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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 16:00, 22 October 2015 [1].

Maniac Mansion

[edit]
Nominator(s): User:JimmyBlackwing, GamerPro64 14:36, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

With JimmyBlackwing doing what he does best with Copyediting and source checking and having me keep an eye on the nomination (discussion), here we have an article that covers one of the most iconic adventure games in gaming. While LucasArts may have stopped making games, their legacy can still be seen with this title. So come check it out, put a hamster in a microwave, and don't be a tunahead. GamerPro64 14:36, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

A little bit of history for those who don't know: this article began as a collaboration between myself, User:Guyinblack25 and User:MuZemike in early 2011. (Sadly, neither of them uses Wikipedia much these days.) After awhile, I dropped out and they kept working on it, until it was unsuccessfully FAC'd in 2012. Prose issues sank it, and I wasn't available for copyediting. Last month, I decided to bring the project back to life with the help of GamerPro. A massive revision ensued. I put quite a bit of work into counteracting any "continental drift" that's happened with the sources over time, but spotchecks might still pick up some things that I missed. With that, I'll leave this nom in Gamer's capable hands. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:06, 13 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment - The lead should probably say "Maniac Mansion is a 1987 video game" rather than "Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure game", as very few people have any idea what a "graphic adventure game" is and the article needs to be written for a general audience. Stating that it is a graphic adventure game in the overview section is fine, however, as the body should have more detailed information than the lead. Kaldari (talk) 07:42, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Well there's a link to graphic adventure game so that might help people know what that is. I changed the part to "Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure video game". I think that works best. GamerPro64 13:53, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Darkwarriorblake comments
  • In the production section I would maybe look at moving the opening sentence of "Production and SCUMM" to after the second to last sentence of the first paragraph? It seems to open stating a limitation but not giving context for why that limitation matters. I know 64KB isn't much especially in modern times, but where the sentence falls in the paragraph, it seems like it wouldn't be obvious to the non-tech person.
  • I know this isn't available for every game but is there any information on a budget?

David [Fox] says, "I don’t remember a lot about, ‘Here's your budget.' Do you remember any of that? When I had to start doing budget stuff for other things, I was like, I have to budget this? Because basically you say, here's the game. It'll probably take me about this long. I'll need this number of people. And they'd say, okay. I'm sure Steve [Arnold, Lucasfilm Games General Manager,] did a budget then."

"Yeah, Steve was very good at hiding all of that nasty stuff from us," says Chip [Morningstar].
Sorry, didn't have this favourited so it didn't show up on my watch list. The budget information can't be helped but the changes improve an already fine article. Support Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:54, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comments From Indrian

Generally speaking, this article is decent, but there are a number of problems, which I will address below.

