Pennsylvania, USATo get the second quest Michael Ending, set Michael as character two and Wendy as Character three in the party. Leave the Yellow Key, Sponge, and Package in place and use a skip instead of the Contract to get past Purple Tentacle during the main game. Have Wendy Give Meteor the Contract with the New Kid Menu unlocked and quick switch to Michael, outside Weird Ed's Open Door. When "We're going to be rich" displays, immediately walk into Weird Ed's room. Very briefly hit New Kid again to pause and unpause the in game timer as Weird Ed approaches you. Then hit New Kid again as soon as you hear the last Meteor sound effect play. If you do it right, "What are you doing in my house?" will display very briefly before the screen wipes and goes to the Talkshow Ending.
After this (I'd just wait til the Game Over Screen), hit start to bring up the New Kid menu again and carefully tap New Kid Dave. It will briefly take you back to the talkshow, scrolled further stage left, with an unmovable Wendy sprite and Dave's theme playing. Carefully tap New Kid and if you do it right, after a few second the screen will wipe and go to the dungeon, where Weird Ed has taken Michael. Hit start to bring up the New Kid menu, carefully select Michael, then walk out of the dungeon. From here you can complete Michael's storyline quest, complete with either launching Meteor into space or feeding it to the plant. The thing that sucks about the Talkshow/Michael Ending Second Quest is that the credits and captions interrupt dialogue, so you have to sit though a few repetitions of the full credits before Weird Ed shows up during the Purple Tentacle confrontation.
You can also take a microwave teledeath on the Wink Smiley Show set and get a full graveyard game over while Meteor's being interviewed.
The Meteor Police second quest may be the most complicated Maniac Mansion scenario I've seen yet, as it requires an additional Meltdown Continue before the Meteor Police show up. This is because you need to wait until after warping to call the Meteor Police, and the Zom-B-Matic needs to stay on until after Meteor is arrested or the game will soft lock. With the Zom-B-Matic still on, the self-destruct countdown is still ticking and it takes longer for Meteor Police to show up than you have. To get past this, go back up to Weird Ed's door, opening it if closed, and wait until the countdown reaches 1 and go inside. The meltdown should trigger after getting captured does, but before the rant is over, so mash New Kid and push Start at some point when you're on the Meltdown Game Over Screen. New Kid Dave and if you do it right, you'll be returned to the dungeon. From there, just wait until Meteor Police show up and arrest Meteor. Go in the lab and and use the Switch as you might even during a glitchless playthrough. After the Dr. Fred cutscene plays, it will then cut to the Talkshow/Meteor Police Twist ending, complete with a second true game over screen (as opposed to just the captions repeating). This is the only known way to get both versions of the Talkshow ending to play in one run.
To get the second quest Plant Food ending, after warping back to the Mansion from the Talkshow set, go out to the pool. If the Gate is open, close it. This is crucial, as the gate will lock behind you and it will be a dead end unless you have the Yellow Key. Reopen the closed gate and go to the Garage and into the Cement Slab. Grab Meteor and head upstairs to feed Meteor to Plant like you might even in a glitchless playthrough. After "G-U-L-P!" displays and the screen wipes, it will then cut back to a repeated Talkshow ending, complete with a second true game over screen (as opposed to just the captions repeating). Again, once the Contract is given to Meteor, there is no known way to trigger the porch ending cutscene.
I didn't want to post this in guides because it's not exactly speedrun routes, but the Talkshow ending is way more broken than I had imagined. If you regain control on the Wink Smiley Show set, the game will normally hang, but you can actually warp back to the Mansion for a second quest under the right conditions.
First, during the main game the New Kid menu has to be unlocked when Wendy approaches the Meteor. It is recommended to grab the Radiation Suit before the menu break kicks in or you'll have to redo it. When you give Contract to Meteor, immediately New Kid Dave, who should be positioned outside Weird Ed's open door. When "We're going to be rich" displays, immediately walk into Weird Ed's room. Very briefly hit New Kid again to pause and unpause the in game timer as Weird Ed approaches you. Then start mashing New Kid again as soon as you hear the last Meteor sound effect play. If you do it right, "What are you doing in my house?" will display very briefly before the screen wipes and goes to the Talkshow Ending.
After this (I'd just wait til the Game Over Screen), hit start to bring up the New Kid menu again and this is where it gets even stranger. Mash New Kid Dave, it will briefly take you back to the talkshow, scrolled further stage left, with an unmovable Wendy sprite and Dave's theme playing. If you do it right, after a few seconds of mashing New Kid, the screen will wipe and go to the dungeon, where Weird Ed has taken who appears to be Wendy. Hit start to bring up the New Kid menu and New Kid Dave, then walk out of the dungeon. From here' you are free to explore the Mansion, with "Congratulations, You Won The Game" and the credits scrolling.
Apparently, the Wendy sprite that appears on the talkshow set, mechanically, is actually Dave, which explains the mismatched music. If you walk out the front door, the sprite will revert to Dave. Besides warping back to the Mansion from the Talkshow set, what really sets these Talkshow continues apart from other trick endings, is you can actually go through a second quest for other "True Endings". This is because, unlike the other true endings (Rockstar, Meteor Police, Michael Ending), Meteor doesn't despawn, so you can still launch it in to space, feed it to the plant, or get it arrested by the Meteor Police. The power to the Mansion may still be out when you warp back, so you may want to turn the Circuit Breakers back on.
