Making of Maniac Mansion
In our initial episode on Maniac Mansion, we depended mainly on Rogue Leaders and what we could find in a few quick Google searches. Last week listener and friend of the podcasters, Nate Murray, was kind enough to point out a few more really great resources on the making of Maniac Mansion.
I love it when our listeners do better research than we do.
A couple of years ago, Ron Gilbert found a bunch of his old Maniac Mansion stuff in storage and shared them on his blog.
The first post was some of the initial planning documents that he and Gary Winnick put together. It’s got all kinds of cool maps and flow charts. It’s really cool to see the inner-workings of Ron and Gary’s minds as they put together some of the first non-linear gameplay ever. It’s rare to get an inside look at what it’s like to innovate.
His next post included the pitch he and Gary put together for Maniac Mansion. It’s beautiful. A lesson in not just how to create ideas but how to present them to others so that people give them a fair shake.
Finally, Reddit user Bruce– put together a bunch of Ron’s game design documents into a handy thread. There you’ll find these documents, a Maniac Mansion Post-Mortem, some Monkey Island and Thimbleweed Park documents, as well as some general articles on game design. Really great resources, so thanks, Bruce–!
And thanks again, Nate! You get a shout out on a future episode!