Maniac Mansion II Day of the Tentacle Turns 25 Years Old

Ah, Maniac Mansion- a classic point and click adventure title that was widely released, received a sequel in 1993. The original was limited to a mansion, hence the name, and it worked oh so well. The sequel, in an attempt to be “bigger, better and badder” did away with one single location so that it could throw even more adventuring at fans. Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle is all about time travel, without the teenage angst that goes with it most of the time.

Based on the Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion (SCUMM) engine, Day of the Tentacle has an inherent “comfortable” feel to it. This is true for anyone that has put a lot of time into any of the previous seven games that featured this engine. They all “feel” similar, at least in the control area. This is a good thing.

When initially released, Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle was available on both floppy disk and CD-ROM. Obviously the CD-ROM featured better voices- known as a “talkie” version back in the day. If you have a choice in which to grab, go for this version. The voices help bring the characters to life and it is possibly the better version. Along with modern hardware, it is more likely to be the version you can play without buying additional hardware (like a floppy drive).

I won’t ruin the story for you, just suffice to say, if you are a fan of point and click adventures, particularly Maniac Mansion or other LucasArts games, grab a copy of Day of the Tentacle.

Earlier this year, Spadoni Productions released a fan film based on the first Maniac Mansion, which I provided the voices for two characters. Check it out here on Youtube.

Earlier this year Double Fine Productions released a “remaster” of Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle for Playstation 4, Playstation Vita, Microsoft Windows and Macintosh OS X.

Finally, hit eBay and Amazon for physical copies of the Maniac Mansion franchise.