Now You're Really Playing with Power: The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion for the Nintendo Entertainment System

The bad words we removed, meaning that “The meteor is going to be pissed” was changed to “The meteor is going to be mad.” Howie Rubin of Jaleco (the company that was going to publish the game under license) advised us the that the baddest bad word is Kill. The central activity in most Nintendo games is killing things. The image and the act are good, but the word is bad, even if the word does not suggest the image or the act. —Douglas CrockfordNow You’re Really Playing with Power: The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion for the Nintendo Entertainment System (Crockford.com)

A bizarre story. Quotable quote: “Nintendo is a jealous god.”

One thought on “Now You're Really Playing with Power: The Expurgation of Maniac Mansion for the Nintendo Entertainment System

  1. I remember giving Maniac Mansion some playing time in my NES, which is a system I still own, but I never thought about it as an example of IF until now. The game featured multiple endings based on two main factors that I remember: 1)decisions made by the player and 2)which characters go into the mansion.

    Unfortunately, my games always ended with either my characters ending up dead by radiation exposure from the microwave, or the meteor destroying the planet.

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