The Big LucasArts Playthrough

[Zeusthecat]

I like that there is a pixel reserved the cat's butthole. I'll never forget that.

 

Zeus, your detailed posts are a living proof against the naysayers who exclaim adventure games are devoid of gameplay and are just a series of events the designers ask you to do to get to the next cutscene. I mean, just look at all of this.

 

I didn't notice. I'll have to stare at that cat butthole some more.

 

If that is what naysayers say then I could not disagree more with their perspective. I mean sure, you're pointing and clicking to do things but the interactivity of the environments combined with the verbs and items make it just as interactive as any other game in my opinion.

[SecretAsianMan]

I didn't notice. I'll have to stare at that cat butthole some more.

 

If that is what naysayers say then I could not disagree more with their perspective. I mean sure, you're pointing and clicking to do things but the interactivity of the environments combined with the verbs and items make it just as interactive as any other game in my opinion.

 

Pfft, all you're doing is moving the mouse on the screen and clicking.  That's boring.

 

Now excuse me while I go play this turret sequence...

[Zeusthecat]

I played some more last night and I'm so close now. I got the mummy up and through the window, painted his bandages red to trick the IRS guys into thinking he was Dr. Fred, and got Dr. Fred out of there. Then I used the funnel and gave him some coffee to wake him up. After a little conversation I was able to trick him into signing the contract, mailed it out with Hoagie, and ordered the diamond.

 

So I just have to figure out what I need to do with Laverne now. Unused items I have left are gum, white out, a hammer, a trophy (which only Laverne can use/give), a tiny sweater, and I think that's it. Of course, there is always the possibility that some of my other items need to be used again but for now I am focusing on the unused ones. Areas of interest that I haven't had too many interactions with are the attic with the mouse toy and cat, the pulley on the roof in the past, the lobby in the past with the mummy and his sweet hat, the ice machine in the present with the hamster, the ice machine in the future without the hamster, the room with the medula oblongator machine and microwave in the future, the room with purple tentacle in the future, the room with the Edisons in the future, and the cat stuck under the fence.

 

I've tried everything I can with the squeaky bed to distract the cat but I am unable to get him away from the mouse for long enough. I'm starting to think that based on what happened with the mummy in the present I should maybe try to hoist the past mummy up into the attic and onto the bed so he can distract the cat. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be any rope that I can use though. The rope that Bernard used seems to be gone and I can't send Laverne's extension cord back to use that. I'm going to keep pondering this though because it seems like the most likely solution considering the mummy has come into play in both other time periods and that pulley is still sitting there unused. I also still haven't had any luck freeing the Edisons. I can't fuck with their cards and none of them will take anything. The only other thing I can think to try with the hamster is to maybe get Ed involved somehow. I haven't tried giving him the tiny sweater yet. Maybe he will take it to use for his hamster and something magical will happen. I know it's a stretch but I'm totally stuck right now.

[Tanukitsune]

All I'll say it... Hoagie is stronger than he looks, he is a roadie after all.

[Zeusthecat]

Well shit, I guess if Bernard could pick up the mummy to put him on the bed then Hoagie is probably more than capable of toting him around.

[thorn]

The Edisons don't want to be freed. You have to 'encourage' them in some other way.

[Tanukitsune]

Have you examined the room where the cat is more closely, I'm pretty sure one of the things Hoagie says is a hint on what you could do. Same goes for the Edisons, one of them also gives you a hint on what to do.

 

That's the great think about Lucasarts games, they don't outright tell you what to do, but they don't leave in the dark either.Just by looking at items and hearing what they say about it and talking to people they give you the pieces of the puzzle, but never the direct solution.

[SecretAsianMan]

You should also look around where you think that hamster is.

[syntheticgerbil]

I can't tell if he was able to get the hamster yet or not. It seemed like it was a pixel hunting issue? I don't remember having problems.

[Udvarnoky]

All I'll say it... Hoagie is stronger than he looks, he is a roadie after all.

 

Tim has said, maybe in jest, that Hoagie and Ben Throttle are related, but I've always found a connection between he and Eddie Riggs to be more plausible.  There's an intriguing line when you have Hoagie look at the horse dentures where he references a fellow roadie named Eddie who  "eats raw sewage on stage."  No doubt a coincidence, but it's amusing to pretend Tim retroactively made that throwaway line a stitch in the fabric of some immane canon.

 

I can't tell if he was able to get the hamster yet or not. It seemed like it was a pixel hunting issue? I don't remember having problems.

 

I do recall that being a bit of an exercise in pixel hunting.

[Zeusthecat]

Day of the Tentacle completed! Total play time was around 11 hours and I completed it without any hints besides the few vague-ish ones that people posted here. 

 

It turns out I was overlooking two fairly obvious things. First, I discovered that I could "use" the squeaky mattress with the other one to switch them out, distract the cat from further away, and take the toy mouse. I can't believe I hadn't tried that yet especially considering that option was right there from the start. From there, I sent the toy mouse to Laverne and was stuck again for a few minutes when the cat wouldn't take it. Luckily I quickly noticed that I could interact with the fence and after trying the white out on it, the cat popped out from underneath and got a nice skunk stripe down its back. Then after it jumped on the roof I used the toy mouse to lure it down and then released the cat in the Edisons' kennel. Once the Edisons took off I was free to enter Dr. Fred's old lab and plugged the extension cord into the machine. The only problem was that hamster I was still missing.

