It has been a difficult stretch for Xbox, marked by waves of layoffs, studio closures and the looming prospect of outrageously expensive next-generation hardware. Yet Xbox Game Pass keeps rolling on, welcoming a fresh batch of games twice a month while saying goodbye to others in its library. One classic title is departing the service on Oct. 31 and is well worth catching before it goes — a short game that fits spooky season perfectly: 2016’s Day of the Tentacle Remastered.
Originally released in 1993 by LucasArts, Day of the Tentacle is a wildly influential point-and-click adventure game famed for its use of the SCUMM game engine. It lets players pick from a row of commands along the bottom of the screen — such as “pick up,” “talk to” and “use” — and then interact with an object in the world. Double Fine secured the rights to the game from LucasArts following the enthusiastic response to another pairing between the two studios, 2015’s Grim Fandango Remastered (which also leaves Game Pass at the end of the month).
In Day of the Tentacle, you control a pocket-protector-wearing nerd named Bernard alongside his friends Hoagie and Laverne as they try to stop the mutated Purple Tentacle from taking over the world. There’s just one problem: Purple Tentacle’s nefarious plan for global domination is quite literally perfect, so the only way to truly thwart him is through time travel. The friendly neighborhood mad scientist Dr. Fred lets you use his porta-potty time machines, but everything goes terribly wrong. Hoagie is hurled 200 years into the past, to the era of America’s founding fathers. Laverne lands 200 years in the future, after Purple Tentacle has enslaved all of humanity. Meanwhile, Bernard is stuck in the present. The three pals must work together to gather and pass one another various items through the time toilet in order to prevent the tentacle’s takeover.
If you’re a point-and-click superfan, Day of the Tentacle Remastered is effectively a two-for-one deal — the remaster also includes a fully playable version of LucasArts’ 1987 game Maniac Mansion, another wildly influential adventure game that marked the first-ever use of the SCUMM game engine.
After seven years under the Xbox umbrella, Double Fine went independent again in July, so it is no surprise to see the studio’s games leaving the Game Pass library. Day of the Tentacle Remastered will take you only about five or six hours to beat, so there is plenty of time before Oct. 31 to check it out. It is a goofy ’90s time capsule full of clever puzzles and off-the-wall narrative twists.
To mark the remaster’s release, Double Fine also put out a brief documentary about the project, worth a watch for anyone interested in a behind-the-scenes look at game development:
If you don’t have an Xbox or a Game Pass subscription, Day of the Tentacle Remastered is also available for PlayStation and Windows PC. Switch players, though — you’re out of luck for the time being.
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