Hi people!
It's not often that I get to write about a game that I am both a fan of and a developer behind, but after two months' worth of solid porting work, here I am!
Day of the Tentacle Remastered is now available for the first time on Linux, and can be found on Steam and Humble Store with a Linux launch discount. It should also be up on GOG as soon as they set it live.
Day of the Tentacle is a standalone sequel to the 1987 adventure game Maniac Mansion, created during the "golden age of adventure games" by LucasArts. Unlike Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle adheres to the sensibilities laid out in Ron Gilbert's Why Adventure Games Suck essay, which outlines the reasoning behind Monkey Island's design deviations from previous point and click adventures - no dead ends, no deaths, keeping goals clear and readable, better feedback to players, more meaningful player agency and tighter integration between puzzles and story.
These, along with some great humour became the hallmarks of LucasArts' adventure titles and few embody them as well as Day of The Tentacle, which takes a super complicated time travel oriented premise and manages to keep things clear and well paced throughout. If Monkey Island was the dawn of the "golden age of adventure games", then Day of the Tentacle was the latter part of the late morning when things start to really warm up, and paved the way for titles like The Dig, Curse of Monkey Island, Full Throttle (hopefully coming to Linux as part of its upcoming remastered release) and Grim Fandango (already on Linux) to capture the hearts and imaginations of adventure game fans with an enduring passion that would last for decades.
My personal connection to this game has expanded from being that of a player and an appreciator of its accomplishments to include that of a developer and in some respects a historian. I've had the opportunity not only to peek behind the curtain and experience a game I love from a new angle, but I've also been able to look back in time at a fascinating cross-section of LucasArts history.
I'm hoping to publish a more in-depth article about my porting experiences at a later date (edit: it's published now). If that sort of thing is exciting for you, definitely keep an eye out.
If you pick it up, I hope that you enjoy Day of the Tentacle as much as I have! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
It's not often that I get to write about a game that I am both a fan of and a developer behind, but after two months' worth of solid porting work, here I am!
Day of the Tentacle Remastered is now available for the first time on Linux, and can be found on Steam and Humble Store with a Linux launch discount. It should also be up on GOG as soon as they set it live.
Day of the Tentacle is a standalone sequel to the 1987 adventure game Maniac Mansion, created during the "golden age of adventure games" by LucasArts. Unlike Maniac Mansion, Day of the Tentacle adheres to the sensibilities laid out in Ron Gilbert's Why Adventure Games Suck essay, which outlines the reasoning behind Monkey Island's design deviations from previous point and click adventures - no dead ends, no deaths, keeping goals clear and readable, better feedback to players, more meaningful player agency and tighter integration between puzzles and story.
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These, along with some great humour became the hallmarks of LucasArts' adventure titles and few embody them as well as Day of The Tentacle, which takes a super complicated time travel oriented premise and manages to keep things clear and well paced throughout. If Monkey Island was the dawn of the "golden age of adventure games", then Day of the Tentacle was the latter part of the late morning when things start to really warm up, and paved the way for titles like The Dig, Curse of Monkey Island, Full Throttle (hopefully coming to Linux as part of its upcoming remastered release) and Grim Fandango (already on Linux) to capture the hearts and imaginations of adventure game fans with an enduring passion that would last for decades.
My personal connection to this game has expanded from being that of a player and an appreciator of its accomplishments to include that of a developer and in some respects a historian. I've had the opportunity not only to peek behind the curtain and experience a game I love from a new angle, but I've also been able to look back in time at a fascinating cross-section of LucasArts history.
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Direct Link
Direct Link
I'm hoping to publish a more in-depth article about my porting experiences at a later date (edit: it's published now). If that sort of thing is exciting for you, definitely keep an eye out.
If you pick it up, I hope that you enjoy Day of the Tentacle as much as I have! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I'm hoping to publish a more in-depth article about my porting experiences at a later date. If that sort of thing is exciting for you, definitely keep an eye out.
I'm very interested in that.
As software developer and Linuxer, I'd love to port as well.
