Return of the Tentacle is the highly anticipated fan-made sequel to the classic Lucasart point-and-click adventure game Day of The Tentacle. It features the same lovable cast of misfits as the original and, of course, more puzzles than you can shake some chattering teeth at. The game was developed by the small five-man (and woman!) German team at Catmic — and we are stunningly surprised by how great this early-release looks.
Our favorite Purple Tentacle is back and his appetite for world domination has only gotten worse ever since we last squished him under our sneakers. Our favorite heroes Bernard, Laverne, and Hoagie are thrust into some more convoluted space-time-continuum-bending shenanigans in order to save the planet.
As far as fan-made games go, this game goes above and beyond.
The art-style is a near-perfect clone of the remastered game done by Double Fine – everything down to the linoleum floors have been recreated to satisfy our nostalgic needs. The soundtrack by David Schornheim is stellar and a huge part of why the game has the right “feel”. The voice actors do an admiral job; and while we do notice some discrepancies, we just remind ourselves this this game is still in the early stages of production. Even the character animations show an astounding attention to detail and a true appreciation for the original material; when Larverne charmingly flounces across the screen in her signature walk, we can’t help but fall in love with the game all over again. The infamous LucasArts verb bar has been replaced for a much more intuitive control system – some would argue the relative difficulty and frustrations associated to these retro point-and-click mechanics are a huge part of their draw, but alas, functionality takes precedence as we modernize.
Just when you think the game is limited to being a quaint homage, everyone gets transported to a whole different set of locations and a tantalizing promise for more than what we were expecting. This Prologue serves as an appetizer for what is to come – and we are now very hungry to see what they will serve as the main course.
Return of the Tentacle is available for free on itch.io. If you download the game, please support this great team by tweeting about them or leaving a comment on their page. Even better, if you’re a Big Box collector print out their custom-designed box cutout and share the images online!
If you want to see me struggle through the puzzles, check out the full playthrough over on Twitch. Please don’t forget that you can submit your own awesome content about speedrunning, new games, old games, or your grandma’s secret coleslaw recipe just by making an account!
Alice is a writer, gamer, creator, and organizer.