 

The second thing I overlooked was exactly what SecretAsianMan pointed out (and I swear I didn't see your post until this morning). I had interacted with that ice machine as Bernard and Laverne in every way I thought possible but I somehow stupidly forgot to "Look At" it with Laverne. As soon as I did this the hamster appeared, I thawed him out with the microwave, put a sweater on him, and put him on the hamster treadmill. Laverne was then punched by a spring loaded boxing glove and the hamster ran into the mouse hole. Luckily I had made that vacuum appear earlier so I sucked him back out, threw him back on the treadmill, and finally got to see Laverne, Hoagie and Bernard reunited.

 

The last segment was pretty easy and hilarous. Once I saw that old purple tentacle could shrink me I knew I would probably need to get shrunk and go through that mouse hole between green tentacle's room and the suicidal conventioneer's room to pick up the bowling ball (since Hoagie would be strong enough to do that). As soon as that happened I ran down to the lab and threw the bowling ball at all the purple tentacles. Then after old purple tentacle showed up and shrunk me again I talked to him for awhile and finally convinced him to shrink Dr. Fred. This backfired and the beam reflected off his head mirror shrinking old purple instead. The game then concluded with old purple getting mailed off, the machine getting shut off, and everything returning to normal. And in true cartoon fashion, the kids found out they weren't really fused together but were just stuck in one outfit together.

 

So this game was really amazing. I thoroughly enjoyed every aspect of it and I thought just about every puzzle was really well designed. Almost every discovery made and every puzzle solved left me feeling satisfied. In my opinion, there were only two parts that were kind of frustrating and could have maybe been designed a bit better: having to close the door to get the keys and having to "look at" the ice cooler to make the frozen hamster appear. It's a super minor complaint in an otherwise superbly designed game. Walking away from this game I think the thing that impressed me the most was the writing and voice acting. Every character was voiced perfectly and every line of dialog was just dripping with creativity. And it is just amazing how they managed to design virtually every puzzle to fit perfectly within the theme of the game.

 

I think I can confidently say that this game blew my mind.

[Udvarnoky]

I have to reiterate how awesome it is to read your experiences with these classics.  And yeah, Day of the Tentacle is a high water mark - that game is put together like a watch.  I think you'll find your next installment of awesome, Sam & Max Hit the Road, to be comparatively less tightly designed, but it's still fantastic.  Not to re-adjust your expectations for the games that follow but at least as far as puzzle logc goes, I think you've just witnessed the zenith.

 

I envy you.

[Udvarnoky]

Bonus reflection: It's hard to believe that the Green Tentacle in this game and the prone-to-jealous-murder one who could alternatively rape you to death in Maniac Mansion could be the same character, but I guess these are the benefits of adroitly recasting the first game as a liberal adaptation of the real Edison family in the universe of DOTT.

[Zeusthecat]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that little incident. He did seem a little overly nice in this game, probably just to hide the fact that he is a sexual predator.

[syntheticgerbil]

Hahahaha, dirty Green Tentacle.

 

Yeah Zeus, thanks for writing all of this stuff, the Day of the Tentacle one so far has been the most fascinating. The way you write it out is so puzzle and logic focused that it makes the game's brilliance and insanity very apparent in how they go hand and hand. It's a fun read for more than nostalgic reasons. Bet Tim Schafer would get a kick out of reading your posts.

 

I mean, making a tentacle suit by swapping out the design for the American flag would most likely be a disaster in other adventure games, but the way DoTT frames the puzzle and drops hints through infectuous dialogue (you were having fun lingering around talking to Betsy Ross and taking in the problem through memorable inane conversation) pulls off such a puzzle without the player feeling pissed but instead smart. That's what every adventure game should strive to do.

[SecretAsianMan]

[Zeusthecat]

Man you guys are too kind. I feel super lucky to be able to share all of this with people here.

[Udvarnoky]

The Maniac Mansion protagonists re-imagined in the DOTT style:

 

[Tanukitsune]

Wow, you can tell which ones are edited sprites from Sam & Max.

[Ben X]

This is from that fan MM remake, right? The German one?

[Udvarnoky]

I don't know the origins; I swiped it off Reddit.

 

I remember that DOTT-style remake you're alluding to, though.  There's at least one other German remake in development, as well.  There always seems to be.

[Ben X]

Hmmm, the sprites are a little different: http://www.night-of-the-meteor.de/index.php

[Udvarnoky]

Oh wow, I didn't realize these were the same guys behind Maniac Mansion Mania.  Don't know if anyone's familiar, but using AGS somebody put together a starter pack that allows fellow Maniac Mansion fanatics to quickly make these bite-sized, self-contained adventure games that take place in the Maniac Mansion universe I remember participating in an English translation of one of the first episodes; a decade later people have apparently produced ninety of them.

[mikemariano]

Well, I just Google Image searched "OK let's go rescue Sandy!" in quotes and discovered what looks like Maniac Mansion recreated in Second Life.  With everything that goes along with that...

[Udvarnoky]

I do believe you're referring to Meteor Mess 3D, another German remake project.