Day of the Tentacle, also called Maniac Mansion II: Day of the Tentacle, is a 1993 graphic adventure game created and published by LucasArts. It is the follow-up to the 1987 game Maniac Mansion. The story follows Bernard Bernoulli and his friends Hoagie and Laverne as they try to stop the evil Purple Tentacle—a thinking, separate tentacle—from taking over the world. Players control the three characters, solve puzzles, and use time travel to explore different historical periods.
Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer led the game’s development, their first time in such roles. They used some ideas from Maniac Mansion but did not include the option to choose different characters to make development easier. The game was inspired by Chuck Jones cartoons and the history of the United States. Day of the Tentacle was the eighth LucasArts game to use the SCUMM engine.
The game was released at the same time on floppy disk and CD-ROM. It received praise for its cartoon-style visuals and humor. More than 20 years after its release, Day of the Tentacle has been listed in rankings of top games and has been mentioned in popular culture. A remastered version was made by Schafer’s studio, Double Fine Productions, and released in March 2016 for OS X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Windows. An iOS and Linux version came out in July 2016, and an Xbox One version was released in October 2020.
Gameplay
Day of the Tentacle is a two-dimensional adventure game that follows the same style as the original Maniac Mansion. Players control characters by clicking with a computer mouse. To interact with the game world, players choose from nine options on the screen, such as "pick up," "use," or "talk to," and then click on an object in the world. This was the last game using the SCUMM system with the original layout, where the bottom of the screen showed a list of verbs and inventory. Later games, like Sam & Max Hit the Road, changed this layout to use a shorter list of verbs and a separate screen for inventory.
Day of the Tentacle uses time travel in many parts of the game. Early in the story, three main characters are split into different time periods because of a broken time machine. After solving certain puzzles, players can switch between these characters and explore different time periods. Some items can be moved between time periods by placing them in "Chron-o-Johns," special toilets that instantly transport objects. Other items are shared by leaving them in the past for future characters to find. Changes in the past affect the future, and many puzzles depend on time travel, aging items, or changing the timeline. For example, one puzzle requires sending a medical chart from the future to the past, where it is used to design the American flag. Later, the flag is used in the future as a disguise for a character.
The original Maniac Mansion game can be played inside Day of the Tentacle on a computer that looks like a Commodore 64. At the time of Day of the Tentacle's release, this feature was unique and not used by other games before.
Plot
Five years after the events of Maniac Mansion, Purple Tentacle—a monster created by Dr. Fred Edison, a scientist—drinks toxic waste from a river behind Dr. Fred’s lab. The waste causes him to grow flipper-like arms, gain much greater intelligence, and want to control the world. Dr. Fred plans to stop Purple Tentacle and his kind brother, Green Tentacle, but Green Tentacle asks for help from Bernard Bernoulli, a nerdy friend. Bernard goes to Dr. Fred’s motel with his friends, Laverne, an unusual medical student, and Hoagie, a roadie. They free the tentacles, and Purple Tentacle escapes to continue his plan to take over the world.
Purple Tentacle’s plans are perfect and hard to stop. Dr. Fred decides to use his time machines, called Chron-o-Johns, to send Bernard, Laverne, and Hoagie back in time to stop the machine that made Purple Tentacle, called the Sludge-o-Matic. However, the time machines break because Dr. Fred used a fake diamond instead of a real one. Laverne is sent 200 years into the future, where humans are enslaved and Purple Tentacle rules from the Edison mansion. Hoagie is sent 200 years into the past, where the motel is used by the Founding Fathers to write the United States Constitution. Bernard returns to the present.
To fix Dr. Fred’s plan, Bernard must find a real diamond for the time machine. At the same time, Hoagie and Laverne must power their machines. Hoagie asks Benjamin Franklin and Red Edison, Dr. Fred’s ancestor, to build a powerful battery for his pod. Laverne avoids being caught by the tentacles long enough to run an extension cord to her machine. The three use the time machines to send small items back and forth and change history to help each other.
