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.
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.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
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.
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?
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.
Joined: 3/9/2004
Posts: 4588
Location: In his lab studying psychology to find new ways to torture TASers and forumers
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.
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.
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?
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.
Joined: 11/13/2006
Posts: 2823
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
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.