Maniac Mansion 1987

Is it still worth playing?

Lucasfilm Games' 1987 graphic adventure for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, in which Dave Miller enters the Edison family's mansion to rescue his kidnapped girlfriend, Sandy Pantz. Her captor is Dr. Fred, a mad scientist brainwashed by a sentient meteor. It is point and click, with 15 action commands in a menu on the lower half of the screen. The party is the heart of it. You choose two of six friends to join Dave, each with unique abilities: Syd and Razor play instruments, and Bernard repairs appliances. Those abilities matter, since some puzzles need a specific character, so solutions vary with your party, and if one friend dies play continues with the others. Around the puzzles, cutscenes show events elsewhere, and there are several endings, though a dead end can force you back to an earlier save. Parties that change which puzzles can be solved still make a second run different today.