Eventually, Bernard uses money from Dr. Fred’s family, earned from the game Maniac Mansion, to buy a real diamond. His friends then power their machines. The three reunite in the present. Purple Tentacle arrives, steals a Chron-o-John, and goes back in time to stop them from turning off the Sludge-o-Matic. Green Tentacle follows him in another pod. With only one Chron-o-John left, Bernard, Hoagie, and Laverne use it to chase the tentacles. Dr. Fred warns them not to use the pod together, referencing the movie The Fly.
When they arrive, they find themselves turned into a three-headed monster, their bodies merging during the trip. Meanwhile, Purple Tentacle brings many copies of himself from different times to stop the Sludge-o-Matic. Bernard and his friends fight the tentacles, turn off the machine, and stop everything from happening. When they return to the present, Dr. Fred finds they are not a monster but just stuck in the same clothes. He tells them to leave his house. The game ends with the credits showing a tentacle-shaped American flag, a result of their changes to history.
Development
After making several successful adventure games, LucasArts assigned Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer to lead the development of a new game. Both had previously helped Ron Gilbert create The Secret of Monkey Island and Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge. The studio believed Grossman and Schafer were ready to manage a project. They thought the pair’s humor matched well with that of Maniac Mansion and suggested they work on a sequel. Grossman and Schafer agreed and began production. Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, the creators of Maniac Mansion, worked with Grossman and Schafer during the initial planning and writing. The game’s budget was about $600,000, according to Schafer.
When planning the story, the four designers considered many ideas and chose one from Gilbert about time travel. They decided to focus on the Revolutionary War and the future. The Revolutionary War offered many opportunities to create puzzles, such as changing the Constitution to affect the future. Grossman believed that making large changes, like altering the Constitution, to achieve small personal goals captured the spirit of adventure games. The future setting allowed them to explore cause and effect without historical limits. Grossman and Schafer decided to reuse characters they found entertaining. They considered the Edison family "essential" and chose Bernard because of his "unqualified nerdiness." Bernard was a favorite character from Maniac Mansion and was chosen as one of the main characters. The other main characters, Laverne and Hoagie, were inspired by a Mexican ex-girlfriend of Grossman’s and a Megadeth roadie named Tony that Schafer met. Schafer and Grossman planned to use a character selection system like the first game but removed it early in development because it would have complicated the design and increased costs. They reduced the number of playable characters from six to three. Characters like Razor, Moonglow, and Chester were cut, but ideas for Chester later influenced new characters in the Edison family. Fewer characters made the game’s engine easier to manage for scripting and animation.
The team worked together to design the characters. They first discussed personalities, which Larry Ahern used to create concept art. Ahern wanted the art style to be consistent early in the process, unlike Monkey Island 2, where artists joined later and created a disjointed look. Looney Tunes animation shorts, such as Rabbit of Seville, What's Opera, Doc?, and Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century, inspired the design. The cartoonish style helped make characters more expressive with larger visible faces. Peter Chan designed the backgrounds, spending about two days per background to go from sketches to final art. Chan also used Looney Tunes as inspiration, aiming to copy the style of Chuck Jones and Maurice Noble. Ahern and Chan worked closely to ensure character and background art styles matched. They also invited Chuck Jones to their studio for input on the art. The cartoon style inspired other ideas, such as a puzzle based on a gag from a Pepé Le Pew cartoon. The artists spent a year creating in-game animations.
The script was written in the evenings when fewer people were in the office. Grossman found it the easiest part of production but faced challenges when working with others nearby.
With a time travel story, placing a bottle of wine somewhere could cause a bottle of vinegar to appear in the same spot 400 years later. This idea showed how actions in one time could affect another. Grossman and Schafer brainstormed regularly to create time travel puzzles and worked with the development team and other LucasArts employees. They identified puzzle problems and worked on solutions similar to how the game plays. Most issues were solved before programming, but some details were left for later. The staff created puzzles based on U.S. history, using famous events like George Washington cutting down a cherry tree to appeal to international audiences. Grossman researched the period to ensure accuracy, visiting libraries and talking to reference librarians. However, the studio took creative freedom with facts to fit the game’s design.
