Tentacles return, because who said fan-made sequels were dead? 24 Jul, 2018 / 5 comments
Look, I’m on a crappy connection here in the middle of the Atlantic, so I have no idea if “Return of the Tentacle”, a DOTT fan made sequel, is any good. But those crazy Germans are doing their thing again, at least, so check it out. It’s even in English, though the translations on the website seem a bit... creative.
A bit of constructive criticism; I really wish that they would replace the voice actress for Laverne. She clearly has a German accent (often to the point of being unintelligible with her pronunciation of certain English words) and fails to capture the essence of the original actress. The same goes for Sam & Max's cameo. Max is okay but now has an Irish accent, which is jarring but Sam sounds awful; almost like Stephen Hawking's voice box.
Those criticisms aside; this game is sublime. Sterling work, German developers.
Rum_Rogers
Ditto.
I'm astonished by the professional quality of the music, especially the S&M theme reinterpretation and Weird Ed's.
Good times!
Right, the S&M theme! Besides the "Hit the Road" theme, he also uses a few snippets from Jared Emerson-Johnson's theme to the Telltale series.
Laserschwert
I can't praise the original soundtrack to the game, by David Schornsheim, enough:
https://pepper-mint-audio.itch.io/return-of-the-tentacle-ost
While re-using themes from the original game, he manages to channel the Land/Bajakian/McConnell-style through his own compositions as perfectly as possible. I wish he was in charge of the remastered DOTT soundtrack, because this is fantastic.
Ditto.
I'm astonished by the professional quality of the music, especially the S&M theme reinterpretation and Weird Ed's.
Good times!
https://pepper-mint-audio.itch.io/return-of-the-tentacle-ost
While re-using themes from the original game, he manages to channel the Land/Bajakian/McConnell-style through his own compositions as perfectly as possible. I wish he was in charge of the remastered DOTT soundtrack, because this is fantastic.
I must say it went beyond all expectations, it's brilliant.
Even though they had a good starting base thanks to Dott's HQ remake from Double Fine, they managed to create some great animations from scratch.
The writing is whacky and funny, they nailed it all.
The puzzles are clever and not trivial, nor devilish.
Also, there's an interesting possibility of death/Game Over, but you can restart from the last checkpoint (à la Full Throttle).
Maybe I wouldn't have put Sam & Max as characters within the Maniac Mansion universe, but they nailed them as well and it was clearly a nice homage.
All in all, I hope the guys get noticed and even have a chance to keep this project up with official support from Disney.
They deserve it, I breathed authentic Maniac Mansion 25 years later and this alone is enough for me.
Thanks to the team, kudos!