Wikipedia:Today's featured article/May 6, 2018

Maniac Mansion is a 1987 graphic adventure video game developed and published by Lucasfilm Games. It follows teenage protagonist Dave Miller as he solves puzzles and attempts to rescue his girlfriend from a mad scientist. Initially released for the Commodore 64 and Apple II, Maniac Mansion was Lucasfilm Games' first self-published product. Conceived by Ron Gilbert and Gary Winnick, it tells a comedic story that draws on horror film and B-movie clichés. Gilbert developed Maniac Mansion's innovative point-and-click interface, which became a standard feature in the genre. To speed up production, he created a game engine called SCUMM, which was used in many later LucasArts titles. Maniac Mansion was critically acclaimed for its graphics, cutscenes, animation and humor. Writer Orson Scott Card praised it as a step toward "computer games [becoming] a valid storytelling art". The game's success solidified Lucasfilm as a serious rival to adventure game studios such as Sierra On-Line.