  • The "Overview" section lacks important information on game play. What kind of "puzzles" are in the game. Are these brain teasers? Word games? Item manipulation? Environment-based? How does the player rescue Sandy? Does he have to neutralize all the members of the family? Gain entrance to a restricted area? How are cutscenes triggered, and how are they important to completing the game? This section really needs to be expanded for comprehensiveness.
  • "Maniac Mansion was conceived in 1985, when Lucasfilm Games employees Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick were assigned to create an original game" Only GamesTM makes this claim, and its not a direct quote. In both Retro Gamer and the GDC Postmortem Gilbert and Winnick emphasize that the game was born out of voluntary brainstorming sessions and shared interests. They were not assigned to work together by management.
  • Well, the Retro Gamer article in Issue 94 sort of contradicts this (though not explicitly) through direct quotes from Gilbert and Winnick about how they started hanging out due to mutual interests and started toying around with doing a game together. The idea of management assigning them to work together also seems antithetical to company procedure at the time as pieced together from various interviews about how the company operated in those days, when management was pretty hands off and low key and provided lots of individual freedom to put projects together. I really think GamesTM is wrong on this one and the Retro Gamer version should take precedence. Indrian (talk) 20:54, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's arguable, but you might be right, particularly given Lucasfilm's management style. The problem is that the RG article was the main source that I wasn't able to access when I revamped the article. All of the RG material was added back in 2011-2012 by the other editors I mentioned above, and I couldn't find an active Wikipedian with access to the issue. (I did double-check whether the RG source had drifted over the years, by looking at the first revisions of the article that included it. Adjustments were made accordingly.) As a result, I can't edit new information from the RG source into the article. Since you seem to have access to RG 94, would you mind quoting or scanning the relevant sections so that I can rewrite the opening of the dev section? JimmyBlackwing (talk) 21:31, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Gilbert had been hired the previous year as a programmer for the game Koronis Rift." Gilbert was hired as a contractor to port the Atari 800 game Koronis Rift to the C64. This sentence implies he was a full-fledged employee and that he was a programmer on the original game.
  • "He befriended Winnick, an artist for Labyrinth: The Computer Game" Winnick was one of the Games Groups' earliest employees and its only artist and animator. He worked on many games. Why is Labyrinth being singled out in a way that makes it appear it was the only game he had worked on to that point?
  • "a trend to which Gilbert accredited the success of several of his games for Lucasfilm" Accredited means "to certify as meeting prescribed standards," "to supply with credentials or authority," or "attribute something to a person." I think the word you are looking for is "credited."
  • Fair enough on credited, but I am pretty certain that accredited only applies to someone, not something. Therefore, I am still not convinced it is the correct word in this context. Indrian (talk) 00:38, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Dictionary.com doesn't qualify it in this way, and the OED specifically includes an example phrase that does not reference a person: "Staff described the results as outstanding and accredited the success to single sex education." Merriam-Webster's simple definition does seem to limit the word to being a reference to people ("to give (someone) credit for something"), but the full version is much broader: the third definition offers it as a synonym for "attribute". I don't see an issue with its use in the article. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:20, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "They drew inspiration from what Winnick called "a ridiculous teen horror movie"" Anyone reading this is going to wonder why you don't just name the movie. The answer, of course, is that Winnick could not recall the title in the interview.
  • Changed it into "They drew inspiration from a film whose name Winnick couldn't recall. He described it as 'a ridiculous teen horror movie', in which teenagers inside a building were killed one by one without any thought of leaving." GamerPro64 21:55, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • In both Retro Gamer and the GDC post mortem, Reanimator is noted as an influence, yet it is not mentioned in the article at all.
  • "an adventure game by Sierra Entertainment" There was no Sierra Entertainment in the 1980s, the name of the company was Sierra On-Line.
  • "Although he was a fan of the genre, this was Gilbert's first experience" How could Gilbert be a fan if he had never experienced the genre? The answer is he had played many text adventures, but had never played a graphical adventure like King's Quest. This needs to be clarified.
  • "this was Gilbert's first experience with a graphical text adventure" King's Quest is not a text adventure by any definition of the term. It is a fully animated graphical adventure that happens to have a text parser.
  • "Maniac Mansion‍ '​s story and structure were designed before coding commenced" "Maniac Mansion‍ '​s first six-to-nine months of production were dedicated largely to engine development" So which was it? Did they start with story and structure, or with the coding of the engine? I believe the article is trying to convey that the story and structure were set before any scripting and game programming, but engine programming is coding too, so the wording needs to be tweaked.
  • No, it really does not. Again, I think its fair to say that the game was plotted out before coding and scripting of gameplay began, but it sounds like engine coding started very early. This just needs a simple tweak to avoid reading like a contradiction. Indrian (talk) 00:38, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • I honestly don't know what change could be made to make it clearer than it already is, unless we want to go beyond the sources. It seems perfectly coherent to me just with the "largely" caveat, since that makes room for the story and structure's being at the beginning of development, without outright saying it. No idea what else to do with it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 06:52, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Forty input commands were planned at first, but the number was gradually reduced to 12" Why?
  • "Maniac Mansion was the first NES release by Lucasfilm Games" Ballblazer received an NES port from Pony Canyon in 1988.
  • That's nice, but it's still wrong. It was released by JVC, not Lucasfilm Games, and it was not the first Lucasfilm Games IP that hit the NES. I don't believe that Ballblazer on NES was actually programmed by Lucasfilm Games, so it's probably okay to say it was the first game the company programmed for the NES. Indrian (talk) 00:38, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The source says: "This was going to be LucasArt's first Nintendo cartridge." The meaning is vague enough that I think I can get away with calling it the first NES game developed by LucasArts, so I went with that. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 04:31, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "During Maniac Mansion‍ '​s development for the Commodore 64, Lucasfilm had censored profanity in the script" This is simply not true. Steve Arnold told Gilbert that he could keep the term "shithead" if he had a good artistic reason to use profanity. When Gilbert could not think of one, he voluntarily removed the word from the game. That's not censorship.
  • It was censored, and then Gilbert complained bitterly, and only afterwards did Arnold offer to compromise. This whole episode can aptly by summarized as "censorship", a word that Gilbert himself uses in the video IIRC. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:18, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fair enough, but the article should probably add these details. In hindsight, Gilbert was very pleased with this compromise and he was given an opportunity to keep the word, so I think just leaving it at censorship lacks a little nuance. Indrian (talk) 00:38, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Fair enough. Honestly, I think I misremembered this incident as being a little more benign, which is why I initially thought "censorship" was a little strong. Consider this suggestion withdrawn. Indrian (talk) 20:54, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • " In retrospect, Crockford commented that such policies made for "bland" products, and he called Nintendo a "jealous god"" Crockford's opinion is personal, partisan, and not conveyed in a scholarly or critical forum and therefore has no place in the article.
  • "Maniac Mansion was one of four games in the NES library—alongside Shadowgate, F-15 Strike Eagle and Déjà Vu—to be translated into Swedish" No other translations are mentioned, so why is this one singled out?
  • Why does the reception section for an American game consist entirely of British Magazines? Computer Gaming World and Commodore Magazine are both readily available online, and I bet both of them reviewed the game.
  • "In 2010, the staff of GamesTM dubbed Maniac Mansion a "seminal" title, which overhauled the gameplay of the graphic adventure genre. Removing the need to guess syntax allowed players to concentrate on the story and puzzles, which created a smoother and more enjoyable experience, according to the magazine" I guess GamesTM has never heard of ICOM Simulations. Maniac Mansion was an early point-and-click adventure, but it certainly was not the first.
  • I probably should have been clearer on this one. The sentiment is mostly fine, but the implication that Maniac Mansion did this first or alone is troubling. I am looking for clarification rather than removal. Indrian (talk) 00:47, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "Christopher Buecheler of GameSpy credited the game with its genre's subsequent critical adoration and commercial viability." This is just plain silly. King's Quest games sold hundreds of thousands of units before Maniac Mansion and continued to dwarf Lucasfilm adventure games in sales even though they did not go to an icon-based interface until King's Quest V in 1990. Leisure Suit Larry trounced Maniac Mansion in sales with a parser too. Maniac Mansion is a great game and a cult classic, but it had nothing to do with making graphical adventure games "commercially viable."
  • I have no objection to the additional source, which is fine. I am still bothered by the word "viable," which I realize is the exact word used by GameSpy. Clearly King's Quest, Space Quest, and Leisure Suit Larry were popular despite having a parser, so the graphical adventure genre was already viable. Also clearly sales of point-and-click adventures like King's Quest V, Phantasmagoria, and Lucasarts' own Fate of Atlantis and Full Throttle were even better than most of those games, so the point-and-click interface proved popular and influential. It's okay to talk about how the SCUMM interface helped broaden the appeal of the genre, but that word viable just does not sit well with me. Indrian (talk) 04:31, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "However, authors Connie Veugen and Felipe Quérette argued that, while Maniac Mansion‍ '​s point-and-click interface was influential, it removed the enjoyment of discovering a game's vocabulary" Are these the only critics making this claim? If so, its a fringe view and mentioning it gives undue weight. The comparative sales of graphical adventures versus text adventures post 1984 would imply most game players could care less about "discovering a game's vocabulary."
  • It does not matter if it's published in a reputable journal; if no one else is making this argument, it is a fringe theory and including it is undue weight. If you have more examples of this view, I have no problem with this staying as a representative of this viewpoint. My understanding is that most students of game design do not find "guess the parser" particularly charming. Indrian (talk) 00:38, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "The game was one of the first to contain product placement—in its case, Pepsi branding" Not even close. Pole Position in 1982 had billboards for companies ranging from Pepsi to Dentyne to Marlboro. Chase the Chuck Wagon in 1983 was essentially a Purina commercial. Tapper in 1984 featured a prominent Budweiser logo.
  • "Other games, such as Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Arcade Game, Zool and Tapper, followed suit" As stated above, Tapper came out in 1984.
  • "Maniac Mansion enthusiasts have drawn fan art of its characters, participated in tentacle-themed cosplay and produced a trailer for a fictitious film adaptation of the game." You can say this about just about any popular video game. This is not relevant absent significant coverage of its impact in reliable sources, which is lacking here.
  • "Gilbert has said that he would like to see an official remake, similar in its graphics and gameplay to The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition and Monkey Island 2 Special Edition: LeChuck's Revenge. However, he expressed doubts about its potential quality, in light of George Lucas' enhanced remakes of the original Star Wars trilogy." No point in mentioning a potential remake that is not going to happen, and I am guessing that jab about the Star Wars special editions was just Gilbert being funny.
  • "TV adaptation and game sequel" This section should come before "Impact and Legacy," as the article should really end with the game's place in history.

