Difference between revisions of "Maniac Mansion"

Revision as of 21:52, 27 February 2021

Maniac Mansion

First release	1987
Also known as	MM
Developed by	Lucasfilm Games
Published by	Lucasfilm Games, Disney
Distributed by	Activision,U.S. Gold
Platforms	Amiga, Apple II, Atari ST, C64, DOS, NES
Resolution	320x200, 16 colors
Engine	SCUMM
Support	Since ScummVM 0.5.0
Available for Purchase	Yes

Maniac Mansion was the first game to use the SCUMM scripting language, which is in fact an acronym for Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion. The game follows Dave Miller and a group of his friends as they break into a strange mansion in an attempt to rescue Dave's girlfriend Sandy and stop the evil purple meteor from taking over the world. The game has a group of six characters to choose from (Dave must always be in your party), and multiple possible endings.

Game Variants

The DOS versions came in two variations, a 16 color EGA version and an "enhanced version" with higher resolution EGA graphics.

The Nintendo Entertainment System version featured additional music for cut-scenes and themes for each playable character. It also contained many changes from the original due to standards and practices at Nintendo, such as the removal of the statue on the second floor and the changing of several words Nintendo found inappropriate. The Famicom version of Maniac Mansion, released exclusively in Japan did not use the SCUMM engine.

Maniac Mansion is included in Day of the Tentacle. The English version contains the V1 DOS version while non-English versions are V2 DOS. If you have the Macintosh version of Day of the Tentacle you will need to extract the *.LFL files from the Day of the Tentacle Data file using 'extract_scumm_mac'.

Installation

Required data files

For more information on how ScummVM uses game data files, see the user documentation.

Amiga, Atari ST, Macintosh, PC

*.LFL

Apple II

Rename disk image 1 to maniac1.dsk.
Rename disk image 2 to maniac2.dsk.

Commodore 64

Rename disk image 1 to maniac1.d64.
Rename disk image 2 to maniac2.d64.

NES

Supported versions are English GB (E), French (F), German (G), Swedish(SW) and English US (U). ScummVM requires just the PRG section to run and not the whole ROM.

In order to get the game working, you will have to strip out the first 16 bytes from the ROM you are trying to work with. Any hex editor will work as long as you are able to copy/paste. After you open the ROM with the hex editor, copy everything from the second row (17th byte) to the end. After you do this, paste it to a new hex file. Name the new file "Maniac Mansion (XX).prg" while XX stands for the version you are working with (E, F, G, SW, or U). The final size should be exactly 262144 bytes.

If you add the game manually make sure that the platform is set to NES.

Most common mistakes which prevents the game from running:

Bad file
ROM extracted with the 0.7.0 tools
You try to feed ScummVM with the FULL ROM and not just the PRG section.

It is also possible to extract the separate LFL files from the PRG section. To do so use the 'extract_mm_nes' utility from the tools package.

Game languages

The following language choices are available when using command-line arguments or the "Language" option in the game-specific settings. For more information, see the user documentation

en - English (default)
de - German
fr - French
it - Italian
es - Spanish

External links

Wikipedia article on Maniac Mansion

@@ Line 53: / Line 53: @@
 *You try to feed ScummVM with the FULL ROM and not just the PRG section.
 It is also possible to extract the separate LFL files from the PRG section. To do so use the [[User_Manual/Appendix:_Tools#extract_mm_nes|'extract_mm_nes' utility from the tools package]].
-==Game languages==
+===Game languages===
 The following language choices are available when using command-line arguments or the "Language" option in the game-specific settings. For more information, see the [https://docs.scummvm.org/en/latest/settings/game.html user documentation]