This is the first part of our "LucasArt's Secret History" article series, where we take a good hard look at all those great adventure games that LucasArts used to make. Special thanks to Dan "Jayel" Lee, who designed the Maniac Mansion header image for us.

Page one: our review
Page two: Comments from other insane people
Page three: Trivia! And secrets!
Page four: Memories from the developers, and music downloads
Your face: A tour of Maniac Mansion transcribed from the official hint book.
See also: Memoirs from Aric Wilmunder, a programmer and Gary Winnick interview, co-project leader

Jim Ward, the current president of LucasArts, sees these old games as embarrassing baggage rather than a legacy to build on -- prove him wrong by telling other people about these games, or reminding them how great they were!

Twenty years ago today... a slimy purple meteor crashed into the front lawn of the Edison mansion, and a revolutionary point 'n click adventure game was released by Lucasfilm Games for the Commodore 64 and Apple II. Running on some nonsense called the "SCUMM Engine," Maniac Mansion told the B-movie send-up story of a trio of college teenagers who break into a rundown, secluded Victorian mansion in the middle of the night to rescue Sandy Pantz, the school’s star cheerleader and Dave Miller's (the leader of the impromptu rescue mission) girlfriend. Sandy has been kidnapped by local mad scientist Dr. Fred Edison, and, despite a sign on the decrepit iron fence that warns of assured mutilation to all trespassers and a welcome mat that reads, "Go away!" Dave and his differently talented friends head into the mansion to retrieve the scantily-clad blonde before she can lose her brain to the good doctor’s "Zom-B-matic" machine.

Along the way, the kids encounter the mansion's inhabitants - the Edison family, a moderately dysfunctional American household that consists of Dr. Fred, the resident mad scientist; Nurse Edna, his repulsive wife; Weird Ed, their hamster-obsessed and commando wannabe son who lives up to his name; a pair of pet mutant tentacles; Edna's mummified cousin Ted; and of course that sentient, evil Meteor dripping with purple slime who may be involved with Fred's sudden desire to rule the world...one teenager at a time. Somewhere within the mansion lies Dr. Fred's secret lab where Sandy is being held, and it's up to the three kids (one being Dave, the other two being chosen by you out of a lineup of six) to find a way in there without Sandy, or themselves, ending up in a condition that's something less than alive.

The brainchild of Ron Gilbert (who is a household name within whatever household shelters those who frequent this site) and artist Gary Winnick, Maniac Mansion introduced a recognizable interface that would change story games forever. Featuring much-boasted point 'n click gameplay with no necessary keyboard input, players interacted simply by clicking on a verb on the bottom of the screen, and subsequently an object in the game world, to create a sentence and thus carry out a desired action This mechanic contrasted greatly with the parser-based adventure games that were in vogue, effectively eliminating the tedious challenge of having to figure out what the developers wanted you to type and instead allowing the game's intended obstacle, the puzzles, to be the player's primary one. Sure, the game's presentation is rudimentary by today's – or even Monkey Island 1's – standards, but seeing as most graphic adventure games of or before Maniac Mansion's time were of the parser-based variety, like King's Quest, it's pretty clear that this game, along with other innovative projects of the time such as the work from ICOM, made the important first step that enabled the more acclaimed adventures of Guybrush or Manny Calavera to even happen.

The design philosophies established by Maniac Mansion are in stark contrast with any other adventure game from the time period... and laid the foundation for LucasArts' long and universally beloved graphic adventure library.

Plus, though it's hard to see it when you stack the game up against the infinitely more refined titles it influenced, Maniac Mansion was a highly forgiving, logical, and fast-paced graphic adventure in the climate it was born in. The game does indeed still contain what are nowadays considered cardinal sins in an adventure game – the possibilities of death and worse, dead ends – the design philosophies established by Maniac Mansion are in stark contrast with what you'd find in just about any other adventure game from the time period (which prominently included, among others, the work Sierra, LucasFilm Games' former archrival), and laid the foundation for the company's long and universally beloved graphic adventure library. Instead of being killed almost as a routine, for example by simply picking the wrong door to walk into, the ways you can die in Maniac Mansion are relatively few, and occur under semi-reasonable circumstances (in other words, it's pretty clear when you're about to enter a dangerous situation and should hit the save key). That the game is dated is incontrovertible, but putting it into perspective will gain a lot more appreciation than you might have had before.