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Congratulations!
I'm also developing my own original game. Hope some day to write about it here on GoL, like you now.
Wish you the very best with the game.
Edit: just to say that I will buy the game, although I don't play the games at all.
Last edited by Arkona on 12 July 2016 at 11:54 am UTC
I'm also developing my own original game. Hope some day to write about it here on GoL, like you now.
Wish you the very best with the game.
Edit: just to say that I will buy the game, although I don't play the games at all.
Last edited by Arkona on 12 July 2016 at 11:54 am UTC
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after two months' worth of solid porting work, here I am!
So they were contracting you way after they were telling people the Linux port will be available soon?
That sounds like there was no or next to no Linux work done prior to that date?
Last edited by sub on 12 July 2016 at 8:54 am UTC
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lucifertdark Jul 12, 2016
I'm grabbing this asap. It is without doubt the best LucasArts adventure game ever made & well worth an update for modern computers.
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I was hoping for Maniac Mansion to be remastered as well but unfortunately is not :(
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I love this wacky gem of an adventure. Also an in-depth port report would be awesome.
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legluondunet Jul 12, 2016
Instantbuy for me, once again Double Fine support Linux and port a very nice game.
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Cheeseness Jul 12, 2016
By the way, if anybody's interested in the penguin image at the top of the article, it's a piece of fan art I did when Day of the Tentacle Remastered was first announced in 2014, which we pulled out and decided to use as a promotional image for the Linux port. There are wallpaper sized versions up here for anyone who's keen ^_^
I'd also like to draw attention to the Linux testing team. I wouldn't have been able to get DotT ready to ship without their efforts. They are cool people and deserve our thanks <3
I don't recall any mentions of the soonishness of the port prior to my starting work, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to consider a few months to be "soon".
All I can tell you is that I am very thankful that there were no firm dates attached to the project while I was working, and the notion that anybody at Double Fine would hope to deceive Linux users feels very much at odds with the experiences I've had. Everybody was supportive, enthusiastic and excited to see Linux users getting the game.
Last edited by Cheeseness on 12 July 2016 at 10:41 am UTC
I'd also like to draw attention to the Linux testing team. I wouldn't have been able to get DotT ready to ship without their efforts. They are cool people and deserve our thanks <3
Kevin Becker
Stanisław Gackowski
Jaco Gerber
grinsekatze
Sven "DrMcCoy" Hesse
Jennifer McMurray
Nemoder
Eivind K. Nilsbakken
Laura "Syd" Ramey
bucky's revenge
Daniel Scharrer
Tele42
Tin Tvrtković
Initially, I was negotiating to assist with QA and possibly provide some dev support. I'm not aware of what plans were in place for Linux support before the port was offered to me, nor of what expected timeframes may have been attached to those.after two months' worth of solid porting work, here I am!So they were contracting you way after they were telling people the Linux port will be available soon?
That sounds like there was no or next to no Linux work done prior to that date?
I don't recall any mentions of the soonishness of the port prior to my starting work, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to consider a few months to be "soon".
All I can tell you is that I am very thankful that there were no firm dates attached to the project while I was working, and the notion that anybody at Double Fine would hope to deceive Linux users feels very much at odds with the experiences I've had. Everybody was supportive, enthusiastic and excited to see Linux users getting the game.
I'm also developing my own original game. Hope some day to write about it here on GoL, like you now.That's great to hear! I'm looking forward to finding out more. Best of luck with your project :)
btw Cheese I Had some fun with your lil octopus ^_^Ha ha, awesome. I'm hoping that I'll be able to return to Above The Waves and work on an extended version later this year (DotT pushed out my plans for doing that sooner, unfortunately).
Last edited by Cheeseness on 12 July 2016 at 10:41 am UTC
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I was hoping for Maniac Mansion to be remastered as well but unfortunately is not :(
IIRC the Manic Mansion was playable as a bonus game in DOTT?
