, and Disney hasn't gone to any real effort to restore old games on Nintendo Switch Online at this point.

In any case, I spent most of my time playing the DOS version of Maniac Mansion, which I own, and even got working on my Steam Deck without issue, which was awesome! In both the NES and DOS versions, after selecting your three characters (you're forced to use Dave), you then have to find a way into the Edison family mansion, at which point you have to figure out how to open the path to Sandy, and rescue her, while disarming the Edison's and their two sentient tentacle minions.

Where Maniac Mansion comes with a twist that's remarkably uncommon among point-and-click adventure games however, is the fact that the entire game is based around scripted events. This means that the Edison family will actually move around the mansion at periodic intervals, which players must anticipate and work around. If the Edison's catch any characters wandering the mansion, that character will be thrown into the dungeon, at which point they'll either need to be freed by another character, or discover a hidden switch that lets one (and only one) character out to return to the mansion proper.

By manipulating some of these scripted events, along with the expected finding items to appease characters, open paths and solve puzzles across the mansion, players can gradually work toward locating Sandy, and stopping Fred Edison's twisted experiments. This is why understanding the characters is important; Maniac Mansion is completed in different ways, depending on which additional characters you chose. I don't want to spoil some of the game's truly insane (in the best way!) final twists, but many of them involve exploiting characters' skills to either incriminate the Edison's, leave them unwilling to commit evil acts anymore, or bribe them to the point of stopping their in-house experiments, among other potential solutions. Maniac Mansion's several potential endings are all fun, and often hilarious, in their own ways, with the game's solutions actually striking a fairly decent balance between making you feel smart, while also being genuinely, delightfully bizarre.

The time-based events, flexible character suite, and then-revolutionary SCUMM commands made Maniac Mansion a landmark achievement for video games as a whole, let alone the PC-style adventure game genre. This is a game that genuinely served as a sea change for in-game narratives and puzzle design, to the point where Maniac Mansion would still feel fresh, fun and interesting, even if it was made today!

It took a little while for me to figure out even basic mechanics within Maniac Mansion (this is, after all, a game from 1987 that was originally made for primitive computers like the Apple II and Commodore 64!), but once I got there, I had a blast trying and retrying the experience with different character combinations, and seeing if I could still win. My most favoured team in the end was Dave, Bernard and Razor (Razor > Syd, fight me!), but I also had quite a bit of fun seeing what Michael and Wendy brought to the experience, even if I admittedly had limited incentive to spend much playtime with Syd or Jeff, seeing as they're redundant characters.

Maniac Mansion isn't terribly complicated once you figure out its mechanics, but even then, I think it's another all-time classic for me, right up there with fellow LucasArts favourite, Grim Fandango. Even considering that it's pretty easy to get the DOS version of Maniac Mansion for peanuts on Steam and GOG nowadays (Maniac Mansion is also included as a free Easter egg hidden within the modern remaster of its sequel, Day of the Tentacle!), I hope that Disney can somehow negotiate for a modern remake of this game, effectively giving Maniac Mansion an awesome new coat of paint for a new generation. I would be absolutely thrilled to see Maniac Mansion expanded upon with more scenarios, more intricate gameplay, and an even more ambitiously insane take on its story, among other modern additions. Hell, I even think Disney could make a pretty great movie out of Maniac Mansion someday to boot, should they ever conceive of that!

Fortunately, that aforementioned sequel started to get the ball rolling on new ideas within this universe back in the day...

IF I HAD TO SCORE IT: 9/10