The usage of three playable characters that you switch between at will - a handful of puzzles require creative use of multiple kids, and the unique ability of each has a bearing on how you complete the game - and the generally high level of nonlinearity collaborate to make Maniac Mansion one of the more complicated and ambitious designs in a LucasArts adventure game, despite being the earliest.* And yet, there's something about the game's confined nature, even if it's in a manufactured sense, that always makes it seem solvable even when the puzzle you're attempting to crack is somewhere south of logical. This is in my eyes one of game's most endearing qualities, and certainly something that attracted me to it when I initially played it – even if it's not the easiest adventure game ever made, the scope is not such that you'll ever feel overwhelmed, and completing the game always seems like a realistic goal even when you're completely stuck. One of the game's additional heralded characteristics is the inclusion of multiple endings – there are nine total, and they result based on the kids you choose and how you lead them to a successful (or unsuccessful) conclusion, benefiting the game with more replay value than what is usually true of a graphic adventure.

In addition to its point 'n click mechanic, the game is also notable for being one of the earliest pioneers of cutscenes, which periodically interrupt the gameplay to move the story forward, and mostly involve the Edison family. Among these are certain gameplay-affecting events that are triggered by time, including the delivery of a package or the systematic shutdown of the mansion's power. These scenes contain the majority of the game's dialogue, since, unlike later LucasArts adventure games, Maniac Mansion is devoid of dialogue trees and the gameplay dialogue is severely limited. These scripted sequences capture the zany, tongue-in-cheek personality of the game which has its aforementioned roots in cheesy, low-budget sci-fi flicks. Everything from rocket-powered Edsels to home installed nuclear reactors find a place in the entertainingly crazy plotline. And while there is tragically no "Look at" verb in your arsenal, which greatly reduces the possibilities for non-relevant dialog, those who look hard enough will find a few examples of amusing bits (largely written by scripter David Fox) that hint at the rich interactive humor future SCUMM games would have to offer.

*You think Maniac Mansion was LucasArts' first adventure game? Think again, fool!

Labyrinth is based on the 1986 Jim Henson movie of the same name of which George Lucas was an executice producer. He wanted a game based on the movie released at the same time and that's what he got. The game doesn't let you play as Sarah, the protagonist of the movie, but as yourself. A good idea since who wants to play a girl in an adventure game? Ho Ho! Crazytown!

Labyrinth, LucasArts' first adventure game, uses a different interface compared to the company's later games. It starts out as a text adventure reminiscent of Infocom's games from the same era, but with a slot machine-like interface where you use the arrow buttons to choose verb and noun. In other words, you don't have to guess the verb and noun the programmer thought of. When you enter the world of the Labyrinth, the game turns into a graphic adventure, but keeping the same interface. That was one of Douglas Adams' [of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fame] ideas. One of his other contributions to the game was the noun adumbrate.

-- "Zaarin"

But honestly, enough about the engine evolutions, or how the game redefined or highly improved genre conventions. I hate to only praise the game's contributions in regards to its technology or retrospective value or whatever, because that's something I tend to get annoyed with when people talk about the game. "Maniac Mansion is an important game, but it's not a very good one," is the implication I sense from most people who write about it from a modern perspective. Well, that's foolishness. The Secret of Monkey Island may have been the game where LucasArts first really hit its stride in terms of dialog writing or production values, and when SCUMM was really refined to arguable perfection, but Maniac Mansion is a great game that can be enjoyed and appreciated exclusive from its historical significance. It was the first adventure game I ever played, and it was the first game that absorbed me in the way that only a good adventure game can. (Try to ignore my gigantic bias which has its roots in heavy nostalgia and a fan site for the game I maintained for years.) Even if that sounds a little crazy, especially since the story and characters of Maniac Mansion are arguably as intentionally shallow and cliché as it gets, I argue that Maniac Mansion is more than a solid adventure game in its own right, and genuinely deserves any recognition it may get in that respect.

