Maniac Mansion
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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Description

A piece of the story!
Lucasfilm Games did sense nothing of the ground-breaking success, that kept their classic point and click adventures on place 1 of all the charts for years. Maniac Mansion was the debut feature (apart from Labyrinth) and flagship of a series of games that were created with SCUMM.
The Maniac Mansion

Strange people live in Maniac Mansion. Dr. Fred, a "pensioned" family doctor, who became a crazy scientist; sister Edna, a former professional caretaker, whose hobbies would even make a sailor blush; "Weird" Ed, a militant youth with a hamster tic and then there is the dead cousin Ted, and the tentacle, and someone - or rather something - else... And what does the sweet young cheerleader girl named Sandy do in Fred's cellar?

Your aim is, to lead a team of three students (including Sandy's boyfriend Dave) through the house to rescue Sandy. During this "trip" you will encounter all the strange residents of the house. And furthermore you will get to know Dr. Fred's secret desire, which he has since the impact of a strange meteor near his villa, that is to control the world.
You put together a team of three persons, that you can choose from seven youths. You will notice that each of them has a special skill, talent and weakness. Furthermore, each of the crazy dwellers as aims and wishes, that will help or hinder you, depending on how you treat them. The story and your attempt to rescue Sandy change, depending on what teenager you choose and how you treat the things and people in the house.

Each of the possible stories in Maniac Mansion is a very big, complex puzzle, that again consists of smaller puzzles. From time to time movie-like sequences reveal hints about the story or show things, that happen somewhere else. If you discover smaller puzzles that form single threads of the story, you will notice that most of them need to be solved in a certain order. There are always several ways to approach a problem. But there is also always a best way.
Your task
Rescue Dave's girlfriend from the house of a crazy professor who kidnapped her and holds her captive in the horrible dungeons of the old villa. Don't let yourself get upset by tentacles, meteors, slime and jokes.

Maniac Mansion contains a graphic parser that is controlled by joystick and cursor, i.e. here elements of a sentence are clicked and this results in the desired command.
At the upper rim of the screen is the message line. Everything that is said in this game, will be shown in this line. Also game related notes are shown e.g.: Put in side 1 of the disk and press fire button. The two underlyind thirds show the surrounding, persons, items and everything that can be interacted with. In the lower third is a series of selectable verbs, with which you build sentences connected with the game world, e.g. "Pick up key" or "Use key in door". At the bottom there is the inventory, the things that you own.

In this adventure also "cut sequences" are used. These are short animated scenes - as scenes in a movie - that contain hints and can reveal information about persons. During a cut sequence you cannot interfere in the events. Hence the text below the graphic window is removed.
It is interesting, that you can form a team of three persons at the beginning. Dave (Sandy's boyfriend) is always in the team. So you can pick two more teenagers. You can win the game with any team, but the story and some of the puzzles will be different, depending on the combination of the members.
Hints

The main characters

Dave is the boyfriend of the kidnapped Sandy and leads the rescue mission	

Bernard is perfectly schooled at electronics and repearing old things, despite his egghead...

Jeff is actually a "Beach Boy" who only thinks of surfing...	

Michael is a passionate photographer!

Razor is singer in her own punk band "Razor and the Scummettes".	

Syd is a talented musician who wants to get to the top of the music branch!

Wendy is a young author who would give everything to make it big.	

Sandy is the girlfriend of Dave and was kidnapped by Dr. Fred who wants to get her precious brain.

Weird Ed is a militant youth with a hamster tic.	

Dr. Fred is a pensioned family doctor, since the meteor has impacted near him, he has mutated to a crazy scientist. He holds captive poor Sandy, to scamp around in her brains.

Nurse Edna is a former professonial caretaker, whose hobbies would even make a sailor blush.	

The Tentacle is the watchdog of Dr. Fred and wants to found an own tentacle band.

Special verbs and keys
To switch between the three players choose the word "New kid". The name of the three youths then appears in the line of the sentence. With the cursor click the name of the player, that you want to control. As a shortage you can also use the F-keys. F1  , F3   and F5   are the keys with which the teenager can be chosen. The keys are attributed in the same order, in which the names appear in the screen, when you work with "New kid".

What things are in a room, can be found out by clicking the verb "What is" and then moving the cursor over the graphics window. When then name of an object appears, you will know that this is an "active" item, i.e. somewhen in the game it might be useful.

To be able to switch off the computer once in a while without having to start the game again later, it is possible to save the game. For this you press the keys Shift   + F1   and put a save disk (an empty disk or a disk on which there is already a saved game) into the floppy. The you click onto the option "Save this Game". An existing saved game will be overwritten!! But this option doesn't work during the cut sequences. You can save only one game per save disk.

