Kickstarter Game Inspired by Maniac Mansion on NES to get Multi-System Physical Release in 2025

I never owned a NES when I was growing up, we already owned a Super NES and Sega Game Gear so my parent’s didn’t see any advantage in buying an old system like the NES. They weren’t even keen on getting me a Nintendo Gameboy as they considered the Sega Game Gear superior, and it was technically, but not in quality of games. However they didn’t understand that, so I only got to play the NES when I visited my best friend Josh’s house who had the old systems that we didn’t own. One of my favorite games on the NES that I would always play when I visited Josh’s was Maniac Mansion. He owned several other high quality games on the NES including Legend of Zelda, Zelda II – The Adventure of Link, Shadowgate and Super Mario 3 but the game I loved and fascinated me the most was Maniac Mansion. Apparently I wasn’t the only gamer that Maniac Mansion would have a significant affect on. A gamer and programmer in Spain was inspired by the game so much that he started a Kickstarter Campaign to raise enough money to create a game that was heavily influenced by the NES version of Maniac Mansion.

The game is called Cronela’s Mansion and the influence of Maniac Mansion is very obvious. The creator does not hide the fact and actually celebrates the fact that his game is a “spiritual successor” to Maniac Mansion on the NES. Francesco’s game is highly ambitious and he requested an equally ambitious Kickstarter financial goal of €125,000 to program and release Cronela’s Mansion on not just the NES but also Super Nintendo, Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance as well as PC Windows and Modern Consoles (Switch, XBox and PS5). If a €180,000 goal is reached then Straynaus (the game creator’s online handle) will make a DOS version and €250,000 goal will result in the creation of a Sega Mega Drive / Genesis version. As of the 5th of April the Kickstarter pledge total is currently at €160,000 with late pledges still being accepted for a limited, unknown period of time. In order to purchase a copy the full purchase price of the game must be pledged in advance, in other words it must be pre-ordered by pledging his Kickstarter campaign. The financial goal was reached March 6th so the primary wave of pledges finished then, all pledges after that date are considered late pledges. The game is set to release in November so to secure a copy you must pledge over six months in advance. Digital only versions start from €12 (~$22 AUD) for Gameboy Color up to €24 (~$44 AUD) for NES and SNES versions. Physical copies start from €50 (~$91 AUD) for Gameboy Color version up to €75-76 (~$138 AUD) for NES, Famicom and SNES versions.

The game project has received loads of press and consumer attention. It even got a featured article in the well known Retro Gamer magazine and pre-release press demo versions have been sent around to reviewers and youtubers around the world. Additionally demo ROMs are available to download on the Kickstarter website. The SNES version has excellent music and is also graphically extremely impressive. The Super NES never really got any point and click adventures during it’s entire life, this will be the first and it’s going to be a great one. It was going to be a straight port of the NES version but it ended up being programmed from scratch due to technical difficulties in porting. The NES version is the most expansive according to Straynaus, having spent the most time on and having the most amount of detail and dialogue compared to the other versions. The Gameboy Color and Advance versions also appear to unique and shaped by the technical limitations of each system. They console and PC versions appear to be the same, or without much difference from each other.

The physical versions of each release is looking very professional and Straynaus appears to be copying the box and art style of each system to make it feel like an authentic Nintendo authorized release. I’m not too sure how difficult it will be to play the game if you don’t purchase a copy from Straynaus as the SNES version has a copy protection cardboard disc (like the old DOS Sierra adventure games had). It’s likely that copy protection measures will be implemented into other versions of the game to stop people being able to play the game without owning it.

The game is incredibly expensive for the NES and SNES versions, which would be the ones worth owning, so if you are willing to part with that much money you will have to decide which version to get. I don’t think many people would have the money to buy multiple console versions unless they are rich or have money to burn. I tried to reach out to Straynaus to ask about wholesale purchases so I could have some copies available on the website’s online store but he didn’t respond. I am assuming this means that there is no way for business’ to buy copies wholesale which means that you can only obtain this game by pre-ordering direct from Straynaus’ Kickstarter page.

All images taken from Cronela’s Mansion Kickstarter Website