Well, that is a lot of material, but the FAC can certainly still be successful with a little hard work. The foundation of the article is strong; it just needs some tweaking and reworking here and there. Indrian (talk) 08:28, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Still want to leave the nom for GamerPro, but there are a few points above that he might not know about (not having seen the sources), so I included some responses above. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 20:18, 26 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I still like a lot of what is going on in this article, which is informative and excellently sourced. Your apparent insistence on including questionable material without regards the exceptional nature of certain claims worries me, however. The Verifiability policy is not an excuse to eschew fact checking or promote fringe opinions. Indrian (talk) 00:38, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I'll let GamerPro handle the rest. If he needs help with the Overview expansion, I'll handle that as well. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:48, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I appreciate all your hard work. I made the tactical error of conducting the review pretty late at night and was probably not as articulate on some issues as I could have been. My apologies if that got us off on the wrong foot a little bit. The article is really coming along! Indrian (talk) 21:06, 27 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Indrian: A few points above still await your replies. Also, I can't fix the dev section issues without access to the RG article. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 19:37, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, real life has the annoying habit of laying waste to our plans. Looks like we are nearly there, and I will get you that RG info in the near future. Indrian (talk) 15:33, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Indrian: The nom is moving into the danger zone time-wise, after well over a month up. If you don't have the time to finish your review, should we just consider the remaining points void? JimmyBlackwing (talk) 01:48, 22 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Mike Christie

