Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure video game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It follows teenage protagonist Dave Miller as he attempts to rescue his girlfriend Sandy Pantz from a mad scientist, whose mind has been enslaved by a sentient meteor. The player uses a point-and-click interface to guide Dave and two of his six playable friends through the scientist's mansion while solving puzzles and avoiding dangers. Gameplay is non-linear, and the game must be completed in different ways based on the player's choice of characters. Initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, Maniac Mansion was Lucasfilm Games' first self-published product.
Ken Macklin's cover artwork depicts five of the playable characters: Syd, Dave, Bernard, Razor, and Jeff.
Ron Gilbert (pictured) co-wrote and co-designed Maniac Mansion with Gary Winnick; they were both puzzle and graphic adventure game fans.
The Main House at Skywalker Ranch inspired the design of Maniac Mansion's setting.
George "The Fat Man" Sanger and his band contributed to the NES port's music.
An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story, driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media, such as literature and film, encompassing a wide variety of genres. Most adventure games are designed for a single player, since the emphasis on story and character makes multiplayer design difficult. Colossal Cave Adventure is identified by Rick Adams as the first such adventure game, first released in 1976, while other notable adventure game series include Zork, King's Quest, Monkey Island, Syberia, and Myst.
A computer terminal running Zork (1977), one of the first commercially successful text adventure games
The Whispered World (2009) is an example of a context-based point-and-click adventure game using high-definition graphics and animation.
The Stanley Parable (2013) is a first-person walking simulator set in an office building.
Myst used high-quality 3D rendered graphics to deliver images that were unparalleled at the time of its release.