Loading a saved game works the same way. Press the keys Shift   + F1   and put a save disk (a disk on which there is already a saved game) into the floppy. Then click on the option "Load a saved Game". Also this option doesn't work during the cut sequences.
A cut sequence can be skipped by pressing the key F7  . This function will be very useful, when you have played the game repeatedly and want to leave out the known sequences. To skip the title sequence, also press the key F7  .

To pause the game press the Space   key. Press it for a second time, to continue the game. The computer will stop the game automatically, when you make no input for five minutes.
The cursor cahnges, when the computer accesses the disk or the game was stopped (snail symbol). The speed, with thich the texts appear in the message line, can be changed by pressing the keys +   (faster) and -   (slower).

 Solution

Tips for the start
Read the sign at the fence. Choose "Read" from the verbs and then click on the sign in the graphics window. The sentence "Read sign" forms. Then click on the sign once again (or on the sentence) to execute the command. Dave will then go to the sign and - over the message line - read to you what is written on it. Pay attention to his information.
Instruct Dave to go to the house by moving the cursor to the left rim of the screen and clicking once. Let him go further until he is standing in front of the house. Try the sentence "Open door with key" to get into the house.

Click the word "Open". The word then appears in the sentence line.
Then click on the door by moving the cursor onto the door in the graphics window and clicking on it. In the sentence line now the sentence "Open door with" appears.
Go with the cursor to the word "key" in the list below the verbs. Now click the word twice and the sentence will be completed and conducted.
What? You don't have a key? Well, where does one usually hide a key?

The solution methods
While a part of the game is always solved the same way, the solution of certain problems depends on the characters that have been chosen at the beginning, which have certain hobbies and with this certain skills. Altogether, there are, depending on the choice of the characters, four possible solutions:
Let the meteor get fetched by the space police
Remove the meteor yourself
Close a book contract
Close a record contract
The way to open the secret door

 Cheats

Caution! Spoiler! Freeing the prisoners: Two or more of the team sit in, but you don't have the necessary item - the key - to escape!? No problem! In the dungeon there is a loose stone in the wall. This opens the door when you pull it. The one who releases the secret mechanism cannot run quick enough to the door, as it closes instantly when letting the stone go. But at least he can tide over his friends, if they have been placed in front of the door.

Bug: If you have entered a room, where you are in danger of getting caught by a dweller, there is an unconventional way. You have to enter the room and go straight back (after somebody follows you or has talked to you) and then from the corridor directly back again into the room before your follower enters the corridor. It works very well to get nurse Edna out of the kitchen. When reentering the kitchen she will shortly come towards you, but instead of saying "Got you" she will suddenly dematerialize, because according to the time plan of the game she is already in the corridor and walked somewhere else after that.

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Description from the packaging:

His ambition was to rule the world... one teenager at a time.
Suddenly you're in the middle of a madcap adventure surrounding a meteor that crashed to the earth some 20 years ago.
Ever since it landed in the back yard of Dr. Fred and Nurse Edna's Victorian mansion, bizarre things have been happening.

First, their mutant son, Weird Ed, dropped out of school.
Then patients started disappearing from County Hospital.
And now this strange event is affecting the lives of innocent (and even some not-so-innocent) teenagers. In fact, a girl named Sandy is being held captive in that musty old mansion right now.
Sandy's boyfriend, Dave, has lots of friends who need your help to sneak in - and sneak her out. Now exactly how it all ends up depends entirely on which trio of friends you send in there. And which inhabitants you encounter.

In fact, the farther you get inside the mansion, the more weird characters you'll meet. There's Nurse Edna - who's as nasty as she is ugly. There's a disembodied Tentacle who wants you to make him a rock star. And a host of others, who all have their own crazy quirks you'll have to deal with.
Everyone in there seems to be working for Dr. Fred. But the question is: "Who is Dr. Fred working for?"
An adventure so compelling, you'll never want to leave...which is just what Dr. Fred wants. "Heh, heh, heh..."

A story of:
Love
Lust
Power
Greed
Wealth
Insanity
Burglary
Kidnapping
Rock 'n Roll Music
Nuclear Reactors
Electric Cattle Prods
Classic Automobiles
Microwave Ovens
Soft Drinks
Small Furry Animals
Strange Aliens
Sleazy Publishers
Late Night Talkshow Hosts
Mutants
Geeks
Punk Rockers
Postal Fraud
Obscene Phone Calls
Undeveloped Photographs
Medical Experiments
Radiation Suits
Purple Slime
and...

World Domination.


http://www.c64-wiki.com/index.php/Maniac_Mansion
