Reviews from

in the past


The timed events sound inventive but they end up hindering the gameplay. Other than that it's a fairly ok Lucasarts adventure, where there are no logical riddles and you must progress being the most insane person you can be.

Classic indecipherable adventure game puzzles, but with a guide it's funny and enjoyable

Started my year off with what must be my billionth playthrough. This time I played with Wendy and Bernard and got the Meteor arrested on live TV, possibly the toughest ending to get. Also just to see how the end would change (in this case none) I let Dave drown in the pool.

I played this the way it was meant to be played: playing it on Weird Ed's community in Day of the Tentacle in the remastered version.

I gotta say though, replaying this shows how not malleable the progression is. There are many mandatory tricks you have to solve (like Edna's safe and repairing the wires in the attic). Kinda wish this had more paths to the endgame instead of purple tentacle being the puzzle that can be solved multiple ways.


Muito divertido e inovador pra época porém muito criptico em partes e principalmente no final, porém as suas fraquezas não superam os pontos fortes

Life is strange was better. And that's saying something coming from me.

Lots of nostalgia with this game. Played it as a wee boy and always came back for seconds. I remember when you only got tips from computer game magazines and there were tons of LIES about a key that finally got you the gas for the chainsaw. I remember at least two of these LIES and how I tried them. Trolls in 1987.

Anyways, my first Lucasfilm games adventure, I hold it very close to my heart. I managed to finish it with every ending if I remember correctly.

you can microwave some nerd's pet hamster

I'm going to be haunted forever by using the paint remover in the wrong place then playing for another hour without realising that made the game unbeatable, otherwise 10/10

Probably one of the best PC games of the '80s!

Before the NET existed, it was painful trying to find solutions to some of the more challenging puzzles . . . like getting out of the dungeon!

I played this in 1987, when it first came out. So, yea, I am an old fart gamer, heh.

This game is equal parts bizarre, hilarious, and scary. Sneaking around the mansion while avoiding the freakish residents is a rush, and you never know what you're going to find in the next room.

Leave Ed's hamster alone, you monster.

As many inventors throughout history who have been forgotten could tell you, it's not always about being first to market with an idea so much as it is about the product you package with that idea. Maniac Mansion kicked off the golden age of the Point and Click adventure game with the introduction of Lucasfilm Games' SCUMM engine.

While I love a good low budget horror movie which this was clearly inspired by, it veers too far into the Rocky Horror type of camp that isn't my cup of tea, so I've never been particularly fond of this game's narrative. That said, it's hard to ignore its significance and impact on hundreds of games that would come after; some of which have very much been my cups of tea.

This is a game that is screaming for a real modern remake/remaster, like the one Day of the Tentacle received. In my experience thus far, it pains me to say every version of this game is borderline unplayable. Which is tragic because there's so much greatness that is apparent in it: the way that different characters can beat the game in very different ways, the fact that NPCs carry on actions that the player must react to for different effects, the free roaming puzzle box nature of the mansion. Unfortunately, in the pc versions, it's easy to get to an apparently unwinnable state without even knowing it. For me, this is essentially broken game design and it certainly doesn't fly these days. I've read that the NES version fixes some of this, but it has crippling censorship. There is a hack that reverts this, but the game keeps locking up eventually. I haven't tried it myself, but apparently the version on Steam is just played via ScummVM and is hacked so that the keypads in the game don't work properly. Please! Remaster this game and fix its issues because I think there's a game I could really love in here.

juego de aventura grafica muy comico que trae muchas sorpresas me gusto mucho y recuerdo lo divertido que fue pasarlo.

I played it through a pc in its sequel

This game comes with frustrations you'd expect from a graphical adventure of its vintage but it holds up altogether as a fun spelunk into a creepy mansion. I loved the non-linear approach to the point-and-click adventure and its usage of various player skill and it got me thinking... why aren't there more games like this? Or at least, more games like this that are more well-known in the gaming community?

PnCAs would evolve to become something more streamlined and focused but there's an idea here that holds up even 30+ years later. It could have used some refinement, but it's still good. I liked exploring this cozy manor (aside from the kitchen, that place can go straight back to hell).

Now I played this through the Deluxe edition but I don't think too much was lost in the fanmade update. The added music was appropriate. The colour palette was nice. Maybe one day I'll play one of the original versions, though.

If you like point and click adventures, you'll probably like this.

Historical value aside as one of the first games to introduce cutscenes and point-and-click prompts instead of syntax guessing, "Maniac Mansion" still holds up pretty well. It's impressive how such an old graphic adventure could already offer the possibility of switching between characters with unique skills and finding different ways to clear the game by passing inventory items from one character to another and coordinating their actions. In addition, the wacky, tongue-in-cheek humor and cheap B-movie references that would become a trademark of LucasArts graphic adventures are already at their best here.

The only problem is that the game won't let you know when your run has become unwinnable. Not only do most puzzles have absurd solutions, but it's also incredibly easy to waste an essential item and get stuck at a dead end without even knowing. It's true that once you know what to do and what not to do, it should take about one hour to complete the game, yet it can get really frustrating as you can easily spend hours wandering around the mansion without even knowing that you have already locked yourself out of victory.

