LucasArts Day of the Tentacle Remastered

[J_C]

What for? The remake will contain the original assets as well, plus a few convenient features if the one would like to use them.

The point I'm failing to make is that this was a wholly unnecessary exercise designed to make money rather than to do something useful like make a new game. The original game was fine, and the convenience you are after could be obtained by using scummVM. The whole remastering process was utterly unnecessary. The fact that they could have given us the original (for free - it's 20 years old for god's sake) but rather would tart it up a bit for MONEY shows exactly where their priority lies.

And don't try and tell me that Tim is an artist and wants to show people his true vision. I call Lucas on that.

Of course this is about the money. But regardless of Tim's intentions, this remaster is still quality work and can be useful for those who want to own the game and maybe haven't played it before.

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Which game will play in Ed Edison's Computer?

 

[Sizzle]

Which game will play in Ed Edison's Computer?

Thimbleweed Park?

 

[Astral Rag]

Spacebase DF-9

 

[Darth Slaughter]

Spacebase DF-9

Yuck!

 

[taxalot]

I hear you'll still be able to play the original Maniac Mansion.

 

[Taluntain]

Remastering that would actually be far more interesting.

 

[Haba]

Remastering that would actually be far more interesting.

More like "censoring", that game is way too problematic for modern audiences.

 

[Infinitron]

Steam page is up: http://store.steampowered.com/app/388210/

 

[Infinitron]

Hand-wringing from John Walker: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/03/21/day-of-the-tentacle-remastered-review/

Wot I Think: Day Of The Tentacle Remastered
John Walker on March 21st, 2016 at 12:00 pm.

It’s frightening to realise that Day Of The Tentacle Remastered [official site] is a reworking of a game that’s been in my top five games since I first played it, a whopping 23 years ago. And a game that for the better part of the last decade, has been near impossible to buy or play. With Double Fine’s Remaster updating or restoring its graphics, music and sound, at the very minimum what we have here is a purchasable, playable version of the original game. On top of that, you can now play it in wide- and full-screen, with a smartly reimagined interface, much improved music, and the voices crystal clear without all the hissing and bubbly weirdness that affected the original CD-ROM version of the game. Which is to say, if anyone doesn’t like any of the changes they’ve made, they can switch them off and they’ve absolutely nothing to complain about. Which is neat. Here’s wot I think:


But what if you’ve never heard of DOTT? As upsetting as that is to me, let me précis: Bernard, Hoagie and Laverne are three college students who go to the mansion of mad scientist Dr. Fred on the invite of their friend, Green Tentacle. His brother, Purple Tentacle, has consumed toxic sludge and become super-intelligent, and now plans to take over the world.

On arriving it appears the only way to stop this from happening is to turn off the Sludge-O-Matic machine yesterday, so the trio are put in Dr. Fred’s time machines, the Chron-O-Johns. Except a cheap diamond in the machine means things go horribly wrong, with Hoagie appearing 200 years in the past, and Laverne 200 in the future. Bernard remains right where he started.

This opens up the premise of time-based puzzles alongside the regular inventory puzzles that made up the bulk of LucasArts adventures. Objects can be passed between the three by flushing them down the Chron-O-Johns, as Hoagie attempts to find a way to harness electricity in the company of the USA’s founding fathers and their struggle to create a constitution, while Laverne is imprisoned by the tentacle overlords and must find a way to escape.

What was (and very much still is) a very funny, very well written story of complete nonsense, is made magical by the use of time. If you need vinegar, say, then find a way to hide a bottle of wine in the past, and discover it in the future. If there’s a tree in the future that’s iny your way, chop it down in the past. And if that involves writing in requirements that all Americans have vacuum cleaners in their basements into the constitution, or changing the US flag into a tentacle costume, then so be it.

It was a sequel to an even earlier adventure game, Maniac Mansion, set five years later and making numerous in-joke references to the previous game. (References that in 2016 are even more confusing.) And it famously included that original game on a computer within itself. To clear up any doubt: no, sadly, they’ve not secretly also updated Maniac Mansion – it’s there, but it runs in its EGA pixel glory.

But despite this, it’s barely dated. The three core stereotypes – nerd, hippie-chick and roadie – still very much exist, and the Chuck Jones-inspired cartoon approach created something resistant and timeless.

