Adventure Gamers - Forums

he trouble began when Purple Tentacle drank that pesky toxic waste. Once evil but harmlessly slow-witted, he became an evil super-genius, bent on WORLD DOMINATION! His creator, fidgety mad scientist Doctor Fred Edison, realised the threat to all humanity and captured Purple Tentacle, along with his good-natured brother Green Tentacle, and plans to have them put to sleep.

Hello and welcome, my dear time travelling, tax evasive, beauty pageant friends, to a community playthrough of Day of the Tentacle! If you’ve been living under the rock for the past 25+ years, DOTT is often regarded as one of the best adventure games ever created (and I wholeheartedly agree), that came from the pen of masters at LucasArts from the Golden Age! The game is a sequel to Maniac Mansion and shares some of the main characters, and while MM was a a brainchild from duo Ron Gilbert/Gary Winnick, DOTT (where Ron and Gary are still credited as writers) was designed by Tim Schafer and Dave Grossman.

Day of the Tentacle is a colorful adventure, Chuck Jones comedy cartoon, B-Movie and The Addam’s Family all in one! It takes place 5 years after the events of Maniac Mansion, and you play as a trio of friends – Bernard, Laverne and Hoagie who receive a letter from Green Tentacle, one of Bernard’s old friends from Maniac Mansion. He explains that the evil Purple Tentacle has taken some super-powered sludge and is looking to take over the world. Hurrying back to the Mansion in an effort to stop Purple, you meet the family of Edisons, and – through an extraordinary stroke of “luck” – end up traveling back in time, and into the future. Not to spoil too much, let’s just say that the game will cover 3 time periods: one during the founding moments of the United States (Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Thomas Edison included), one in the present, and one in the dystopian, tentacle-controlled future.
 
Meet the cast

Uber-nerd Bernard Bernoulli is a computer geek with a heart of gold. He once risked his life to save the wacky Edison family. His two roomates are Hoagie and Laverne.

Easygoing heavy-metal roadie dude.

Laverne is a spaced-out, neurotic medical student.

Doctor Fred Edison is a scientist who was first seen in Maniac Mansion. Dr. Fred lives in the Mansion with his wife nurse Edna Edison and their son “Weird” Ed Edison. He is a retired physician, and a stereotypical mad scientist.

A creation of Dr. Fred Edison, he’s the main antagonist.

A friendly tentacle. He loves music and plans to have a band named Green T and the Sushi Platters.

Ha Ha Ha!

Benjamin Franklin is a weird dude!

In the next post I will give some info about the original/remastered game and the main differences, and also the tempo of this playthrough!

Original game/Remastered edition and where to get it?

There are few main differences from the original game (1993) in the Remastered Edition (2016), most notably - the pixel art being updated and redrawn to a higher resolution to accommodate new systems (you can switch back to the original with a touch of the button at any time), the remastered audio track and uncompressed original audio voices of a better quality, designers’ comments “on the run” and – most dramatically – the verb menu of ‘Look At’, ‘Use’, etc, have been moved to a sort of a verb coin-esque interface. You can see the difference between the two in the scene below:

Me personally, I will play the Remastered edition this time around, because I haven’t played it yet and I’ve played the original many times. However, I will come honest here - while there’s so many goodies that the Remastered edition brought (some of those I already mentioned), I prefer original art even in newer systems. The new graphics are cool and in the tradition with the style, but lacks just that bit extra that made the original so stylish back in the day! I suggest to everyone who play the game for the first time to either hunt down the original game (for example, here) and play it through ScummVM or get the Remastered edition (GOG, Steam) and play with the Classic mode during the first run!

Whatever you choose, the game follows the same gameplay so you’ll be fine playing this playthrough with either version. If you choose to play the Remastered Edition, these will be the controls:

General hints

DOTT is a non-linear, heavy inventory puzzles-based game and quite possibly - a difficult one. It follows “cartoon logic” with few tricks up the sleeves along the way (with one the most famous Easter Eggs of all time), but trust me, when you plunge in the gameworld of DOTT, it is never illogical. Furthermore, I have probably never witnessed so much satisfaction with cracking the puzzle as in DOTT, as it’s the closest gaming staple of “thinking outside of the box” as you can get! The game will occasionally break the narrative with the “Meantime” cut-scenes, and you don’t wanna miss them as they’re often hiding valuable clues. Pay notice to every little detail, and if you’re even remotely in love with the cartoons that shouldn’t be a problem, because each scene is crafted with love and funny/interesting references. Before you resort to walkthrough, I urge you to discuss the possible solution and seek help from the fellow gamers here. You cannot die, and you cannot reach “dead-end” in this game.

One of the more important aspects of puzzle design in DOTT is transferring objects within the team - by “flushing” it through time using Chron-O-Johns. You can do that in two ways - by actually walking with one character to Chron-O-John and placing the item inside, followed by the second character picking it up from their Chron-O-John (remember that you’re sending items either to the past, or to the future). The most convenient way is to simply click on the item you want to give, and click on the picture of the character you want to give it to. Presto!

