There are many stories surrounding the famous chainsaw in Maniac Mansion (Lucasfilm Arts, 1987). Was there really fuel in the game back then? Why did we later learn that the fuel was on Mars? And what brought us salvation in 2017? Let’s have a closer look at all these questions.
As a teenager, dreams are usually quite straightforward. Gaming, eating, sleeping, possibly having your first kiss and, of course, making extensive use of a chainsaw.
In 1987, at least one of these dreams came true in the video game Maniac Mansion, because there was a chainsaw hanging in the kitchen of Dr. Fred’s crazy mansion.
Fired up by sheer enthusiasm and a dash of curiosity, we collected it, only to find out that it didn’t work because there was no fuel. And this is where the wild stories about how to get fuel in Maniac Mansion begin.
The leak in the pipe
In front of the house, to the left of the main door, you can push aside the bushes and remove the grate after fuelling up in the gym. In the cellar behind it, there are some pipes that are very relevant to the game. I think it also matters which end you want to reach.
This story, which had been doing the rounds, said that in this basement corridor with all the pipes, there was supposed to be a pipe with a leak. And fuel was dripping from this leak, which could be used to run the chainsaw. All you had to do was get a glass from the kitchen or the pantry to catch it.
Interestingly, there was indeed a spot where a strange liquid was dripping from one of the pipes. However, this liquid had nothing to do with the chainsaw, as these pipes belonged to the nuclear reactor in Dr. Fred’s secret laboratory.
But that shouldn’t stop us from checking the various pipes pixel by pixel to see if we can find the leak after all. Armed with a jar to catch the precious fuel, of course.
This story turned out to be completely made up! (Read this sentence again, but in Jonathan Frakes’ voice!)
Chemistry
One of the kids you could choose alongside Dave at the beginning was a photographer. Back then, digital photography didn’t exist yet, so he knew how to handle chemicals, which were needed to develop analogue film. There was even a workshop in the house that could be used as a darkroom. So the signs for this story were good.
It was claimed that, due to its capabilities, it could be used to mix a kind of “chemical” that could then be used to operate the chainsaw.
This story turned out to be completely made up! (Read this sentence again, but in Jonathan Frakes’ voice!)
However, it should be mentioned here that there is actually a video of this story. It shows how, without any animation whatsoever, the branch on the tree in the garden is sawed off with a chainsaw. Later, it turned out to be fake!
“Get your ass to Mars!”
The year is 1988, maybe a year or two later, and the game Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (1988) entered our lives. As fans of Maniac Mansion, we were naturally immediately hooked and tried to save the world from stupidity (a seemingly impossible task today, but quite realistic back then!).
It didn’t take long before we were able to interact with Melissa and Leslie, who had flown to Mars in a converted VW bus (no idea why some people go to such lengths to do this), and explore the Mars base.
In a locker, innocent and untouched, stood a canister of fuel for a chainsaw. Not only does the game tell us that this was intended for another game, but we immediately understood the reference. It is the fuel for the chainsaw from Maniac Mansion. It exists, and now that I think about it, according to common logic, Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders share the same universe or world.
At the time, it didn’t feel like a relief, more like a sigh of relief that they hadn’t just left it at Maniac Mansion, but had continued with it. Like a nod to the fans: “Hey, we see you, we know what you’re into, we can’t do it unfortunately, but we’re with you!”
2017 changed EVERYTHING
Of course, we already knew about it beforehand, even though the “we” has now become “I”, because as is the case in life, these friendships often fall by the wayside and don’t last 30 years. Very sad, because we had a really great time back then.
Thimbleweed Park was released for PC on 20. March 2017 and of course I was at the forefront of the action. The old gang around Ron Gilbert was back together, and it could only be good, which it was.
Thimbleweed Park has two game modes, a casual and a hard mode. On release, I played the casual mode first, simply because I wanted to enjoy the whole thing to the full. After my first playthrough, I started again and then switched to hard mode. Puzzles became more challenging, you had to solve several more of them, and there were even new locations that you hadn’t visited before.
And then, in the bushes, an inconspicuous object turns out to be the famous chainsaw (Chainsaw of Disappointment) and of course it is completely empty and unusable. Hope and disappointment have rarely been so close together.
Of course, I carried on, the chainsaw had slipped further down in my inventory and I had almost forgotten about it. Suddenly the gates of the Mansion Mansion opened in front of me and I saw a canister standing to the right of the front door. Could it really be?
Yes, it was true! After 30 years, we had the opportunity to use a chainsaw in such a point & click adventure and not only that, it was actually an important item. Because we had to use it to cut up a tree trunk in order to gain access to the sewerage system.
In conclusion
Yes, I don’t want to hide the fact that my account reads a little dramatically. However, I find such details simply fascinating, because carrying on with this kind of humour for another 30 years shows great passion. It’s on a par with archaeologists who want to sell fashionable leather jackets.
Anyone who grew up with this type of point & click adventure game will understand and appreciate both references. Especially when, as a developer, you reunite all your colleagues from back then to have another party as if it were 1987.
I believe that such details are also the reason why many people my age today have problems with some genre developments or new releases. Sure, this humour has lasted 30 years from start to finish, but it’s also difficult to find humour like this at all. It’s simply the passion to repeat certain things over and over again in games, such as Chuck the plant.
Of course, Ron Gilbert doesn’t hide the fact that developing such a point & click adventure again is extremely unlikely because it’s simply not worth it. Sounds harsh, but I like this kind of honesty. Because even though he said this so clearly in an interview, he also said that he would also miss the perfect idea.
At the end of the day, I am glad that I was able to witness such things, that I experienced them, and I hope that the younger generation will find something similar. Or perhaps, since I also work with schoolchildren and students here and there, they will develop something themselves and at the same time create a tradition that will last for 30 years of their successful careers.
Disclaimer
Some readers may wonder why I rarely use “I” and tend to use “we” instead. Well, one reason for this is that I prefer not to put myself in the spotlight, because it’s the story itself that matters.
On the other hand, gaming back then wasn’t a solo activity, as it often is today. No, we always went to friends’ houses or had friends over, because we just thought it was cool to play together. Today, this is called couch co-op, where as soon as you had to restart a level or lost a life, you handed over the controller, and it was someone else’s turn.
But we also pondered together, always taking turns when it came to current magazines or solution booklets. But also because none of us had every console or PC/C64 at home. Each of us had a different setup, and there was always variety, whether in terms of games or gaming devices.
Besides, it sounds kind of strange to me when I constantly write “I have this,” “I have that,” or “I have the other thing.”
And please do not forget that what I am writing here is from my own personal perspective and does not claim to be universally valid!
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