So how do you modernise a game with an interface as dated as DOTT’s? The answer is, really smartly. DF have been extremely clever about how they’ve approached updating the interactions, letting the player choose their preferred iteration. If you want to insist on laboriously clicking on verbs from the bottom third of the screen, you can switch back to the original look of the game at any time. If you want the game to smartly pick relevant verbs for what you’re clicking on, then you click the right mouse button for a contextual graphical verb wheel. (These aren’t stingy, either – some objects have nine options.) If you want to deliberately choose irrelevant verbs to see if you can find any of the millionty-five hidden gags, then you can scroll the mousewheel for your cursor to change to each verb in turn, then mouseover anything in the screen to build a floating sentence. Scroll for “Open”, then roll over a hamster for, “Open hamster”, and then click to try that.

They’ve… done a great job. It looks like – well, it looks like what the game looks like in my memory, rather than the pixelly blur it truly was. If you’re like me, you’ll spend the game obsessively hitting F1 to switch between the original and new graphics, refusing to believe they were ever so crude, and wondering at how your memory had already done all this hard work for Double Fine earlier.

The update is so faithful to the original/using the same code that the character’s mouths still move in the same daft way that makes it look like they’re only ever saying, “Ooobeedoobiee”. Animations are identical, right down to Bernard still taking that inexplicable route between two adjacent doors on the second floor of the mansion, and Laverne still walking like she’s being electrocuted.

Of course, your mileage may vary, and whether you’ll like the simply shaded ‘Flash animation’ look they’ve gone for is entirely in your hands. For me, it mostly feels appropriate, and in many cases looks just right. In other places I think a lot of texture is lost – one good example is Hoagie’s chatting with the horse. The original looks far more detailed and complex, while the update appears very slapdash and simplistic. It’s a weird mix of this, some scenes looking very blank now, others looking just like they ought.

I’ll be absolutely fascinated to know how people who’ve never played DOTT feel about this game. I’m in the odd position of replaying a game I’ve replayed so, so many times, meaning that the puzzle solving is more by muscle memory at this point. And even then, I’ve reached points where I’ve not remembered what needs doing next in any of the three timelines, and had to stumble around for a bit. It’s interesting to see how – as was normal for the early 90s – there are few great flashing neon signs telling you what to do next. The complexity, and the freedom to do so very much of the game in the order you choose, is a little daunting 23 years on.

And they seem to know it, too. There’s a little knowing nod when Hoagie cleans the carriage to create a storm, with an achievement popping up saying, “Obvious. Really.” It’s interesting that there’s an appreciation that some of the puzzles were perhaps a little… unflagged (although, let’s be fair, Hoagie mentions how dirty it is a bunch of times, but then again, gathering all the items to clean it is hardly common sense nor encouraged), but they’ve also chosen not to include a new hint system at all.

They’ve kept actual changes to a complete minimum, beyond aesthetics and controls. And I wonder if that was necessarily the best idea. I think this could have been an opportunity to make a few tweaks that would make the game slightly more amenable – most obviously, I’d suggest, would be an instant access to the Chron-O-Johns, rather than having to laboriously walk each character to them in order to exchange items. An assumed walk, an interface shortcut for this, would make the game far smoother to play, and indeed encourage more experimentation from those who might resort to a walkthrough rather than so arduously traipsing back and forth to try one item at a time.

But then at the same time, what if they changed a bit I especially liked?! Then there’d be righteous uproar.

And gosh, there’s so much to like here. It’s fair to say some gags have lost their impact on me, so familiar am I with them all. But others still hit every time. I love that the tumble dryer with the jumper dings when Laverne walks into the room – that’s always great. I love that Dr. Fred is literally wrapped in red tape when the IRS show up, forcing a puzzle that involves painting a mummy. I love the voices, the beats, the number of puzzles involving false teeth, and if that wasn’t George Washington’s real accent, then I don’t want to know.

I still adore this game. It’s still the smartest, most elegant, most entertaining adventure game ever made. And now, if you want, it looks new and sounds amazing. Not having Laverne sound likes she’s underwater is a real joy. More could have gone into adding detail to particular scenes, and I think the extra effort of implementing a hint system would have opened the game up to many (having written a complex hint system for a remastered adventure game, I can tell you it’s not really that much work). But when your starting point is, “Day Of The Tentacle is playable again!” then you really have to work hard to complain. I love what they’ve done here, I love that there’s a commentary with the original creators (although it’s a little sparse), and I love that this could make DOTT a game enjoyed by a whole new generation. It certainly deserves to be.

 

[Infinitron]

Edit: OMG, I never, ever knew you could just click items on their portraits. In 23 years, I never knew. Good grief, I’m such an idiot. Thank you to Richard Cobbett for pointing this out!

He deleted my comment pointing this out.

 

[Infinitron]

And now Cobbett himself has a review: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2016-03-21-day-of-the-tentacle-remastered-review

Day of the Tentacle Remastered review
Get suckered in.

