Choosing the Feed Meteor to Plant option compared to the Weird Edsel ending slashes the difficulty considerably because you don't have to deal with all the minutia of regaining New Kid menu access and skipping all those cutscenes at the end. I used the pool valve to re-enable New Kid here. The route I took to get here wasn't optimized for speed, just trying to figure it out slow with a ton of backtracking. Getting the timing right on feeding the plant is tough, but if you hit New Kid too early, you'll still have Meteor in your inventory and the meltdown timer is diffused.

It'd be something else to see some speedruns of this. I know you have it in you

I was trying to do the opposite here, lose and then win, but you can't seem to be able to do anything besides wait in complete darkness. The game over screen text continues and a glitched menu only offers the option to Go To [down arrow]. During this doom and darkness, the package is delivered, with the doorbell ringing and cutscenes playing out. Even though the party was finished off by the microwave, this seems to suggest that if you want to do a

Super Hamsteak run

(any% w/ Hamsteak), you'll need to do the any% part first. Trying to combine those routes is a workout and I don't have it. I know someone out there is up to it.

Maybe theres an opposite effect possible like Super-Hamsteak where you can still win as the ghost after the game over screen or something. Now that'd be a brain cyclone if someone can figure that out. Not just the extra turn effect but the routing and leaving the required items in place to pick up, etc

If you already have new kid re-enabled (timing of getting someone captured is essential) when you are ready to send Meteor to space and get what seems to be the right combination of pauses and the right timing for hitting New Kid, you can do the start to pull up the menu glitch during the apologies cutscene. Dr. Fred will start to walk around like in the lab (the only non-cutscene animation of him?). I can't say I understand the whole of how it works, but you can basically pause and return to the mansion after the "You Win The Game" cutscene. This time though, the credits are rolling at the top. All items are gone from your inventory and the other two characters are gone from where they stood, so hitting New Kid again will crash the game. The game is in an un-rewinnable state at this point and items are still gone if they were picked up, but what a hellacious twist. If this was incorporated into an alternative category, what kind of goal would it have?

First attempt was good but sound was so bad i had to redo it. Took over four hours to get this retake.

Marginally useful info at best here, but if you're trying to Feed Meteor to Plant or go for some other weird bonus category, don't bother with the Pepsi Machine in the lab. The Cold Can of Pepsi will not get you past Green Tentacle.

Its similar in difficulty and execution to the microwave and meteor police glitches but the timing seems more anxious. Too early and you just get the menu, too late and its just a normal workout. If theres a practical way to keep someone upstairs while reaching the dungeon in ~5 mins and not pressing b at all I wonder if the weight machine in the background will have any bearing on cutscene skips. Not my #1 goal but that would raise all boats for sure

It kinda reminds me of the Insane-o-Flex from the Aqua Teen movie. Weird unnecessary possibility when messing up the Hunk-O-Matic trick.

Top notch! Great to see the reused Hamster method perfected.

LOT is one of my favorite games but I haven't been able to get it running on my Windows 11 laptop (GOG version), and therefore no runs recorded. Anyone have pointers on how to fix the directdraw error? Couldn't find anything helpful or concise out there.

Thanks

This is incredible what you've found. The badge might be more helpful than I thought, like with the timing you had giving it to the Purple Tentacle. It might move the action needle just over an hard to notice timing obstacle. Much to process here. On another note, the Badge does seem to be completely necessary for anyone else trying at the apocryphal unranked Cheese %, unless there's a way to keep the pool/garage gate open for when you exit the lab. Everytime it seems like I have to start the Weird Edsel to get past the gate at endgame, which ruins the path back into the lab from the garage. In those cases, the badge or something else I haven't considered seems necessary to get past Tentacle the second time. I guess I'm getting off topic here. Thanks again NESs7or9!

There's just gotta be a way to further outrun the Meteor Police than I did here. I mean, I was able to get a few inches further past the Pepsi Machine while practicing but someone's gotta be able to get to Meteor without the Card Key. Now that'd make a difference.

See also: apparently draining/filling the pool after Meteor is arrested seems to re-enable the New Kid command, but aside from Cheese Stands Alone % I don't see how this would benefit a speedrun attempt.

Dave solo run without the excessive wait time

Dead end (unwinnable game state):

In the Guides section I've added a commentary tracked version of the latest Meteor Policr attempt using this trick.

Hope this helps others improve upon the technique

Thanks to ZeroJanitor's observation I think I ironed it out more.

What I did here was start in control of another character (Dave) when the Meteor Police siren starts. It repeats four times. During the beginning of the fourth repetition I New Kid: Bernard then immediately hit new kid again. The Meteor Police cutscene then begins but hitting start brings up New Kid. Switching back to Bernard temporarily shifts the screen to his side of the dungeon, but I had to repeat the new kid command after the Meteor Police actually appear. At that point the Badge is present and collectable and there is enough time to go into the outer lab.

Once in the lab, New Kid is unavailable as normal for as far as I've found. The Meteor Police will come in and interact with Purple Tentacle and the cutscene progresses. Everytime the Meteor police change what screen they are on, the cutscene progresses with them, so I think if you can give the badge to purple tentacle fast enough, or maybe just piggyback to the Inner Lab behind the Meteor Police you could potentially make almost even time with them to the last room. In this case I wasn't fast enough to do that.

This is experimental, not optimized, but if someone worked it out this could maybe get Meteor Police Ending under eight minutes.

In a similar vein, has anyone had success getting the Nuclear Meltdown to trigger in that quick glimpse of the full graveyard before the hamsteak game over screen shows up? It seems like it might be possible with the right keypad/doorbell timing. Not sure its worth the trial and error to nail but itd be wild seeing the three headstones followed by the meltdown animation. What would you even call that?

Good eye ZeroJanitor. In rewatching this, I can see the cursor getting in position to select New Kid at that time. I guess since I wasn't going for it and the effect shows up a bit far into the cutscene I didn't take much notice of the correlation. Maybe this is gonna come down to counting the Meteor Police siren repetitions exactly. Here's hoping it doesn't also have anything to do with getting the Meteor Mess cab running.

I was trying to do a glitchless 100% run and somehow I got the New Kid menu to come up during the Meteor Police cutscene. I am so confused by this effect. I can't tell if the menu could have been brought up even earlier and I didn't notice. The music isn't correct either it seems. If someone can figure this out it might break Meteor Police Ending.

Here's an excerpt of the part where this happens.

Some more categories would be interesting to add. Off the top of my head we got:

Dave Solo % (alright challenge but gets boring waiting for needed cutscene skip to trigger) Feed Meteor to Plant % Dead end % (fastest to reach unwinnable state) Glitchless % Michael % (same ending as most of em but largely different gameplay)

Also came up with a meteor police variant called The Cheese Stands Alone, based on an old Magic card. Its not really competitive though. More a proof of concept than anything.

Hi everyone. I just joined on here after getting inspired by the great gameplay everyone's demonstrated in the runs. Started out just wanting to revisit Maniac Mansion for some Halloween spirit but the bug really bit me after seeing the limit pushing performances you've all been pulling off. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me.