Game:

Maniac Mansion (1987)

Category:

Show

Duration: 12:29

10 views

0

The Talkshow ending is way more broken than I had thought. If you regain control on the Wink Smiley Show set, the game will normally hang, but you can actually warp back to the Mansion for a second quest under the right conditions.

First, during the main game the New Kid menu has to be broken when Wendy approaches the Meteor. It is recommended to grab the Radiation Suit before the menu break kicks in or you'll have to redo it. When you give Contract to Meteor, immediately New Kid Dave, who should be positioned outside Weird Ed's open door. When "We're going to be rich" displays, immediately walk into Weird Ed's room. Very briefly hit New Kid again to pause and unpause the in game timer as Weird Ed approaches you. Then start mashing New Kid again as soon as you hear the last Meteor sound effect play. If you do it right, "What are you doing in my house?" will display very briefly before the screen wipes and goes to the Talkshow Ending.

After this (I'd just wait til the Game Over Screen), hit start to bring up the New Kid menu again and mash New Kid Dave. It will briefly take you back to the talkshow, scrolled further stage left, with an unmovable Wendy sprite and Dave's theme playing. If you do it right, after a few seconds of mashing New Kid, the screen will wipe and go to the dungeon, where Weird Ed has taken who appears to be Wendy. Hit start to bring up the New Kid menu and New Kid Dave, then walk out of the dungeon. From here' you are free to explore the Mansion, with "Congratulations, You Won The Game" and the credits scrolling. This is where it gets even stranger.

Apparently, the Wendy sprite that appears on the talkshow set, mechanically, is actually Dave, which explains the mismatched music. If you walk out the front door, the sprite will revert to Dave. Besides warping back to the Mansion from the Talkshow set, what really sets these Talkshow continues apart from other trick endings, is you can actually go through a second quest for other "True Endings". This is because, unlike the other true endings (Rockstar, Meteor Police, Michael Ending), Meteor doesn't despawn, so you can still launch it in to space, feed it to the plant, or get it arrested by the Meteor Police. The power to the Mansion may still be out when you warp back, so you may want to turn the Circuit Breakers back on.

The Meteor Police second quest may be the most complicated Maniac Mansion scenario I've seen yet, as it requires an additional Meltdown Continue before the Meteor Police show up. This is because you need to wait until after warping to call the Meteor Police, and the Zom-B-Matic needs to stay on until after Meteor is arrested or the game will soft lock. With the Zom-B-Matic still on, the self-destruct countdown is still ticking and it takes longer for Meteor Police to show up than you have. To get past this, go back up to Weird Ed's door, opening it if closed, and wait until the countdown reaches 1 and go inside. The meltdown should trigger after getting captured does, but before the rant is over, so mash New Kid and push Start at some point when you're on the Meltdown Game Over Screen. New Kid Dave and if you do it right, you'll be returned to the dungeon. From there, just wait until Meteor Police show up and arrest Meteor. Go in the lab and and use the Switch as you might even during a glitchless playthrough. After the Dr. Fred cutscene plays, it will then cut to the Talkshow/Meteor Police Twist ending, complete with a second true game over screen (as opposed to just the captions repeating). This is the only way to get both versions of the Talkshow ending to play in one run. From what I can tell, once the Contract is given to Meteor, there is no way to trigger the porch ending cutscene.

Other Statistics