maniac mansion – Sven Charleer, phd

Yes, that’s my original box, pristine condition. While early 90s NES games were around 130 Euro (counting inflation), this game was 180. Still, my wonderful parents were okay with it, and what a life changer!

[ I posted a very related article about a year ago. This is an update 😉 ]

It taught me most of my starting vocabulary in English. It challenged me with some insane puzzles. And it probably was the only game I finished (I must have been 12-ish?), since I had no patience for skill based games (why am I playing Marathon today? I don´t know). This in a time when Internet wasn’t a thing. You had to call your friends on the landline hoping they would have an insight into why the damn trunk won’t budge.

Maniac Mansion was the game for me. I bought a PC (read: I convinced my parents to buy me one) just for its sequel, Day of the Tentacle. It is most likely the reason I got into programming, computer science, and the entire career that followed. I still dream of making my own point & click adventure today (and I will damn it).

But this is not what this post is about. This is about a song I made back in 2024 with my daughter. A song that tells a story about a girl. A girl obsessed with Maniac Mansion’s main protagonist: Dave. Hoping his mission (saving Sandy) fails miserably. She might have had something to do with her kidnapping as well.

So yes, a fan fiction song. Can´t put a genre on it, but I took inspiration from Jonathan Coulton who made the amazing Still Alive (that you all know from Portal) and also the hilarious Code Monkey, and maybe some Freezepop (they influence my music quite a bit).

So funny (yet dark) synthpop?

It took almost 2 years to get to a state I felt it was good enough for a proper release (that’s almost 2 years of music production class as well). And maybe it took that long because because 2024 sucked. And anything related to that year can mostly be forgotten (one of our cats was ran over, they stole our bike, I had a shitty bike accident, and to top it all off my better half got a diagnosis that changed the rest of our lives). But one good thing came out of it. My first song with my daughter. And it is time more people hear it, damn it (I’m not the easiest producer to work with, that poor thing :D).

She was 11 when she sang this. I kept the innocent vocals for the final release, even though I knew she could sing them so much better today (we have a lot of songs in the pipeline).

Oh, and I did send a version to Ron Gilbert at some point. He replied, and said it made his day. The guy that made Maniac Mansion, the game that set little Sven on a path of games, computer science, and more. I can´t believe I made his day.

Anyway, enjoy.!

YouTube and other links below:

Hey Dave on Spotify, Apple Music etc.

Maniac Mansion is one of my favorite point & click, no, dare I say NES, dare I even say video games in general. It taught me the meaning of “It won’t budge”, the dangers of microwave ovens (there’s a reason we don’t have hamsters), and probably inspired my weird sense of humor (I still quote its sequel Day of the Tentacle on a regular basis).

A couple of years ago I started messing around with cheap synthesizers. For my first attempt at a complete song I chose to cover a Maniac Mansion song, the game’s protagonist theme (Dave’s Theme or The Boys Are Still Back, by David Hayes). It wasn’t a great cover, but it reignited my love for music making (first time since 1993). I made more game covers followed by some original work, but after 3 years, I came full circle. Today, thanks to my 11 year old daughter’s fearless singing, and yours truly taking courses at the music academy to get actually better at this thing, we bring you Hey Dave.

Hey Dave can be categorized as fan fiction. We listen to Dave’s ex, who isn’t too fond of Dave heading to the mansion. Not just because she knows it’s dangerous and Dave might die, but maybe because she isn’t such a big fan of Sandy, Dave’s girlfriend who has been kidnapped by Dr. Fred. And Dr. Fred, well, he’s not a bad guy. He just got brainwashed by an evil meteor. Gotta love the 80s and its plots.

maniac mansion NES box mint condition — My original NES Maniac Mansion box, still in amazing condition (33 years old?)

I do want to thank Ron Gilbert, Gary Winnick and Tim Schafer for creating some of the best games out there and their attempt to keep the genre alive. Playing Maniac Mansion and Day of the Tentacle are still some of my favorite teenage memories. If it wasn’t for those games, I might not have gotten so obsessed with video games. I would have never aspired to get a PhD like Dr. Fred and I would probably be living in my parents’ attic collecting stamps…

An early version of Hey Dave was performed live at our music academy. Our daughter’s first public singing performance (she plays the violin, but dad requested singing and she nailed it).

Currently Hey Dave is only available on SoundCloud, but I’ll probably be sharing it on other platforms soon!

Indiana Jones x Day of the Tentacle by Sven Charleer — While we wait for more Maniac Mansion games I’ll just sketch and pitch some ideas. What about a cross-over with other LucasArts IPs?

Thanks for listening! <3