Lucasfilm Games
Maniac Mansion

THE REVIEW

There are at least two reasons to consider Maniac Mansion a video game of fundamental importance: the first is that this product from Lucasfilm Games is very likely the precursor to the "point and click" puzzles easily found online, games with a low level of physical involvement (much to the joy of wrists and fingertips) that while they prevent the risk of epileptic seizures, on the other hand, they promote the onset of the Syndrome of Recreational Puzzles, an advanced stage of what psychiatric nosography calls "rincoglionimento praecox".

The second is that thanks to this avant-garde (in terms of graphics and content) video game adventure, gifted to me by a friend along with an old Nintendo console he no longer used, complete with chewed-up joysticks, my dependence on local arcade halls ended just in time to prevent my father from becoming, unwittingly, their most generous benefactor. Sure, it's undoubtedly positive that my father's wallet survived, but in terms of addiction, things didn't improve: the situation was equivalent to that of a user of illicit substances who stops buying on the street and instead has them delivered directly to the house.

Let's get back to the point. A house is indeed the setting for this Maniac Mansion. At first glance, it's a seemingly peaceful mega-family villa, inside of which a terrible secret and an unimaginable context hide. Everything has to do with the fall of a meteor in the garden of the house, which seems to have caused the immediate insanity of all the members of the Edison household: the caricatured Dr. Fred, his wife Edna, a lively and sexually uninhibited nurse (with undeniable similarities to Annie Wilkes from the contemporaneous novel "Misery"), and their beloved son Ed, a paranoid and antisocial soldier who has affection only for his hamster (an animal that will play an important role in solving the game). Twenty years after the mysterious event, Sandy is kidnapped with the aim of serving as a guinea pig for Dr. Fred's diabolical experiments...

Dave, her boyfriend, and two other friends chosen by the player, each with different abilities and fears that lead to a specific solution, must save Sandy ("before it's too late" is decidedly pleonastic!). Needless to say, hoping to be courteously received just by ringing the doorbell is not a smart move. Strategy is needed, and the situation outside and inside the house must be studied in every minute detail. Even the doorbell, therefore, will play its part, as you might (have) noticed during the course of the game. Inside the house, you will find many rooms, some even secret, and the risk of getting confused and feeling lost (like entering the same room three times in a minute without realizing it) is absolutely normal; what's less normal is the chance of encountering alien creatures in the form of uni-tentacles, hungry for inedible substances or eager to become a rock star. It's up to you to get them on your side.

The most entertaining aspect of the game, and revolutionary in some ways, is the mode of interaction. A series of verbs (give, take, pull, open, use, read, etc.) to combine with everything you think might lead you to the solution. No shootouts, fistfights, or frantic races. Just you, your brain, and its dark side (try experimenting with some combinations on the edge of voyeuristic perversion like "use WC")...

Will everyone live happily, content, and sane?