I'm a huge noob when it comes to adventure games, so this might be a very ignorant question:
For the longest time I only knew the 90s classics like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Gabriel Knight, Discworld, etc, and they always struck me as dull non-games. Only recently have I found some games in the genre that I like, e.g. Shadowgate. But the best entry imho is Maniac Mansion because it has
- flexible party,
- non-linear exploration,
- some navigation puzzles,
- multiple solutions for some puzzles,
- dynamic world on a timer,
- very little dialog and story,
- amazing atmosphere,
- some actual failure states.
In many respects it feels more like a dungeon crawler without combat than a point-and-click adventure. Other games like Myst, early King's Quest and the ICOM games check some of those boxes, but not all of them. So, is Maniac Mansion one of a kind or are there any clones? If not, why didn't the success of Maniac Mansion spawn the usual copycats?
For the record, I looked at the supposed spiritual successor Thimbleweed Park, but that seems to just be your standard point'n'click adventure.
For the longest time I only knew the 90s classics like Monkey Island, Day of the Tentacle, Gabriel Knight, Discworld, etc, and they always struck me as dull non-games. Only recently have I found some games in the genre that I like, e.g. Shadowgate. But the best entry imho is Maniac Mansion because it has
- flexible party,
- non-linear exploration,
- some navigation puzzles,
- multiple solutions for some puzzles,
- dynamic world on a timer,
- very little dialog and story,
- amazing atmosphere,
- some actual failure states.
In many respects it feels more like a dungeon crawler without combat than a point-and-click adventure. Other games like Myst, early King's Quest and the ICOM games check some of those boxes, but not all of them. So, is Maniac Mansion one of a kind or are there any clones? If not, why didn't the success of Maniac Mansion spawn the usual copycats?
For the record, I looked at the supposed spiritual successor Thimbleweed Park, but that seems to just be your standard point'n'click adventure.