Post subject: Maniac Mansion
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Anyone remember all the endings to this game? I remember there was an ending where you blow the whole place up, so you accomplish your mission but everyone dies in the proccess. Would you consider that an ending? To reach that ending would take ~2 minutes from the start of the game.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Post subject: Re: Maniac Mansion
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
Nach wrote:
I remember there was an ending where you blow the whole place up, so you accomplish your mission but everyone dies in the proccess.
Oh, this is when you enter some special number to the nuclear reactor. I don't consider this as a good ending. It's similar to the "despite your efforts, the future refused to change" ending in Chrono Trigger.
Post subject: Re: Maniac Mansion
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Bisqwit wrote:
I don't consider this as a good ending. It's similar to the "despite your efforts, the future refused to change" ending in Chrono Trigger.
But would you consider that as beating the game and accept a Maniac Mansion done in two minutes that way as a faster time?
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Post subject: Re: Maniac Mansion
Editor, Active player (297)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth
It could make a supplement.
Former player
Joined: 6/3/2004
Posts: 71
I think that's more of a 'Game Over' screen than an ending. The primary goal of the game is to rescue Sandy- obviously killing her isn't really 'completing the game'. Killing yourself moreso. I don't think it's very interesting at all to see a game over screen-- All you'd have to do to get that so-called 'ending' is have one person press the gargoyle, and the other person turn off the circuit breakers. And that's it, you get the 'ending'. 'Finishing' the game this way would be like trying to lose all of your lives as fast as you can in Contra. Sure, you might be able to kill yourself quickly, but is it worth it?
Arc
Editor, Experienced player (826)
Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 534
Location: Arizona
If you blow up the mansion, you get the message 'The house and everyone within a 5 mile (8 km) radius have been destroyed in a massive nuclear meltdown. The game is over. You lose, heh heh heh...' Getting past Purple Tentacle: 1. Calling the meteor police (Bernard) 2. Getting the contract (Wendy) 3. Helping Weird Ed (Michael) 4. Helping Green Tentacle (Syd/Razor) 5. Cutscene glitch (anyone) Good Endings: 1. Put the meteor in the trunk of the car and start it. 2. Kill Dave, then do #1. 3. Feed the Meteor to the plant. 4. Meteor Police grab the meteor. 5. Give the meteor the contract. 6. Same as #5 except call the Meteor Police before entering the lab. 7. Kill Wendy, then do #5. Bad Endings: 8. Kill all 3 kids. 9. Blow up the mansion.
Joined: 5/29/2004
Posts: 757
Arc wrote:
If you blow up the mansion, you get the message 'The house and everyone within a 5 mile (8 km) radius have been destroyed in a massive nuclear meltdown. The game is over. You lose, heh heh heh...' Getting past Purple Tentacle: 1. Calling the meteor police (Bernard) 2. Getting the contract (Wendy) 3. Helping Weird Ed (Michael) 4. Helping Green Tentacle (Syd/Razor) 5. Cutscene glitch (anyone) Good Endings: 1. Put the meteor in the trunk of the car and start it. 2. Kill Dave, then do #1. 3. Feed the Meteor to the plant. 4. Meteor Police grab the meteor. 5. Give the meteor the contract. 6. Same as #5 except call the Meteor Police before entering the lab. 7. Kill Wendy, then do #5. Bad Endings: 8. Kill all 3 kids. 9. Blow up the mansion.
So... out of all of these.. you're basically saying there's only 4 REAL/Good endings and some variations on them... 1. Meteor in Edsel's trunk and start her up 2. Meteor Police come and take away Meteor 3. Feed Meteor to Plant [which I'd LOVE to see] 4. Give the Meteor a contract I'd personally like to know what occurs when you do some of those variations though.. and what about the loose wallpaper death one? I can't seem to find the Nintendo Power article atm, but apparently you open the security door and just near by it in the next room with the stairs up to Green Tentacle, there's some loose wallpaper, to which if you pull, reveals a keypad... to which if you toy with... house goes kablooie soon after. Or am I losing my mind and imagining ever reading that? Mr. Kelly R. Flewin
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin Just another random gamer ---- <OmnipotentEntity> How do you people get bored in the span of 10 seconds? Worst ADD ever.
Emulator Coder
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
Mr. Kelly R. Flewin wrote:
and what about the loose wallpaper death one? I can't seem to find the Nintendo Power article atm, but apparently you open the security door and just near by it in the next room with the stairs up to Green Tentacle, there's some loose wallpaper, to which if you pull, reveals a keypad... to which if you toy with... house goes kablooie soon after.
That's the one I was referring to. It's in Nintendo Power Classified Information. I don't remember which issue though. Must be somewhere between 34 and 50.
Warning: Opinions expressed by Nach or others in this post do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or position of Nach himself on the matter(s) being discussed therein.
Joined: 3/22/2004
Posts: 95
Nach wrote:
I don't remember which issue though. Must be somewhere between 34 and 50.
issue 36, page 25: If you've had it with Dr. Fred and his whole wacky mansion, you can blow the entire house into smithereens in one easy step. The steel security door at the top of the steps leads to a hallway. Enter this hallway and investigate the wall just to the left end of the security door. You'll find a keypad near the left wall. "USE" the keypad four times and you'll trigger an explosion that will make the mansion go up in flames. This is no way to win the game, but it's a quick and easy way to see it end.
Joined: 6/4/2004
Posts: 284
I'm not sure, but the location of the keypad (by the Steel Security Door) reminds me of the copy-protection trick for the PC Maniac Mansion--to get by the door, you had to enter a combination which was found in the manual--mess up enough times, and the house goes ker-boom. Do you think this was a bit of nostalgia, since they couldn't include it here?
Post subject: Maniac Mansion in 9:58 by jeffc
Joined: 8/4/2020
Posts: 1
I found an old video file on my hard drive called "maniacmansion-tasv6-jeffc.avi". It's 9:58 minutes long and I think I downloaded it from this website back then, but I can't find this entry here. Was it deleted or did I download it from somewhere else? I'm about to delete this file if it's not worth archiving.
Jules
Any
Skilled player (1172)
Joined: 7/13/2015
Posts: 102
Location: California
It could be [367] NES Maniac Mansion by Arc in 07:51.80. The input file for that is marked v6, and the encode (which has been remade), is close to 9:58.
Samsara
She/They
Senior Judge, Site Admin, Expert player (2239)
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2822
Location: Northern California
"jeffc" is Arc, so that is the most likely result. I'm guessing it was downloaded in the very early days of the site. In any case, not worth archiving, but still an interesting little find.
TASvideos Admin and acting Senior Judge 💙 Currently unable to dedicate a lot of time to the site, taking care of family. Now infrequently posting on Bluesky
warmCabin wrote:
You shouldn't need a degree in computer science to get into this hobby.
Patashu
He/Him
Joined: 10/2/2005
Posts: 4044
It's been a billion years, and it looks like it's finally time - the Maniac Mansion TAS is improvable! https://www.speedrun.com/maniac_mansion_nes/run/m7202xez The WR in RTA timing is 5m29s. Arc's TAS by the same timing would be a 6m15s or so.
My Chiptune music, made in Famitracker: http://soundcloud.com/patashu My twitch. I stream mostly shmups & rhythm games http://twitch.tv/patashu My youtube, again shmups and rhythm games and misc stuff: http://youtube.com/user/patashu
Post subject: Remote Workout
eien86
He/Him
Judge, Skilled player (1874)
Joined: 3/21/2021
Posts: 262
Location: Switzerland
Patashu wrote:
It's been a billion years, and it looks like it's finally time - the Maniac Mansion TAS is improvable! https://www.speedrun.com/maniac_mansion_nes/run/m7202xez The WR in RTA timing is 5m29s. Arc's TAS by the same timing would be a 6m15s or so.
Amazing -- he works out with one kid, and the other gets the gains! I wish I could pay someone to go to the gym for me!