Day of the Tentacle - Welcome

A story of boy meets girl, meets another boy, meets mutated purple tentacle hell bent on taking over the world, meets scientist, meets George Washington… Time travel… You get the idea.

Day of the Tentacle was one of my all-time favourite games as a kid and by kid, I mean teenager, who only had a Mac computer at the time; with its barren wasteland of games, compared to PC counterparts. So my selection of games was limited, to say the least. Doom 2, Tomb Raider X, Carmageddon and the Lucas arts collection are the only games I remember. Contained within the Lucas arts collection was a treasure-trove of games including Sam & Max and Day of the Tentacle – and both have had a huge impact on me and my love for the genre and games in general.

Released in 1993 by LucasArts, yes 93! It was a sequel to Ron Gilbert’s well-loved and groundbreaking Maniac Mansion… which I had not actually played when I discovered DotT. Day of the Tentacle is described as a “mind-bending, time travel, cartoon puzzle adventure game in which three unlikely friends work together to prevent an evil mutated purple tentacle from taking over the world!” by the games creators and remaster-ers over at Double Fine. How could you not love a game with that description?!

 

The Rise and Fall and Rise of Point and Click

Point and click games had fallen out of favour in recent years and in many ways it’s understandable. Much like the turn-based RPG’s of the time, they built up to the limitations of their hardware. You couldn’t have a lot of animations, or detailed HD graphics, or 3D environments. Whereas some games aimed at twitch gaming or high scores to keep people playing, point and click adventures were there to tell a story. It was only really as technology caught up that twitch gaming, detailed environments and storytelling managed to merge in games like Half-Life, Halo, and Uncharted (There are obviously many more and many that probably do it better – leave a comment of a great action game with a great story). But in 93, if you wanted a good, interactive, fun and interesting story… you needed a point and click adventure.

 

Pixel Art Paradise

It was these point and click adventure games and 8bit and 16-bit games of the time that got me into pixel art in the first place. The beautiful craftsmanship of people with an obvious limitation.

 

Day of the Tentacle REMASTERED!

That’s correct, put down your pitchforks, you heard right. Day of the Tentacle is BACK! released on the 14th of March on the PS4 and PC via steam, the remastered version is upon us. With updated graphics, that look like perfect HD renditions IMHO, Day of the Tentacle is back and as beautiful as ever. Don’t like the super-shiny non-pixely graphics? Click the button and toggle them off to see it in all it’s original, pixel-perfect glory.

Trailer below: