Maniac Mansion 3: Return of Purple

Description

Purple Tentacle is back, and he's madder than ever!

In Maniac Mansion 3: Return of Purple, awkward college student Bernard reunites with Hoagie and Laverne in another time-twisting quest to stop Purple Tentacle from rewriting history yet again. With the help of Dr. Fred, our hapless trio sets off on another demented journey through the past, present, and dystopian tentacle future.

Once again stranded across centuries, the gang must navigate twisted versions of colonial America and a future ruled by tentacles. Hoagie haggles with Benjamin Franklin and Paul Revere to harness electric power, while Laverne infiltrates tentacle society, having been transformed into one of their own. Along the way, you’ll weaponize smiley faces, resuscitate hamsters, and rejuvenate wilted lettuce.

Everything leads to a final showdown back at the mansion in 1987, where a deranged Purple Tentacle is ready to execute Dr. Fred once and for all. But appearances are deceiving, and it’s up to you to pull off the ultimate switcheroo involving glue, statues on wheels, and android doubles.

Can you outwit Purple one last time… or will history unravel for good?

Playability Notes

This game is EXTREMELY BUGGY. This is one of the few projects I've never found time in the intervening years to properly polish and make presentable. It was made in The Games Factory, which is absolutely the wrong engine for making point-and-click adventure games. As a result, character pathfinding is buggy and unresponsive, items in your inventory only display in the rooms where they need to be used, verbs don't do anything if there isn't a specific action needed to solve a puzzle, etc.

Fortunately, I did write an extensive walkthrough in the game's help file, which is quite possibly your only hope of getting through this monstrosity of a fangame.

PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK!

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• Development time: Winter through summer 2002 (age 11-12)
• Tools I used: The Games Factory
• Biggest inspirations: Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road