A welcome opportunity to return to one of the all-time greats, even if the remaster doesn't hit the same heights as the adventure.

By Richard Cobbett Published 21/03/2016 Version tested PC

Day of the Tentacle isn't just arguably the best adventure ever made, but the Platonic Form of the genre in all its puzzle-solving, dialogue-tree ripping, twisted brain logic joy. It might not be the most exciting, nor has it the best story - it lacks the drama that intersperses Monkey Island's comedy, and even Sam and Max has more bite. And hey, maybe your tastes lean towards Tex Murphy or Quest For Glory rather than puzzle-box adventures that pit you against the designers' fiendish imagination. That's cool and understandable and indeed totally groovy.

If, however, you think of the genre in terms of puzzles and comedy and those sudden moments of insane realisation that leave you sneaking to the computer at 2am on a school night, then I'm calling it. Day of the Tentacle isthe best adventure game ever made. Ever. It is artistry in point and click form; a pitch-perfect example of how to make cartoon logic feel coherent, how to have a game full of dialogue that never outstays its welcome, and how to make it all feel utterly effortless.

Here's the premise: having drunk its fill of mutagenic sludge, courtesy of mad scientist Doctor Fred's Sludge-O-Matic machine - a device that exists solely to pollute a nearby river, because if he didn't have something like that in his lab the other mad scientists will laugh - evil Purple Tentacle sets off to conquer the world. It's too late to just run after him, apparently, so instead Doctor Fred comes up with a simpler solution - have three teens go back in time to yesterday and just switch off the machine before everything goes where hentai can only dream of.

There's an amusing bit in the director's commentary about having to stop the artist adding ladders, hammers etc to backgrounds - stuff players would demand to pick up.

Unfortunately the fake diamond at the heart of his time-machines - three converted toilets called 'Chron-O-Johns', of course, straight out of Palace Hill or every other Doctor Who parody - goes wrong. Geeky Bernard stays in the present. Dumb but resourceful roadie Hoagie ends up 200 years in the past, where Doctor Fred's mansion is conveniently host to the US Founding Fathers as they work out the Constitution. Finally, psychotic medical student Laverne ends up 200 years in the future, a world ruled by Purple Tentacle, and his army of squelching minions. It's your job to fix their time machines and bring them back to the present. Or 1993. Whichever's closer.

Day of the Tentacle's genius is in the casual but meticulous interlocks between these time zones and each teen's quest. A basic example. Hoagie, in the past, needs vinegar to power a battery. In the future, Laverne finds a bottle of wine. She sends it back to Hoagie, who puts it into a time-capsule, so that it returns to the future four hundred years later, and then sends it back to him. Sorted. And that sound you can hear is the space time continuum weeping.

I won't spoil any more puzzles, but almost all of them have a similar spark of genius. Many comedy puzzle games fail because they assume that anything goes. Day of the Tentacle doesn't. It primes the logic, in dialogue options and descriptions and call-backs (and call-forwards) in the different timezones. It layers them, from having dialogue options where Bernard wonders what evil Purple Tentacle is up to with a list of things that you end up doing during the game, to cut-away gags that casually drop a clue in a slightly different context so that you still get to feel smart for making the connection. Only very occasionally does it go just a little too far into cartoon logic, moments easily forgotten next to all the other instances of finger-snapping brilliance when you finally figure out what a clue was getting at. Written down, yes, most of the puzzles sound utterly insane. On screen, there's always a train of logic.

A perfect disguise. Sold with utter conviction.

And it's funny. That might sound obvious, but I'd argue that some LucasArts games get a little over-rated in that respect. The first Monkey Island, in particular, is charming, warm, wonderful and I love it immensely, but genuine laughs are few and far between. Day of the Tentacle still has them. It might be more spartan than you remember, with a lot of its animation having been designed to be quick, and fit on on floppy disks. But it works. Every visual gag earns its place, and while not every spoken joke lands, it's got a pretty good hit rate in all three time-zones. Just a character's grin can be enough to sell a line, especially when it's Laverne's 'slasher-in-training' one, with incidental animations like Hoagie's inability to squeeze through small spaces without a big fatty 'plop' effect on his gut.

Day of the Tentacle is, in short, fantastic. It's a crime that it's taken so long to even be legally available again, with or without this edition's all new remastered version.

And here's where things go a little south. First things first though, you don't actually have to care. Like the ghastly Monkey Island remaster, and the somewhat less ghastly Monkey Island 2 one, both of which I thought took wonderful original art and committed war crimes against it, you can play Day of the Tentacle in its original form just fine. You can also have the old verb interface (rather than pop-up icons when selecting something) with the new graphics, the new graphics with the new music, or any other variant you want. So, it's fine. It's all good.

