Maniac Mansion / Day of the Tentacle
Alongside Sam & Max Hit the Road, these were my favourite games ever. Its yet another franchise I think LucasArts neglect. Who would like to see Telltale work some episodic magic on the Maniac Mansion series if Sam & Max is successful?
Some 3D art to give you an idea of what it could be like:
http://www.christerb.com/?page_id=21
Tom
Some 3D art to give you an idea of what it could be like:
http://www.christerb.com/?page_id=21
Tom
Sign in to comment in this discussion.
Comments
By the way, I love those 3D images.
Grim-Fandango crossover?
Hell no. It'd have to be an action game.
Glottis vs. Ted vs. Sam in a kart-race spectacular?
You'd better believe it. Set to some "phat choons" and littered with explosions, violence, sex, gore, drug abuse and rock'n' roll. Ted would be one of the more useless characters as all he can really do is be propped upon the accelerater. No steering. And Sam would have to keep stopping because Max would have to go to the toilet or stop and see stupid road-side attractions.
Don't get me wrong, there should still be tributes to the classics and updates, but that is only half the equation.
i agree with all my heart !!!!!
i want some new and original stories !!!
they should be in the vein of those old stories with wacky, absurd
and total outrageous humor, maybe even more mature
(monty python ?) and some good art-style. I dont care if it's 2D or 3D.....
2D still could have its place in adventure games. use the gpu-power for antialiasing and really detailed art as opposed
to the more clinical, shiny, sterile lookin 3D-art of today.
Woop!
To avoid it being the same game it would have to be completely different.
It's like giving a sequel to a Tim Burton film (Nightmare, Sleepy Hollow). It won't work unless it's a rehash.
The major characters of Day of the Tentacle are alive at the end of the game. Maniac Mansion III would probably not deal with a crazed tentacle taking of the world, but it would probably feature much of the same humour, style and characters. It's not like there's some central theme that would be undermined if a sequel was created. Since the first game was just the mansion, the second was about the mansion in different eras, I suppose the third one would be about the mansion in various parallel universes. There'd be a pretty good story to eke out of that premise.
For what it's worth, I actually think DOTT is a better game than Sam & Max Hit the Road. It's not nearly as funny, of course, but... Well, it's kind of like comparing Lord of the Rings to Airplane, if you know what I mean.
Although the Sam & Max revival has far more potential than a DOTT revival, don't get me wrong. Not that we can't have both.
Day of the Tentacle and Sam and Max were definitely not as dissimilar as Lord of the Rings and Airplane. Not even close.
As for which one's better, I think Day of the Tentacle more varied settings, three different characters, and slightly more sensical puzzling made it the better game. But you're right. I'd rather have a Sam and Max follow up, because I think the duo are among the most delightful ever conceived.
It's a stand-alone game! I played it before playing Maniac Mansion, and didn't suffer one bit for it. Aside froma couple f in-jokes there's really nothing in MM that's needed to be known to play / enjoy DOTT.
Everything would be compared to DOTT instead of Maniac mansion if a 3rd game was conceived. I just can't see it working.
Plus the original voice actor's would most definatly not return causing mass hysteria.
I cringe thinking about someone imitating the characters. Especially Lavern.
It's got actual screenshots from their game that look pretty decent. They're pretty much redone rooms from the original. Most of them are too bright but it's cool to see them in a higher resolution.
It seems they added a few cameos from other classics in there too.
http://www.dott2.de/
Popularity? Eh, so what? It's still the second game in the series. It's not like the story is untouchable.
The comparisons, eh? What about Majora's Mask, then? That game wasn't sunk by comparisons to the incredibly acclaimed Ocarina of Time.
If not having the original voice actors in a sequel to a popular graphic adventure game caused mass hysteria, why haven't we seen any since the release of Sam and Max: Episode One? Well, the voice acting was actually appropriate, for one...
I would absolutely love to play another MM/DOTT game too.
And the more in-jokes with both Maniac Mansion and DOTT the better. I especially would love to see references to the first one, and maybe even to its characters (Razor anyone?
I found the art linked by the thread opener very enjoyable, and the idea of parallel dimensions' mansion is intriguing.
Bernard and the tentacles are of course irremissible.
To have it playable with different set of charactes, like Maniac Mansion, would be awesome, but I'm not sure how well this would fit in the TT's episodic model.
The Great Cow Race showed us that it would fit PERFECTLY.
I mean, the episodic format allows to switch between characters as well as a full-lenght game as DOTT.
Also, I think that the possibility to use different characters makes things and puzzles a bit more interesting, and that's VERY important for games that are supposed to be so short.
DOTT in 3D. Did you check that dude's 3D renders of Bernard and the portapotty? MAN that was great! I reckong he should get a contract with Telltale to work soley on DOTT. He'd ROCK!
You know, that guy let me think a lot with those renders!
Imagine if someone/some company had the guts, money and time to re-style in 3D some of the masterpieces we all love.
That would probably attract young gamers who never tried those games because they're "old and with bad graphics".
And this would mean a huge number of new graphic adventure fans and a new youth for this kind of games.
It may sound crazy, but it's becoming usual to remake old games in a modern style (though WITHOUT CHANGING ANYTHING in the plot or whatever).
That's EPIC brother.
Yeah, I never played FF7 so the movie was confusing. Things were just.... happening....
They're going to have to do more than that. Fixing the gameplay and the translation might even make the game as high quality as everyone suggests it is.
Day of the Tentacle is an odd game to put on a pedestal. Some of those puzzles were just utterly incomprehensible. It could be improved.
To what? I know some puzles were more or less "try using all items in your inventory with that item" ... but that's the fun in it! An updated version would be a story guided advanture... whitch is not the case in DOTT...
So if telltale gets big enough or rich enough and the experince of what people like. I hope we get more of the good Point and click games but in there normal Full Version..
Trial and error is not fun. It's a long, drawn out process that involves little thinking, and a whole lot of legwork.
Trail and error is VERY FUN.. so dont play it. There is a reason why it was go great. And many other more complex adventure games failed..
Yeah. I'm not sure how you could possibly have a mental construction that enjoys trial and error, but if you do, realize you're in a tiny minority. Believe it or not, most adventure game fans would rather have something that forces them to think.
And if I stopped playing every game I had a problem with, I wouldn't ever play a videogame.
The logic of this statement just doesn't really make sense... here is how I interpret it: trial and error is very fun; more trial and error = more complex; more complex = more likely to fail.
Anyway, one major point that just needs to be made:
If the old design and model of adventure games were so successful, why did fewer and fewer consumers buy them? Yes, there is still a group of hardcore adventure game players, but you just need to look at recent history to realize that this group is a minority of consumers that is not enough to make such games as profitable as they can be. The "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" argument really needs to be retired.