To get the second quest Weird Edsel launch ending, leave the Yellow Key in place during the main game. After warping back to the Mansion from the Talkshow set, you can go back up to Green Tentacle's room to get it and then get captured or walk around past the pool to the Garage. If you go the pool route, the New Kid menu will still be accessible for more potential trickery. Get the Meteor and launch it like a regular ending. After the space scene plays, it will then cut back to a repeated Talkshow ending, complete with a second true game over screen (as opposed to just the captions repeating). From what I can tell, once the Contract is given to Meteor, there is no way to trigger the porch ending cutscene.
Wow, GG on 6:54 Niss! that technique totally smokes my route. thanks for adding the new category. any way we could get elmagnificodep's original 2015 run added retroactively to the board to kind of honor their discovery? it doesnt have a reset at the beginning but i'd move to waive that requirement just this once due to the age and innovation of elmagnificodep's run.
Alright, so what I'm finding is that No New Kid Dave Solo% really comes down to outrunning the package delivery. I think it made about a six minute difference. I only had to wait about 31 seconds from going in the Outer Lab door and "Oh the Doorbell". I think there's a circuit breaker strat for this but I haven't been able to get it to work.
The strange thing about this run is that Dave's Theme plays over the Dr. Fred cutscene instead of the NPC theme. I think this is because I was a little slow going back into the lab after using the switch and Dave was in between Meteor's room (no music) and Outer Lab (Fred music) when the cutscene triggered. I don't know, but Dave's on screen when the cutscene scrolls before the menu returns.
Dave Solo (new kid menu allowed) floor is currently 8:1X, and without New Kid menu its around 11:5X, so that's more time and complexity, but still shorter than talkshow. The 8:1X routes are pretty optimized but getting a reliable Fred Skip in that time range is still a frontier. I think the biggest challenge in solo% is reducing wait time as much as possible. It inherently comes down to when a cutscene triggers to get past purple tentacle. A good route with the New Kid menu should trimsthe wait time to under 20 seconds and its quite a challenge. Waiting for the cutscene with New Kid banned often takes more waiting time than Mark Eteer in Talkshow, etc. Not making a point so much as describing some details here.
I'll leave it to the others to weigh in on new kid menu in solo but I agree that 2-character% should be retired. Ever since we started just doing 2 character parties in regular any% runs its seemed like it would be bad sportsmanship to continue submitting new PBs under the 2-character% heading.
This rules. Yeah, with NeSs7or9 coming through with that top solo time maybe this is ready to become a category. Definitley the most accessible unlisted category beyond Michael Ending. If this is approved, can we retroactively add elmagnificodep's original run to the board? It's much longer and doesn't have the reset at the beginning, but its where Dave Solo was invented so, while it'd be great to see them participate more, I'd vote to grandfather their run into not requiring a reset to make it on the board.
This is useful for situations where you want to skip the Fred cutscene but can't skip the Purple Tentacle (Rockstar%, Michael Ending). Get captured in Edna's room and hit new Kid as she gets to the corner of her desk. If you get the New Kid menu up before she say's "I Got You" it's ideal, otherwise you can switch to the character outside the outer lab door and keep mashing New Kid til you see Edna's dialogue appearing at the top of the screen. From there just walk in the Outer Lab and you still have New Kid menu access. You'll want to walk up to Purple Tentacle to trigger getting captured and then quick switch to another character and back. This will breeze through Purple Tentacle's dialogue and cause Weird Ed/in the Michael Ending specifically) to show up for the proper storyline obstacle clearance. Timing is really sensitive to accidentally just skipping Tentacle altogether like normal any%. As an aside, this is how I found out that any character can get past Tentacle in the Michael Ending, no matter which one hands the film over to Weird Ed, no tele-transfer required.
So after a few months of talking about it I finally got a full run together for the proposed Super Hamsteak %, where you beat the game any% style, regain control for the extra turn and then lose with the Hamsteak ending.
The way I did it here took longer than regular any% and Hamsteak combined, but less time than the Talkshow ending. A big part of the challenge is getting rid of 2/3 characters during the main game with the hamster still available to pick up. Its about five minutes faster if you wait until the extra turn and use teledeath to finish the party from scratch, but that's not really what I had in mind and it gets complicated because of the "Hell Screen", where the other two characters aren't really there but can still respond to dying or using the Hunk-O-Matic. In any case, when I tried the post-game tele-death route the game spontaneously reset after the third "No Thanks" before the final graveyard, and so I don't think that would count as any kind of Hamsteak ending.
There's also the option of finishing the party during the main game with the graveyard overflow and beating the game as the ghost, but I feel like that is a separate thing even.
Lots to think about but i wanted to put it to you all that this is more doable than I expected. It'd be great to see some of you try to speed this up.
This is where you get a recording contract for your character instead of Green Tentacle and trigger the win from reading the contract in front of him (getting killed by him in a jealous rage optional). Among all the experimental endings, this one seemed less difficult to try routing for a speedrun then one of the ones where you both win and lose. It uses the Purple Tentacle skip, which is banned in regular Rockstar, but comes out a little faster than that, even when missing the Fred Skip. It'd be great to see some other speedrun attempts at this. This ending appears to require Dave being dead because of the timing of different versions of the porch apologies cutscene, which you need to regain control and pause during to progress to this ending.