The Playthrough

As mentioned, the game is heavy non-linear one, and I don’t wanna limit the freedom that the designers intended to be felt by players - we will break the game into the narrative structure based on what’s going on with the story, while switching between time/characters at your own leisure. I will give three days to anyone who wants to join the playthrough to get the game and get the things going - and we will start on Friday, January 28th. Watch the iconic intro, mention which version are you playing and stop when you reach the first scene in the Mansion.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

chrissie - 25 January 2022 02:49 PM

I have the remastered version of the game installed. Yes, I was stuck under a rock until I started playing PC adventure games post-millennia!

I am going to play the remastered version to start with!

Great! The Remastered edition gives you in the Menu/Settings several options to make your gaming experience unique, by mixing the classic and new version graphics/interface/sounds. For example, I decided to keep the retro look while activating the new verb-coin interface! One thing I’d wished for though is if the verb-coin wasn’t pixelated as the rest of the graphics.

I love it.

@chrissie: that’s one of the charms of a CPT, there’s always someone to help out when your brain just wants to give up.

Poem by Chester, unused character and beat poet. Title: Day of the Tentacle (other plans)
Dedicated to my muse, Maniac Madison. The incoming light in the tunnel of my life.

Roll me a drum beat, Stella. Make it nice ‘n jazzy. Birdman, not Whiplash, you know what I mean.

In my mind I hear the sloshing sound of a sentient tentacle’s sloppy suction cups.
A familiar spectacled face with a mind outshiningt a deeply Philadelphian and blighting banality: The dim glow of a tacky Motel sign.
Hoagie controls the radio, or should I say Dave Mustaine on a mixtape that’s driving me insane.
Laverne is staring next to me; she can always relate.

I didn’t go to the Mansion, but our slam poetry noise collective performance was great.

I have the Remastered version installed and ready to go.

This will be the fifth or sixth time I play the game (the last time was in 2014 or so).

It will be the first time I play the Remastered version, though, so I intend to go for the full remastered experience (only occasionally switching to the old graphics to compare).

The redone audio and music should be a massive improvement. It certainly was for Full Throttle…

diego - 25 January 2022 01:54 PM

[ we will start on Friday, December 28th

Assume you meant January 28.

Good luck with your CPT. As i said before, Day of the Tentacle is the best adventure game ever. Why may you ask? Well, because characters are as good or better than any adventure game. Because puzles as as good or better than any adventure game. Ah, I forgot, it has puzzles through time, which no adventure game has implemented as good so far.

I wanted to play a new game, or maybe I didn’t want to replay DOTT so I don’t find it so great right now. Maybe I want to keep my memories when I played it for the first time. Awesome! Gorgeous! Stunning! Sublim! And I don’t know more adjectives….

Vegetable Party - 25 January 2022 04:27 PM

Roll me a drum beat, Stella…

Wow, what an entrance!

TimovieMan - 25 January 2022 06:43 PM

This will be the fifth or sixth time I play the game (the last time was in 2014 or so).

It will be the first time I play the Remastered version, though, so I intend to go for the full remastered experience (only occasionally switching to the old graphics to compare).

Great, I’m eager to hear what you think of updated graphics and music, and how do you compare them to the original!

rtrooney - 25 January 2022 08:46 PM

diego - 25 January 2022 01:54 PM

[ we will start on Friday, December 28th

Assume you meant January 28.

Fix’d.

walas74 - 25 January 2022 09:25 PM

I wanted to play a new game…

Well, getting Remastered edition should count as a “new game” to an extent - the commentary alone is a worthy addition for a re-run, and to hear the great voice acting in full quality.

chrissie - 25 January 2022 06:00 PM

....I’m not sure that it’s my brain that’s given up VP…......

lol

I wasn’t having a mental breakdown (this time), I was channeling my inner beat poet.
Though that’s probably what I also sound like when I’m heaving a breakdown

I’m playing the remastered version again, but to shake things up, I’m playing the entire game in original mode. I love a good verbs interface.

Is anyone going for the developers commentary? I might give it a spin, since this is the third time I’m playing the game.

chrissie - 26 January 2022 12:08 PM

Vegetable Party - 26 January 2022 09:30 AM

......I’m playing the remastered version again, but to shake things up, I’m playing the entire game in original mode. I love a good verbs interface.

Is anyone going for the developers commentary? I might give it a spin, since this is the third time I’m playing the game.

As I’ve never played the game before I’ve declined the developer’s commentary - can you tap in & out of it? I didn’t look.
There does seem to be the facility to revert to original mode - again can you tap in & out of that? as I would be interested if I could.

Anyway I’ve played the intro & raring to go! 

Love the avatar, chrissie!

Yes, you can go to Options/Bonus and turn on/off the Commentary at any time in the game.

LOL! 3 in 1! Very good