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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I thought playing Maniac Mansion would get me to understand bigger truths about the Point and Click Adventure game genre, aiding me on my quest to play a shit-ton of them this month.

Yeah well it didn't. Most of my impressions I already had from when my dad told me about it and how he and my mom have guessed their way through this messy moon-logic and easily jinxable mess. But hey I thought I'd try it for myself after all those years. Well after like 10 puzzles I pressed ALT + F4 and watched the rest, all the endings and all the character specific puzzles on YouTube.

It was genre defining and is without a doubt forged the path for later LucasArts titles to shine on. I don't even want to say that it's bad or has no qualities to it, that could get players to like it even today. I just really fell of this one, also because of the constant fear that I could easily get myself into an unwinnable state. It's a bit like with old King's Quest titles. If I'm scared to pick up or use items in your adventure game, I become scared to experiment. As someone who loves MI's dialogue for weird or wacky experiments during inventory puzzles, being scared to do those is just really discouraging me to have fun with this whatsoever.

Watching it on YouTube was rather painful though, because of the technical limitations, Maniac Mansion has next to no music and it makes the entire experience a slog to get through.
All of what I just wrote above comes from a super modern perspective with over 40 years of hindsight on the genre. This is why I don't necessarily want to shit on Maniac Mansion, although I personally really disliked the bit that I played. I wanted to do research and the genre and an insight I got. All good. It's really respectable to see just how big the shift for adventure games was after MM.