A Bit About Making Maniac Mansion

Over at the Grumpy Gamer site, Rob Gilbert is reminiscing a bit about the making of Maniac Mansion, prompted by a YouTube video depicting a 9 minute speed run for the game. "I found it fascinating to watch this video. It's was like thumbing through an old family album of childhood photos. Memories long forgotten are jarred to the surface by the smallest of details. An old and forgotten toy. The front grill of your fathers car. Things you could never have remembered if you tried become so clear they could have happened yesterday. I'd see little things like Dave hitting the edge of the porch, turning around, then walking forward and then continuing on his way. I remember this from development. It was a weird bug having to do with the walk-boxes that told the character where they could walk. I knew how to fix it, but it would have broken oh-so-many of other things. It always drove me crazy that he did that." Many thanks to Mr. Gilbert for his work on the game; Bernard's Theme still pops into my head every once in a while for no particular reason.

Re:Why MM?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ron Gilbert made Monkey Island too, but Maniac Mansion was the first game to use the SCUMM system that the later games like Monkey Island, Loom, Zak McKraken etc. were based on. It was new and special at the time it was made, so that's the game people remember first. The Broken Sword games weren't made until years later when point 'n click was an established genre.

Re:Why MM?

[BumBiscuit]

What is it about Maniac mansion that so many people remember stuff from? We never hear this kind of thing about Broken Sword or Monkey island, so why does this one game seem to have talkative developers?

Because it was the first of its kind.

Sierra On-Line broke a lot of ground with the King's Quest games, but those early Sierra games required a combination of arrow keys and typed verb-noun phrases. Maniac Mansion was the first completely point-and-click adventure; all others, including Broken Sword and Monkey Island (another Ron Gilbert game, by the way) sprung from its fertile loins.

Incidentally, that's also why the subsequent LucasArts games run on an engine called SCUMM. It stands for "Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion."

Re:Why MM?

[Runefox]

SCUMM - Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion

This is why people care so much for it - It was the first to use the engine, which has gone on to be used in such games as you mention.