The remastering is a bit disappointing though, especially in motion. The new higher resolution sprites show off just how few animation frames Day of the Tentacle actually has, and neither sprites or backgrounds are quite up to snuff. The original game is Chuck Jones by way of pixels, and it still more or less holds up. This feels like that and all the compromises that had to be made to pull it off in 1993 just vectorised from the original, upscaled and slightly retouched, which wouldn't be a problem if the word that didn't keep coming to mind was 'just'.

If in doubt, ask yourself 'What would Bugs Bunny do?' If it involves time-travelling and evil tentacles, you're probably onto a winner.

Take the shading on backgrounds. Day of the Tentacle features lots of it to round out the scenery and help make everything feel chunky and rounded, but being restricted to 256 colours back in the day inherently meant it was going to be banded and dithered. The new versions however copy that banding exactly, looking like a 16-bit image file dropped down to 8-bit, and more importantly, really cheap. Likewise, character designs and levels of detail designed to look strong in about as much pixels as the average favicon tend to look cheap and amateurish when simply made bigger. Characters with dots for eyes are everywhere, along with inconsistent Flash style line-work, overly simple faces that are less Family Guy quality than something that Family Guy would mock, and no new shading or other techniques applied to make them look anything other than flat.

Once again, it stands as an example that just redrawing something in HD isn't enough to make it modern. The original backgrounds, coloured with marker pen, have so much more texture and consistency and sense of place. I'm not saying the new graphics are terrible. It looks fine. The backgrounds hold up, and I appreciate the attempt. But it feels cheap; a straight-to-DVD Disney sequel compared to the original. That still impresses for what the original artists pulled off within incredibly tight limits. The update constantly cries out to have been taken a bit further.

As for other changes, they're better. The music is good, and the new updated icon interface is comfortable enough that I soon stopped using the old verb screen entirely. The audio is straight from the original game recordings, cleaned up and at a higher bit-rate. It sounds great, especially if you've heard the somewhat scratchy CD version recently. The only catch is that some cut-scene lines seem to have been merged and so lose sync with the on-screen text. It only happens occasionally, but - like a graphical issue where Laverne's head suddenly goes flat because she's poked a pixel or two out of her sprite-sheet - it's itchingly notable.

The big new feature is a Director's Commentary that makes for good listening too, and while I'd have liked more, I could happily listen to hours and hours of deeper-dive discussion into this game and how it was made. Sometimes it kicks in during important cut-scenes if you don't switch it off though, and being room based in a game that doesn't have the travel of most adventures means that you'll probably hear it all pretty early on. I'd have liked a few more nodes to unlock later, and, as with Grim Fandango, a proper subject description rather than just 'press the key to listen'. You also unlock concept art throughout the game just by wandering about.

There's no hints system in the game and no walkthrough, though those aren't exactly hard to find. This version does add a handy helper though that will flag up usable items in the room. Day of the Tentacle isn't a pixelbitching heavy game, but occasionally things can be overlooked when stuck and wandering around three versions of the same house in different time zones. There are of course also now achievements, which pop up with pretty tiresome regularity.

Finally, yes, you can still play the original version of Maniac Mansion within Day of the Tentacle. It's completely untouched from the original (a shame - it would have been cool to see LucasArts settle its feud with the Maniac Mansion Deluxe creators or similar and package a remastered version of that game too), but for some reason you're not allowed multiple saves - just one autosave baked into your current game. The original Maniac Mansion on C64 only offered one save too, but a) time has very much moved on since 1987 and b) Maniac Mansion is one you want multiple saves for, both for its many paths and it being one of the few LucasArts games where you can die. At least there's always ScummVM if you want to play it on PC/Mac.

As for Day of the Tentacle itself - remastered or not, it's great to have it back. There's always a risk with games like this that nostalgia can overload everything or that rose-tinted glasses don't work as well up close, but in this case, neither is the case. It's every bit as well crafted now as it was in 1993. I won't say that it'll ignite a new love for the genre if you don't already have it. Adventures are what they are, and they're not for everyone, especially one that leans this far towards traditional puzzles instead of even as much story as the original Monkey Island. Go into it expecting it to blow your mind or convert you and you'll probably be disappointed - though at the same time, hopefully amused and pleasantly brain-tickled.

More than most games though, this is a piece of art history - the defining game of its genre, still demanding respect regardless of what came later or how tastes changed. Now or maybe even two hundred years in the tentacle future, it'll still be a fine answer if you ever find yourself asked what's the best adventure game of all time.

