Day of the Tentacle

This page details one or more prototype versions of Day of the Tentacle.

This page covers the non-interactive demo of Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, available here. The files of the demo are dated June 28th, 1993.

Graphical Differences#

The jar of liquid in the top right corner of the Sludge-O-Matic™ during the scene where Bernard frees Green and Purple Tentacle is static in the demo. It has a bubbling animation in the finished game.

Demo	Final

Hoagie's face during the debut of the Chron-O-John sequence is different. In the demo, he faces directly towards the camera instead of to the right. He also seems visibly more worried about what Dr. Fred has just said.

Demo	Final

Although unseen in both the finished game and the demo, the background behind the animated river is different in the demo. It's been simplified down to just a flat area of colour for optimization reasons in the finished game. The final background still has the same palette as it does in the demo.

Demo Background	Finished Game Background	Finished Game Screenshot

Audio Differences#

Purple Tentacle makes no slurping sound effect as he drinks from the toxic river.

A different sound effect plays when Laverne goes down the chimney. The finished game actually uses several sound effects played in quick succession, but they are rendered as a single continuous audio file here for easy comparison.

The lightning behind Purple Tentacle as he announces his intent to "TAKE ON THE WORLD!!!" has no thunder sound effect in the demo, although the sound effect used for this in the finished game is present in the files.

The Chron-O-Johns use a different sound effect as they prepare to disappear during the debut of the Chron-O-John sequence. The demo sound loops a few times.

The demo only includes specially authored Roland MT-32 and Adlib versions of the Midi music. The finished game also includes General Midi versions of each track.

Other Differences#

• The cutscenes taken from the game are modified a bit for this demo. Some lines of dialogue are absent to make the demo shorter, and some characters end up standing in slightly different places than in the finished game due to bits of script that have been removed.

• Most unneeded script and object data is completely blanked out or removed, the only exception being the script called when attempting to use the scalpel on the cigar salesman. Of course, there's no way to call it anymore as all the objects, actors and sound files required for it are absent.

• The Ctrl-T toggle key, which in the talkie PC version switches between "Text Display Only", "Voice Only", and "Text Display and Voice" dialogue modes, here switches between "Text Display OFF" and "Text Display ON". It doesn't affect the voiced dialogue (which is on by default) at all.

• There is no way to make this version of the game display its version (Ctrl-V in the finished game), but it sets one anyway. This version of the game would identify itself as "Day of the Tentacle BBS Contest DEMO".

Leftovers from the Finished Game#

Leftover Graphics#

All animations of Hoagie interacting with the kite are present, even though the only used one is the one where Hoagie receives the kite.

Animation	Description
	Hoagie pushing the kite into the sky.
	Hoagie pushing the kite onto the floor.
	Hoagie putting the battery in the kite pocket.

There are animation frames of Bernard reacting fearfully to something. These aren't used in the finished game either, although some very similar ones are.

Animation	Description
	Scared Bernard facing forward
	Scared Bernard facing right.

Leftover Music#

There are several leftover MIDI files, specifically the music played when Bernard reads the letter, the music played when Purple Tentacle drinks from the river and the music played when Bernard frees Green and Purple Tentacle. They are identical to the versions used in the finished game.