I've played Maniac Mansion several times in the past, and probably gotten to around 50% of it, but only recently did I put in the effort to actually play through the whole game, and with all the different endings.

Maniac Mansion is a game of its time that you have to see for what it was when it came out (1987), but was something truly unique and that would have enormous influence on later games. It feels more like a type of game that tries to find its form, and stumbles a bit, but in the end gets there - but still it's important to remember what a stepping stone it was for what to come later. I personally consider the first Monkey Island to be the first game LucasArts really mastered the format, but Maniac Mansion undeniable paved the way to get there and is a good game on its own.

Compared to it's excellent sequel Day Of The Tentacle, that still holds up perfectly today, Maniac Mansion shows it's age at times and seems quite rough around the edges. I miss verbal commands like "talk to" or "look at". Other verbal commands seems superfluous. Certain puzzles also seems odd and clumsy, but most of it is still good and fun to figure out.

Maniac Mansion is clearly inspired by campy horror b-films, but like most LucasArts games, its really more of a comedy game. At times it is very funny, and there's a sense of childlike creativity and silliness that serves the game, since the story isn't exactly very deep (nor does it try to be). Even if I have to say that the concept of an evil living purple meteor is quite bizarre.

The idea of being able to choose from different characters to solve parts of the game differently is unique, and I don't think even many games since has done this. It's clever, and gives you a reason to beat the game several times with the different characters to see all the different endings.

That said it seems they could have done more with this unique concept too, and some of it seems half-baked. For example Razor and Syd are both musicians and do the exact same thing, (they even play the exact same song, which I at least expected they could switch out!), and as for Jeff (the surfer dude), it seems they didn't get to give him any unique abilities or an ending at all (his only ability is fixing a phone, which Bernard also does). Since the characters never talks to people (no conversations), or is able to look at objects, it loses the possibility of character development, which the game would have benefitted from.

I think Maniac Mansion strength probably is in it's innovation which was very ambitious and influencial for it's time, but compared to today's standards it seems imperfect and a bit flawed, but charmingly so, perhaps.

The NES version, albeit being a fairly solid port of the original, is censored for some reason. It's a bit of a bummer, even though it is still very enjoyable to play nonetheless (and quite playable even with a controller).

In 1987, this game was quirky and unique. It was hilarious and there was a lot of freedom in the actions allowed.

In 2023, this game has a few chuckle worthy moments, but overall, felt like a chore to play. The freedom and quirkiness are still there. The gameplay is is slow. The presentation is minimal. Unfortunately, Maniac Mansion aged very poorly.

a classic game by ron gilbert with all the charm and charisma that that includes , however , it is also a game of its time , with clunky UI's and managing one character , with the verb system , is hard enough let alone three.


aged rather poorly, this piece of history deserves an official remake.

I’ve been saying it for years, the mansion is too damn maniac

I’m going to slightly spoil a puzzle here: specifically, revealing the arcane process of opening an envelope. In the course of trying to rescue his girlfriend from an evil scientist’s mansion, our hero Dave discovers a hidden envelope with something mysterious inside. Tearing it open to discover its contents, Dave unknowingly kills his girlfriend. The end. Turns out, depending on which two friends were selected to tag along at the start, carelessly tearing open this envelope can quietly leave you with no way to finish. The goal is to open it gingerly enough to be intact for future use, so try to imagine how this might be accomplished. Maybe there could be a letter opener somewhere, or only certain characters are careful enough, or maybe recovering it after giving it to the intended recipient would work… but none of these are correct, and the real answer is to microwave it. It loosens up the glue, opening up the envelope safely. However, I lied, that’s not the real answer, which is to microwave it with a jar full of water next to it to ensure the humidity remains high enough to loosen the glue without burning.

Singling out a puzzle like this is usually to demonstrate some ludicrous moon logic, but Maniac Mansion almost runs too far in the opposite direction. It requires normal Earth logic in such oddly specific ways that it’s almost equally opaque, but that’s sorta why I love it. It’s not like you’re in a realm of magic and fairy tales that builds off references and genre assumptions, the most difficult solutions actually require fairly mundane reasoning to solve. The house is just a small, singular location, so it’s easy to find all your tools quickly, and start theorizing the uses for each character. It’s common to come across a new item and think “Ah, if I get stuck, I can bring this other character next time and try that” and slowly learn the extent of the possibilities. That’s why the aforementioned softlocks are so heartbreaking, since they’re the only factor that prevent this from being a perfect genre entry point. It gets even more complicated when considering the version differences, like how ruining the envelope was considered too brutal to include in the NES port, and was removed. However, the interface doesn’t work well with a controller and many details were censored, so there’s no way around some awkwardness. If you’re coming into it cold, I would recommend playing the 1989 PC version and including Bernard in your trio, since he’s accepted as contributing to the smoothest route and doesn’t require any envelope microwaving. And really, I do recommend it in spite of the issues; I think its concept for a small-scale but layered adventure game is one that still holds a lot of promise. I would love to try some indie games that put their unique spin on the idea, at least in a way that doesn’t involve me despondently sitting in front of a microwave any more than I already do.

An important piece of gaming history that every adventure gamer should experience once.