Vintage Video Games #2: Day of the Tentacle

Day of the Tentacle is a point-and-click two-dimensional adventure game from 1993 developed and published by Lucas Arts for the PC. Personally, it would be one of my top favorite games of all time. The graphics, the gameplay and most of all the humor! It is simply hilarious. A squeal to the super tough 1987 hit Manic Mansion this is the first time they adopted a philosophy of “never die or get stuck” making the game much more enjoyable.

The Plot: Five years after the events of the aforementioned Maniac Mansion, Purple Tentacle (a mutant monster and lab assistant created by mad scientist Dr. Fred Edison) drinks toxic sludge from a river behind the Doctor’s laboratory. This results in him growing a pair of arms, develop vastly increased intelligence and a thirst for global domination!

The Doctor forms a plan to kill Purple Tentacle and his harmless, friendly brother Green Tentacle, but the Green Tentacle sends a plea for help to his old friend, the nerd Bernard Bernoulli for help. Bernard travels to the Edison home with his two housemates: deranged medical student Laverne and roadie Hoagie, and frees the tentacles. Purple Tentacle escapes to resume his quest to take over the world. The only way to stop his flawless and unstoppable plan is by time travel – going back to stop Purple ever drinking the sludge. The doc uses his Chron-o-John to send them back but things don’t go according to plan …….

Highlight: Everyone will have their own fave DotT moment but mine would be entering the mummy in the beauty contest.

How to play: Sadly I couldn’t find a working ROM though A special edition of Day of the Tentacle is in development by Double Fine Productions, for the PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Windows, OS X and Linux systems with an expected 2015 release.

About the Author

Fifties Born in an irish field - dj, designer, radio show host and blogger Louise 'Fifties' O'Donnell went out into the world with one mission in mind. To hunt down big phat bass lines and share them with the masses. Dedicated to finding new music she is always on the trail of new talent as well as the big playas.