Day of the Tentacle
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| Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle | |
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| Developer(s) | LucasArts |
| Publisher(s) | LucasArts |
| Designer(s) | Dave Grossman Tim Schafer |
| Engine | SCUMM |
| Release date(s) | 1993 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure game |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: K-A RSAC: V2: Rewards injuring non-threatening creatures USK: 12+ |
| Platform(s) | DOS, Mac OS |
| Media | 3 1/2" Floppy disk, CD-ROM |
| Input | Mouse, Keyboard |
Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle (DoTT) is a graphical adventure game, originally released in 1993, and published by LucasArts. It is the eighth game to use the SCUMM engine. The game was released simultaneously on floppy disk and CD-ROM, with the CD-ROM version featuring a full voiceover soundtrack. Day of the Tentacle was designed by Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer.
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[edit] Gameplay
Day of the Tentacle follows the point-and-click two-dimensional adventure game formula, first established by the original Maniac Mansion. Players direct the controllable characters around the game world by clicking with the computer mouse. To interact with the game world, players choose from a set of commands arrayed on the screen and then on an object in the world. This was the last SCUMM game to use the original interface of having the bottom half of the screen taken up by a verb selection and inventory; starting with the next game to use the SCUMM engine, Sam and Max Hit the Road, the engine was modified to scroll through a more concise list of verbs with the right mouse button and to have a separate screen for the inventory. This formula carried on to later games in the franchise, such as The Dig, Full Throttle and The Curse of Monkey Island. In Day of the Tentacle, the player can switch between any one of the three playable characters at any time, though two of the characters must first be unlocked by the completion of certain puzzles. The three protagonists can also share inventory items amongst themselves (at least, those items that can be stowed in a toilet), a feature that plays into many of the game's puzzles.
In Maniac Mansion, the playable characters can be killed by various sequences of events. LucasArts adopted a different philosophy towards its adventure games in 1990, beginning with The Secret of Monkey Island. Their philosophy was that the game should not punish the player for exploring the game world. Accordingly, in most of the adventure games released by LucasArts after Monkey Island, including Day of the Tentacle, the player character(s) cannot die.
[edit] Story
Day of the Tentacle begins five years after the events in Maniac Mansion. Of the seven playable characters in the first game, only Bernard Bernoulli, a stereotypical nerd character, makes a return appearance. This time, Bernard has a starring role, as he leads his two house mates, Hoagie (a heavy metal roadie with the I.Q. of a sandwich; voiced by Denny Delk) and Laverne (a slighty twitchy med student with a fondness for dead things; voiced by Jane Jacobs), back to the Mansion. One of Dr. Fred Edison's two creations, the Purple Tentacle, drinks industrial waste from the Mansion's Sludge-o-Matic machine, growing two stubby appendages for arms and an appetite for global domination. Bernard and friends plan to travel back in time, using Dr. Fred's Port-a-Potty-turned-time machines (dubbed "Chron-o-John"s), to turn off the toxic waste producing machine therefore stopping Purple from drinking the toxic waste in the first place.
Unfortunately, the cheap imitation diamond in Dr. Fred's time machine fails, leaving Hoagie 200 years in the past (where he can meet such famous historical figures as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin), Laverne 200 years in the future (where Purple Tentacle's dreams for domination have come true) and Bernard still in the present. Bernard has to find a non-imitation diamond in order to make the time machine functional once more, and Hoagie and Laverne both have to get back to their time machines and connect them to a power source, in order to team up again and finally defeat Purple Tentacle. The game uses the three time streams effectively, with several puzzles depending on actions in one era affecting the other eras and the characters sometimes having to exchange items from different time periods (the broken time machines can still transport non-living tissue matter like scalpels, but living creatures like hamsters need an alternative mode of transportation).
The game has several puzzles that require the player to perform actions in the past that affect the future. For example, a vacuum cleaner advertisement flyer can be inserted into the suggestion box for the American constitution; consequently a clause is added to the constitution that every American should have a vacuum cleaner in his basement. And consequently, in the future when vacuum cleaners have actually been invented, you can find one in the basement and use it.
[edit] Historical interaction
One of the unique aspects of Day of the Tentacle's plot is that it gives the game player the opportunity to interact with several important historical figures from colonial America, namely George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, John Hancock and Betsy Ross. Their personality traits are exaggerated for comic effect. Their descendants (or at least characters that resemble them) can be seen in the other ages. Harold, seemingly a descendant of Washington, appears as a transvestite in a future beauty contest organized by the Tentacles. An apparent descendant of John Hancock makes an appearance as Dwayne, a despondent novelty toy salesman, and an apparent descendant of Ben Franklin appears as a novelty salesman.
Some of the more entertaining puzzles of the game involve these characters. In one sequence, Hoagie must give an exploding cigar to Washington in order to replace his famous false teeth with chattering novelty mechanical dentures, while in another he gives a drawing of a tentacle to Ross, who sews it into the American flag. By painting the fruits of a kumquat tree red, the player forces Washington to chop down the created "cherry" tree, also a myth concerning Washington's youth.
[edit] Reactions
Adventure Gamers included the game as #1 on their 20 Greatest Adventure Games of All Time List. They also reviewed it with a score of 5 out of 5, being one of only three other games to receive this score on their website.
IGN deemed it number 60 on their top 100 games list. [1]
[edit] Trivia
- Bernard appears three times in Sam & Max Hit the Road behind the counter of Snucky's. Each of the three are subtly different in appearance.
- The whole original Maniac Mansion game can be played on a computer inside the Day of the Tentacle game (however with only one save game slot available).
- A portrait of Darth Vader can be seen on a Star Wars calendar behind the front desk in the mansion's lobby.
- In the TV commercial where Bernard hears about the real diamond, the commercial's announcer says that the phone number for the diamond is 1-800-STAR WARS. This was (at the time) the number for the LucasArts Store.
- In one puzzle involving thousands of quarters, Bernard examines a quarter and exclaims "ooh, 1977!", the year of Star Wars' release.
- An Imperial stormtrooper helmet can be found on top of a shelf in the tentacles' bedroom.
- A portrait in the past depicts Max from Sam and Max wearing a powdered wig being called a great patriot.
- The game was originally intended to resemble Maniac Mansion more closely, with the player allowed to choose from among six characters (who would have included a male poet named Chester, a female hippie named Moonglow, and Razor from the original game). This idea was dropped in preproduction to simplify the project. Chester's character design was recycled in the final game as Red Edison's twin sons.
- There is a bonus level in Zombies Ate My Neighbors called Day of the Tentacle, with purple tentacles as enemies.
- When the textbook is used to solve a puzzle, the character reads computer science compiler theory rather than physics.
[edit] Sequels
There have been a few fan groups in Germany who have started developing fan-games, but as of 2007, none of them are complete. As of this time, LucasArts seems to be very unreceptive to the idea of making any more adventure games or allowing others to commercially develop their old licenses that aren't Star Wars related.
Possibly the only mention of a sequel that's ever been said came from an interview with Sam & Max co-designer Michael Stemmle, citing his ideas of Pipe Dream: The Flooz Must Flow and Maniac Mansion: Night of a Thousand Tentacles. [2] The chance of this comment ever becoming reality remains highly unlikely though. Interestingly enough, Sam and Max was picked up by a smaller company called Telltale Games who have produced several episodes of gameplay. http://www.telltalegames.com/samandmax