Day of the Tentacle includes a four-minute animated opening credit sequence, the first LucasArts game to feature such a sequence. Ahern noted that previous games used still images for credits, which only lasted a few minutes. With Tentacle, the team worried this approach would bore players, so they assigned Kyle Balda, an intern at CalArts, to create the animation. Chan helped design minimalist backgrounds to support the animation. The sequence was originally seven minutes long, showing the three characters arriving at the mansion and releasing Purple Tentacle. LucasArts designer Hal Barwood suggested shortening it, leading to the final version released.
The game uses the SCUMM engine, developed for Maniac Mansion. LucasArts had updated the engine over time, such as reducing the number of input verbs and using icons instead of text for inventory items. During development, the team discovered a limitation in the engine. Gilbert recalled the file size of the first game and decided to include it in the sequel.
Day of the Tentacle was the first LucasArts adventure game to include voice work on release. Initially, the game was not planned to have voices because CD-ROM usage was low at the time. However, as CD-ROM sales grew in late 1992, LucasArts general manager Kelly Flock suggested adding voice work to give the team more time to finish the game before the holiday season. Voice director Tamlynn Barra managed this aspect. Schafer and Grossman described how they imagined the characters’ voices, and Barra searched for audition tapes that matched their vision. She selected the best auditions for the roles.
Reception
Day of the Tentacle had some success in sales, with about 80,000 copies sold by 2009, according to Edge. Tim Schafer considered this better than his earlier games, the Monkey Island series, which did not sell well. The game received high praise from critics. Charles Ardai of Computer Gaming World wrote in September 1993 that calling Day of the Tentacle a sequel to Maniac Mansion was similar to calling the space shuttle a sequel to a slingshot. He liked the game's humor, interface, and the way it avoided traps that could not be solved or situations where the player's character died. Ardai praised the voice acting, saying it was as good as the work of Mel Blanc, a famous voice actor. He compared the game's humor, animation, and camera angles to classic Looney Tunes cartoons from the 1940s and 1950s. He concluded that the game would entertain people for a long time. In April 1994, the magazine said the CD version included performances, such as Bernard by Sanders, that were very creative, and noted that Chuck Jones, a famous animator, would be proud. In May 1994, the magazine said a multimedia kit that included the CD version offered more value than some competitors' full software packages. Sandy Petersen of Dragon magazine said the game's graphics had a colorful, cartoon-like style and praised its humor and sound. He called it one of the best graphic adventure games but noted it was very short, writing that he felt disappointed after finishing it. He encouraged Lucasfilm to make longer games in the future.
Phil LaRose of The Advocate said the game was much better than the original and praised its improved controls, sound, and graphics. He highlighted the interface and described the game as a high-quality LucasArts program that focused more on entertainment than technical requirements. Geoff Smith of The Boston Herald noted the cartoon-like characters had animation quality similar to television and praised the removal of traps and character deaths. He concluded the game was full of humor and worth trying for fans of light-hearted adventure games. Vox Day of The Blade said the game's visuals were well done and compared them to The Ren & Stimpy Show. He praised the humor, music, and sound effects, and highlighted Richard Sanders' voice acting as a strong point. He called the game both an enjoyable adventure and a funny cartoon.
Lim Choon Wee of the New Straits Times said the game's humor was very funny. He noted the puzzles relied on trial and error without clear logic but said the game remained fun. He called Day of the Tentacle "the comedy game of the year." Daniel Baum of The Jerusalem Post said it was one of the funniest and most entertaining computer games he had ever played and praised its animation. He said it felt more polished than earlier Monkey Island games but noted its high system requirements made it difficult to run without a Sound Blaster card. In a later review, Chris Remo of Adventure Gamers said Day of the Tentacle was one of the best examples of graphic adventure games.
Day of the Tentacle has been included in many "top" game lists. In 1994, PC Gamer US ranked it the 46th best computer game ever. In June 1994, it and Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers won Computer Gaming World's Adventure Game of the Year award. The editors said the game's smooth animation and strong story were highlights. In 1996, the magazine ranked it the 34th best game of all time, saying it outperformed its predecessor, Maniac Mansion, with its animation, story, and voiceovers. Adventure Gamers listed it as the top game in its 20 Greatest Adventure Games of All Time list in 2004 and ranked it sixth in its Top 100 Adventure Games list in 2011. The game appeared on several IGN lists, including rankings of 60 and 84 in 2005 and 2007, respectively. IGN included it in its top 10 LucasArts adventure games in 2009 and ranked the Purple Tentacle 82nd in its 2010 list of top 100 video game villains. ComputerAndVideoGames.com ranked it 30th in 2008, and GameSpot listed it as one of the greatest games of all time.