[edit]
  • "which went on to be used in": a little wordy; how about just "which was used in"?
  • "Aside from the green tentacle, the mansion's inhabitants pose a threat": does this mean that the green tentacle does not pose a threat? If so, how about "With the exception of the green tentacle, the mansion's inhabitants are hostile, and will throw the player characters into the dungeon"? I like "hostile" better than "pose a threat" partly because the inhabitants are plural but it would sound odd to say "pose threats".
  • The lead says "Maniac Mansion was Lucasfilm's first foray into video game publishing", but later you mention Koronis Rift as an earlier LucasFilm game. I see further on that it was publishing a game that was new, not creating a game, but that's not clear in the lead.
  • I saw the earlier discussion about "accredited" vs. "credited"; I think technically you may be right but as a matter of common usage "credited" sounds much better to me. I really think you should change this.
  • "co-wrote and -designed": a bit ugly; can we have "co-wrote and co-designed" instead?
  • "Lucasfilm employee Chip Morningstar contributed base code for the engine, upon which Gilbert built": a bit clumsy. How about "Lucasfilm employee Chip Morningstar contributed the base code for the engine, which Gilbert then built on"?
  • "Each cartridge was fitted with a battery back-up to save data": I don't follow this. What does the battery have to do with saving data?
    If I recall correctly, batteries were the things powering the cartridges save files. I believe The Legend of Zelda (video game) was well known for being innovative at the time. GamerPro64 03:29, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    OK -- can something (perhaps a footnote) be added to clarify this? For a reader like me it's quite unclear. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 10:46, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "However, Nintendo later noticed it and demanded its removal. After the first batch of cartridges was sold, Jaleco was forced to remove the content from future shipments": might be more concise as "However, Nintendo later noticed it, and after the first batch of cartridges was sold, Jaleco was forced to remove the content from future shipments".
  • "Ports for the Amiga, Atari ST and Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) followed": I assumed when I read this that the ports followed in fairly short order, but per a comment later in the article the Amiga port was published six years later. Perhaps the dates of the ports could be included at this first mention.
    • Done. GamerPro64 20:24, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      So the review was six years later; the port was only two years after the original release. I didn't get that first time through. In that case how about changing "Reviewing Maniac Mansion‍ '​s Amiga version, Simon Byron of The One Amiga praised the game for retaining "charm and humour" six years after its first appearance. However, he believed that its art direction had become "tacky" compared to more recent titles" to "Reviewing Maniac Mansion‍ '​s Amiga version four years after its release, Simon Byron of The One Amiga praised the game for retaining "charm and humour", but suggested that its art direction had become "tacky" compared to more recent titles."? Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 11:41, 4 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "she believed the game to be highly enjoyable": "believed" is an odd word to use here; it's her opinion, not her belief. Perhaps "felt" would be better.
  • Richard Cobbett is referred to only as "Cobbett" at first mention, and his relevance is not explained; I'd move this from second mention to first.
  • "Conversely, Maniac Mansion‍ '​s implementation of the concept was widely imitated in other adventure titles": why "conversely"?
    • I don't think I know what conversely means so I wouldn't know a different word to use here. GamerPro64 03:10, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
      It gets used in constructions like "A, but conversely B" to indicate that B in some sense works in the opposite direction to A. The article has "Although 1985's Uninvited had featured a point-and-click interface, it was not influential. Conversely, Maniac Mansion‍ '​s implementation of the concept was widely imitated in other adventure titles." If Maniac Mansion had been influential, but not had a point-and-click interface, then you could have said "Although 1985's Uninvited had featured a point-and-click interface, it was not influential. Conversely, Maniac Mansion‍ was influential, but did not include a point-and-click interface"; the two games would have the influence and interface compared, and it would be clear that one was the converse of the other. In the article text as it stands I don't know what two things are supposed to be converses. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 13:31, 3 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • "unlike anything else out there – a point-and-click adventure": this is a spaced en dash; you use unspaced em dashes elsewhere. I know this is in a quote, but that doesn't matter; it's OK to clean up minor typographical variations in order to get a consistent style.