 

[Turisas]

Can't wait to stab that clown again. That smug sonuvabitch.

 

[Taluntain]

Ha Ha Ha

 

[Sceptic]

I read Walker's review up until the point where he brings up the washing the carriage puzzle, and couldn't continue because I collapsed in despair.

Let's run through this shall we.
1. It's a pretty well known superstition fact in the ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD that washing your car immediately and automatically results in pouring rain.
2. On the exact same spot where Hoagie finds the carriage, Bernard finds a really dirty car with "wash me" written through the windshield's dirt
3. If Bernard looks at the car, he'll make a comment explaining the superstition fact mentioned in #1
4. When Hoagie looks at the car, he says something like "maybe I should wash it"

5. GEE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO NEXT, THIS GAME IS REALLY SO OBSCURE.

Sigh.

Also as usual everyone complains about how "laborious" old UIs were because they couldn't be bothered to RTFM or use their brains. Every verb had a keyboard shortcut (usually the first letter - push/pull were the only exceptions). I think the last LucasArts game in which I clicked the verbs was... actually none, because that'd be before they called themselves LucasArts.

The "game was unplayable" thing is also utterly bizarre, since it runs flawlessly in both ScummVM and DOSBox, and has been doing so for over a decade.

 

[Kem0sabe]

They should do a the dig remaster next, or the Indiana Jones games.

 

[Jackalope]

The remastered art really bothers me. It just looks lazy and bad. I can switch to the classic sprites, but I already have the ScummVM version. Which makes this remake quite pointless.

 

[Cyberarmy]

5. GEE I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO DO NEXT, THIS GAME IS REALLY SO OBSCURE.

My brother finished DotT with his minimal English when he was 9 years old. I remember that he only asked me about 2 things, making vinegar and cherry tree.

 

[J_C]

The remastered art really bothers me. It just looks lazy and bad. I can switch to the classic sprites, but I already have the ScummVM version. Which makes this remake quite pointless.

Then don't buy it FFS!

 

[Arch-Vile]

They should do a the dig remaster next, or the Indiana Jones games.

Why even bother? Those games look and sound amazing as they are, just like Day of the Tentacle.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Indiana Jones could benefit from actually having Harrison Ford voicing Dr. Jones.

As a promo for the fifth Indiana Jones film that's coming up.

 

[Infinitron]

Game is released now.

 

[J_C]

Documentary:


The best part: all the faggots who are constantly whining about the graphics can look at the original concept arts of the game, which show that they were very similar to the remastered graphics. So the game meant to look like this. Suck it up assholes.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Played it a bit today. No, I'm not gonna complain about the graphics themselves...but I still have something to complain about.

# The music is remastered, and while I can recognize the old tunes...first impressions are that they don't feel the same. This may be down to personal opinion, and better audiophiles than myself can probably give a better explanation for this.

# There are two screw-ups in the intro/prologue alone. During the part where the imitation diamond breaks and they're 'falling' through time, the vortex background spins as the same rate as it does when they were travelling normally in the Remastered version. This robs the scene of the effect that they're falling/have lost control, effectively breaking it.

# The second one is when Dr. Fred exits (stage right) to look for the plans for his patented super-battery. Just before the player regains control, Bernard asks himself a question, and Dr. Fred walks back into view and gives the "I thought I made myself quite clear" speech. In the Remastered version, Dr. Fred doesn't walk off-screen, he just walks off to the side as the widescreen aspect of the game doesn't remove him from view. This lessens the comedy value of the scene.

I switched over to the Classic graphics to see if there are other similar instances in the game. I'll let you know if I find any.

Everything else, though - is pure gold. I was a little amazed myself that I laughed out loud at the 'switching mattresses' gag with Hoagie. Concept Art is constantly unlocked as you visit new rooms and scenes play out, which will probably be a little immersion-breaking for some, but I quickly learned to ignore it.

 

[Unkillable Cat]

Played some more. No further abnormalities found, except for the one I'm about to mention: The VCR puzzle doesn't seem to work.

The deal is that I'm supposed to record Dr. Fred opening the safe while sleep-walking, then replay it in slow-motion (via the SP/EP toggle on the bottom-right) to see the safe combination. Fair dos, but...everytime I press "Record" on the VCR (even when I've rewound the tape) the game exits out of the VCR close-up and I'm forced to Look At it again to see the close-up of the screen. And even though I watch the tape in slow-motion...I only get the first 11 frames or so in slow-motion, but they're all accompanied by static on the screen, followed by the end image of Fred standing in front of the safe.

I'm doing most of the game from memory, but that sounds like the right course of action...so what am I missing?