Legacy
Fans of the game Day of the Tentacle created a webcomic called The Day After the Day of the Tentacle, using the game's original graphics. The 1993 LucasArts game Zombies Ate My Neighbors includes a level that references Day of the Tentacle. The artists who worked on Day of the Tentacle shared an office with the team making Zombies Ate My Neighbors. The team added the reference because they often saw artwork from Day of the Tentacle during the development of both games. In describing what he called "the most rewarding moment" of his career, Grossman said that the game's writing and use of spoken and subtitled dialogue helped a child with learning challenges learn to read. In 2009, Telltale Games CEO Dan Connors said that making an episodic game based on Day of the Tentacle was "possible," but it would depend on the sales of the Monkey Island games released that year.
In 2018, a fan-made sequel called Return of the Tentacle was released for free by a team from Germany. The game copies the art style of the Remastered version and includes full voice acting.
Remasters
According to Kotaku, a remastered version of Day of the Tentacle was being developed by LucasArts Singapore before LucasArts was sold to Disney in 2012. Although this version was never officially approved, it used a special 3D-like art style and was about 80% complete, according to someone involved in the project. However, the game was put on hold shortly before LucasArts closed.
A remastered version of Day of the Tentacle was created by Schafer and his studio, Double Fine Productions. It was released on March 22, 2016, for OS X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and Windows. A Linux version and a mobile version for iOS were released on July 11, 2016. The PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita versions allow players to buy one version and play it on both systems, and they also let players save progress across devices. An Xbox One version was released in October 2020. The remastered game was offered for free as a PlayStation Plus title in January 2017.
Schafer said both LucasArts and Disney helped with the remaster, which followed a similar project for Grim Fandango, also remastered by Double Fine in January 2015. Schafer explained that when they first planned to remaster Grim Fandango, they did not intend to remaster other LucasArts games. However, after receiving strong support from fans for the Grim Fandango remaster, they decided to continue the effort. Schafer described obtaining the rights to Day of the Tentacle as a "miracle," helped by the fact that many people involved in legal rights had fond memories of the original games. A company called 2 Player Productions, which has worked with Double Fine before, made a short documentary about the Day of the Tentacle remaster. The documentary included a visit to Skywalker Ranch, where LucasArts originally developed its games and where many original files for the game were stored.
The remastered version of Day of the Tentacle keeps its original 2D cartoon-style artwork but redraws it at a higher resolution for modern computers. A team led by Yujin Keim updated the character art with help from Ahern and Chan. They used original sketches and recreated the style for modern graphics. Matt Hansen updated the background art to high resolution. Like the Grim Fandango remaster, players can switch between the original graphics and the high-resolution version. The game includes a simpler menu system and a command wheel similar to the one in Broken Age, but players can also use the original interface. The soundtrack was remade using MIDI files adapted to work with the iMUSE system. Players can listen to commentary from the original creators, including Schafer, Grossman, Chan, McConnell, Ahern, and Bajakian. The game also includes original sketches and final graphics from the game.
The remaster includes the fully playable version of the original Maniac Mansion, but no changes were made to that game-within-a-game.
Day of the Tentacle Remastered received mostly positive reviews. The PC version has an average score of 87 out of 100 on Metacritic. Reviewers said the game still feels charming, but some found the remastering work uneven. Richard Corbett from Eurogamer said the game was as well made as it was in 1993, but noted that some old graphics tricks, like background dithering and low animation speeds, were more noticeable on modern hardware. Jared Petty from IGN said the remaster was enjoyable and praised the improved graphics, but worried that the lack of a hint system, which was added in the Secret of Monkey Island remaster, might confuse new players. Bob Mackey from USgamer said the remaster avoided common issues in remastered games and felt "timeless."