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Cheeseness Jul 12, 2016
It is, and it's playable in Day of the Tentacle Remastered. It's the original version of Maniac Mansion and hasn't been enhanced in any way so far as I am aware.I was hoping for Maniac Mansion to be remastered as well but unfortunately is not :(
IIRC the Manic Mansion was playable as a bonus game in DOTT?
There are community efforts to re-imagine Maniac Mansion like this one, but I'm not sure whether they're planning to support Linux.
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So cool, I instantly bought it this morning - read about it on phoronix. Thanks for your porting efforts! And thanks to Tim "Linux What?" Schäfer :D
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Finally! I was starting to think I wouldn´t find anything new to buy until autumn (the first steam summer-sale since the start where I bought nothing)
It´s gonna be great to play this one again, I always planned to re-play the original but now I´m thankful I never got around to do it.
It´s gonna be great to play this one again, I always planned to re-play the original but now I´m thankful I never got around to do it.
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Spent many an hour playing this back in the day! I still have the winblows version knocking about somewhere but think it might be worth supporting the penguin on this one :)
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@Cheeseness, Good job on the mighty penguin showing purple tentacle who's boss. Love that picture!
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Initially, I was negotiating to assist with QA and possibly provide some dev support. I'm not aware of what plans were in place for Linux support before the port was offered to me, nor of what expected timeframes may have been attached to those.after two months' worth of solid porting work, here I am!So they were contracting you way after they were telling people the Linux port will be available soon?
That sounds like there was no or next to no Linux work done prior to that date?
I don't recall any mentions of the soonishness of the port prior to my starting work, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to consider a few months to be "soon".
All I can tell you is that I am very thankful that there were no firm dates attached to the project while I was working, and the notion that anybody at Double Fine would hope to deceive Linux users feels very much at odds with the experiences I've had. Everybody was supportive, enthusiastic and excited to see Linux users getting the game.
In any case, thanks for your work!
Can you explain in short how MM1 is (technically) included in the game?
Does it use the ScummVM engine? (Reading DrMcCoy's name)
1 Likes, Who?
Crazy Penguin Jul 12, 2016
@Cheeseness, Good job on the mighty penguin showing purple tentacle who's boss. Love that picture!
Yes, me too! It is awesome! Perfect Desktop-Wallpaper :D
A bit higher resolution would be nice, so e.g. 1920x1080 :)
2 Likes, Who?
Can you explain in short how MM1 is (technically) included in the game?
Does it use the ScummVM engine?
TL;DR: No.
While I haven't looked at their sources (so I can't say for 100% certain), I very much doubt that Day of the Tentacle Remastered uses ScummVM internally.
Legal issues aside:
1) Using a hexeditor or the "strings" tool, I don't see anything obvious in the binary to suspect that
2) Both Day of the Tentacle and Maniac Mansion are build with LucasArts' original SCUMM system. Yes, they're years apart and have each distinct codepaths for several features, but they're still very much alike. So since Day of the Tentacle is running on their own remastered SCUMM engine, it should be no problem also making Maniac Mansion run on it
In short: they wouldn't need to use ScummVM and I don't see any signs they did.
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Cheeseness Jul 12, 2016
@Cheeseness, Good job on the mighty penguin showing purple tentacle who's boss. Love that picture!
Yes, me too! It is awesome! Perfect Desktop-Wallpaper :D
A bit higher resolution would be nice, so e.g. 1920x1080 :)
One step ahead of you. You can find that here.
I've never looked at ScummVM's source, so I'm not in a position to have 100% certainty either, but I didn't see anything that indicated or suggested that ScummVM may have been used. FWIW, there are lots of code comments from the 80s and 90s that predate ScummVM.Can you explain in short how MM1 is (technically) included in the game?
Does it use the ScummVM engine?
TL;DR: No.
The second video in the article touches on the challenges of getting Maniac Mansion to behave in this version of Day of the Tentacle (among a bunch of other interesting things). It's worth watching.
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Currently working on Winter's Wake, a first person text adventure thing and its engine Icicle. Also making a little bee themed base builder called Hive Time :)
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