-- That's everything I can see on a first pass. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 00:08, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Everything I noted has been fixed; I think this is FA quality now. Mike Christie (talk - contribs - library) 01:56, 5 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

  • Comment (having stumbled here from my FAC). Pretty good, very nice Impact and legacy sect, but overall throughout the article a bit too much overreliance on quotes. I'd recommend trimming those down in size and/or also paraphrasing some, still citing to those sources with attribution if given already, but just writing the overall gist of what they're saying and not quoting as much. Good luck, — Cirt (talk) 01:24, 30 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Images There are two non-frees, the cover and the screenshot, but both have proper NFCC criteria and readily meet requirements, easily meeting minimal use. The remaining images are all free images pulled from Commons and appear to have proper sourcing/licensing/origins to be treated as free images. --MASEM (t) 21:10, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Comments from PresN

Whoops, promised a review and then never delivered. Not too much here; it's been combed through pretty heavily above.

  • 'according to Gilbert, "Very little was written down. Gary and I just talked and laughed a lot, and out it came."' -> lowercase v
  • 'For example, Winnick's girlfriend Ray inspired Razor' - while technically correct, this just reads oddly to me, probably because of the dual-definition of 'inspire', e.g. Ray causing Razor to be inspired as a person, rather than being the inspiration for the character
  • 'An innovative, tile-based graphics system was implemented to solve the problem, at a small cost in detail. Winnick gave each character a large head to make them recognizable.' - well, that last sentence came out of nowhere. I think you need a transition of some sort.
  • 'Fox was between projects and planned to work on the game only for a month, but he remained with the team for six months' -> 'but remained with the team'
  • In general, it's best to restate the sentence's subject in a clause, especially when a lot of objects have been mentioned in the meantime. I learned that one from a grammar hound at FAC years ago, and I've stuck with it. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 00:17, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • The development section is certainly long enough as it is, but I noticed that Labyrinth: The Computer Game claims that its "word wheels" influenced the SCUMM system and Maniac Mansion, at least in that it was Fox's attempt to avoid the text parser, a claim that this article makes no mention of.
  • 'Lucasfilm's push "to make computer games a valid storytelling art."' - period outside the quote
  • 'but he encountered "loads of visual humour" in it; and he added,' - semicolon and?
  • 'The series lasted for three seasons; 66 episodes were filmed.' - mixed number formats
  • 'and another group in Germany is producing one with art direction similar to that of Day of the Tentacle' - given that the source is from 2011, can we get an "as of" or something here to show that it's still in development?
  • redirects: if you care, point-and-click and cutscenes are redirecting in the lead; further on, redirects that don't look intentional include David Fox, gameplay genre, King's Quest 1, Space Quest 1, Humongous Entertainment, and The Deseret News
  • Reference 1 has the author name flipped (or unflipped, rather)
  • Flipping to Support; any remaining issues seem to be a clash of "style", rather than actual incorrect grammar, and so not worthy of an oppose or holding out on you. --PresN 02:29, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks! Also, I went through and fixed the redirects you mentioned. Regarding the transition about character heads, I'm not really sure what to do. I noticed that the connection was tenuous while I was copyediting that section (the cruft that stitched all this together was cut), but I thought I could get away with it based on the mention of lost detail in the previous sentence. If that's not good enough (and it definitely might not be), I'm a bit stumped. JimmyBlackwing (talk) 02:56, 19 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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