As is the case with many successful games, Maniac Mansion was ported to a number of systems over its healthy lifespan. With an initial release on the Commodore 64 and Apple II, future releases included an IBM version, and the game was later re-released in "enhanced" graphics version for the previous and a bunch of additional platforms. The most famous port was probably the excellent Nintendo version, developed by the Lucasfilm team (unlike the Japanese counterpart for the Famicom, which is a weird beast to say the least). It was the company's first NES project, and there's a pretty interesting story behind it, documented in an excellent article by the project's manager, Douglas Crockford, which you're probably familiar with. There's a lot of unique features in this version of the game, some of which you can learn about in the elsewhere in this article. The cartridge was an auspicious release for LucasArts but turned out to pretty much be the only example among the company's short string of NES releases that wasn't terrible. I'm still hoping that LucasArts (or Jaleco, or Nintendo, or whoever holds the power) permits this game's release on the Wii Virtual Console someday.

Oh, and the game also saw a Mac release, albeit in the form of an easter egg in the Mac version of Day of the Tentacle. Of course, platform compatibility is no longer an issue thanks to ScummVM, which can even run the NES version with extremely beneficial mouse support, so you've got no excuse for this game to still be on your "yet to played" list. And finally, there's the unofficial fan remake of the game, "Maniac Mansion Deluxe," which was released a few years ago and was rather well-received. I'm proud to say I had a very small role in this project, but the real credit goes to the incredible LucasFan team who so expertly made it happen. Be sure to check it out if you haven't already.

Maniac Mansion is more than a great video game or a significant blueprint for the graphic adventure genre's golden age - it's a classic in every sense of the definition.

So it's pretty clear that I like Maniac Mansion, a trifle. On the negative side, the game simply cannot hide its age in a number of significant areas. Graphically, you're not looking at anything too detailed, and the art quality varies a bit depending on the version you're playing, but the wacky horror parody flavor is always well-defined by the semi-cartoony visuals, which contribute as much to the style and atmosphere of the game as 16 colors possibly can. Sounds effects and music suffer similar issues – most of the effects are just some annoying beeps and bleeps, and the still catchy main theme is one of the few actual songs in the original game. It should be said, though, that the NES version has a rather excellent full soundtrack, which you can listen to for yourself later on in this article.

As a SCUMM game, the screen is comprised of the classic attributes of a traditional LucasArts adventure game interface: the action window, the sentence line, the verbs, and the inventory. As the first SCUMM game, Maniac Mansion doesn’t exactly feature the most streamlined example of this interface. With a staggering fifteen verbs in its first release (the NES version whittled this down some), Maniac Mansion has a number of completely unnecessary verbs, including the lonely “Fix,” “Unlock,” and of course the fabled “What is,” which allowed you to reveal hotspots by moving your cursor around the screen. Mostly used to help you find the light switch in a darkened room, this function was later implemented to be automatic, saving you a few clicks and quite a bit of confusion.

Cutscenes are triggered based on an internal clock, which means the game is going to show them when their time comes rather than based on actions you take, as is the case with later games. Aside from the fact that you're often waiting for an event to happen rather than the other way around, this also affects the pacing – I'm not necessary interested in Weird Ed's concerns about his father when I'm in the middle of trying to refill the swimming pool with radioactive coolant in order to avoid a nuclear meltdown. As previously mentioned, the game also has some pretty nasty dead-ends – don't even get me started on the paint remover. For this reason it’s important that you save not only frequently, but in multiple save slots. This makes the fact that the original and NES releases of the game feature a single save a bit depressing, though the Enhanced version offers sixteen and ScummVM, once again coming to the rescue, grants you unlimited saves.

The deaths, while often entertaining, aren't exactly a thankful characteristic – there are a number of occasions where the house can blow up in a set amount of time, or say, when you have Bernard attempt to show you what he knows, or doesn't know, about "Nuke'em Alarm" systems. The world of LucasArts adventure games before Monkey Island can be pretty dangerous to be in.

Ultimately, the positives far outweigh the negatives, and become more forgivable when you recall the year of the game's release. Maniac Mansion is more than a great video game or a significant blueprint for the graphic adventure genre's golden age - it's a classic in every sense of the definition. Quit being a Alex Ashby tuna head and play it again.