Surely there are not many games as influential as Maniac Mansionthe first modern graphic adventure from Lucasfilm Games that hit the market in 1987 with an irrefutable premise, such as allowing us to control three characters at the same time that they had to make their way through the interior of a gigantic house where one of the strangest families you have ever lived lived. Never. And all, not based on punches, shots or beat-em’up keysbut by choosing an action and an object to manipulate.
The first with SCUMM
Such was its importance that gave name to the graphic adventure engine devised by Lucasfilm Gamesand that would be the basis of his endless list of successes throughout the following years, until a little beyond the middle of the 90s. engine what came to mean Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion, that is to say, Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion and that allowed those responsible to devise a new graphic adventure saving a lot of development time. It was, so to speak, the algorithm that governed all the logic of phrases, actions, objects and puzzles of each new title.
Well, after a success that this year marks the 35th anniversary of its official premiere, a notice has just appeared on networks that has stopped the hearts of the most veterans of the place, but above all to lovers of the classic graphic adventures of Luke usually. Since Ron Gilbert, creator of some of the most recognized names in the history of video games (such as the first two Monkey Island either Maniac Mansion Day of the Tentacle) and is now engaged in Return to Monkey Islandhas gone to Twitter to drop a small idea that, obviously, has unleashed the madness of those who have enjoyed over the last three decades of this Maniac Mansion.
A remake…something bigger
What Ron Gilbert has posted, as well as whoever doesn’t want the thing, is that “it would be fun do a remaster of Maniac Mansion that had the same story and setting, but 50% new puzzles and maybe a new playable character. Are you in David “the Talking Skull” Fox?
It would be fun to do a Maniac Mansion remaster that was the same story and setting but 50% new puzzles and maybe a new playable character. you in @DavidBFox?
— Ron Gilbert (@grumpygamer) July 1, 2022
That person Ron Gilbert mentions is none other than the Lead Programmer Return of Monkey Island in which Ron Gilbert is still involved and that will arrive on PC and Nintendo Switch at the end of 2022, but also the designer of other great titles in the history of Lucasfilm Games / LucasArts such as Rescue on Fractalus (eye!), Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders and a small wonder from 1986 that was the first advance of what would be SCUMM with Maniac Mansion just one year later, the sensational labyrinth for Commodore 64. That without forgetting that he has also participated in that wonderful adventure that came out just five years ago called Thimbleweed Park.
Of course, Saying it on Twitter is not a bad way to take the pulse of what the street thinks, the users, who we are sure would applaud a decision of these characteristics if it ends up being confirmed. So it only remains to know what those who have the rights think about Maniac Mansion And if everything fits… why not relive the old adventures of the Edison family with Fred, Edna and their son Ed?
