Play the Free Fan-Made Sequel to the Adventure Game Day of the Tentacle
Windows, Mac: There’s something delightful about the old LucasArts ScummVM games: beautiful environments, tricky puzzles, and incredible voiceover (for games that weren’t just text captions over moving mouths).
Some of these I keep on my desktop in case I ever need Stan Seller’s quick fix, if I ever wantto get pummeled, or if I ever need to spend hours on some Day of the Tentacle puzzles – silly the sequel to the beloved game Maniac Mansion of the late 1980s.
I was delighted to see last week that a group of fans have created their own version of Day of the Tentacle – technically a sequel to the sequel – called Return of the Tentacle . It’s completely free to download and play for Windows and Mac, and you can even get the game’s soundtrack as a separate download (if you need to fix Tentacle Day on your morning commute).
The best part? Looks as good as the latest official game in the franchise. As the creators of Return of the Tentacle describe:
“Track down megalomaniac tentacles, have strange conversations and solve crazy puzzles. Bernard, Houghie and Laverne roam hand-drawn locations filled with artfully animated characters, atmospheric music and sounds. We did our best to convey the atmosphere and humor of the old classics and transfer it into the 21st century. “
Once you’ve gotten into Return of the Tentacle , there are plenty of places to play other old-school ScummVM games for free. Downloading ScummVM is obviously your first step. There are plenty of free games and demos you can try out after that if you don’t feel like extracting the classic content of games like The Secret of Monkey Island or Day of the Tentacle and playing them directly in ScummVM.
Heck, you can even play some ScummVM games right in your web browser – even older Sierra games.
Do you have a Windows or Mac app that you really like? Leave a note in the comments or email me: david.murphy@lifehacker.com .