Ok, so this is the first topic in this forum and I wanted to show my appreciation for this game.

I think the first time I saw Maniac Mansion was at my neighbors place, he had a PC with a CGA monitor, so we played it in 4 colors. Then my father got the game for our Commodore 64 and it became my favorite game. I would play it all the time, I would restart the game over and over just to listen to the intro music.

This was the first adventure game I completed, I didn't know it had several endings and I thought it was impossible to complete without Bernard. It was many years later, thanks to the Internet and following a walkthrough, that I was able to see the other endings.

When I saw Zak McKracken I was so happy there was actually another game that looked like Maniac Mansion, I don't even think I was aware it was the same company. I didn't know about the first Indy adventure game, so the next one I ever saw was Monkey Island and again I was so happy to see yet another game in this style, after that I became a fan for life of LucasArts adventure games.

MM and Zak helped me to learn English (my mother tongue is Spanish), as I played both games using a dictionary and asking my father to translate, lol.

I play this game at least once a year (last time I played with my nieces and they loved it) and it's great to finally have it here on GOG. I'm really thankful to the creative team behind this game for the countless hours of entertainment throughout the years. I also love every single Ron Gilbert game I've ever played and it was a dream come true that Gary Winnick and Ron joined forces once again to create Thimbleweed Park, a true spiritual succesor to Maniac Mansion. :)

Your story is a lot like mine. The first time I ever saw this game was in a store, running the C64 version. I didn't get to linger or play it, but the library with Bernard opening the panel to reveal a hidden cassette tape ... burned into my mind.

Weeks later, I was at a friends house, and he had a C64 too. For some oddball reasons, every friend of my childhood seemed to own a C64, while I was the only one with an Amstrad CPC instead. I waited forever for this game. And it never came.

Also, for reasons unfathomable to me, none of my friends really cared much for their C64 or their games. The computers, which were gifted to them for christmas, or birthdays, and what not, would only a few years later look like dust collectors, or plastered with stickers, or graffitti like writing all over them, half broken cases or keyboards, broken joysticks, and they were typically using really crappy TVs. For a few months I was a bit of a bad friend, because I kept begging some of them to let me play Maniac Mansion. Naturally they all had ... backups of the game. I bought C64 floppy disks and made my own, too, even though I never owned the computer.

I don't know why, but to this day I feel like my old buddies never really appreciated what treasure they had there. While I was in love with it all, the music, the graphics, the gameplay -- their patience with me playing would last up to an hour, and then, if we were to play any games on it at all, it had to be crappy Epyx sports simulations. Or we'd go outside, which I of course greatly enjoyed as well. But playing Maniac Mansion for barely a few minutes left me feeling annoyed soon. Especially considering that I wasn't permitted to save my game. They didn't understand that this was a normal thing to do, and I failed to explain it to them.

Either that, or their parents were starting to think I was a bad influence, because video games are the devil, and even when you play with friends, it's anti-social and your family is sent straight to hell.

Soon I owned a PC copy and ran it every opportunity on the computers in school. Hercules graphics Commodore PC-10 III's. I'd boot it up on all of them and leave it running, as a prank, once.

When in 1991 I finally had my first 286, a lot of things changed. I would play all and any Lucasfilm adventure that I could get my hands on. I was a fan, and I still am.

I'm sorry it was so difficult to get the chance to play the game back then, I'm glad eventually you got your own computer to play it as much as you wanted to, as well as the other Lucas games. Haha, who knows, maybe someone found the game you left running and loved it, perhaps you changed that person's life without even knowing it. :)

You probably know most of these already, but there's always Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Monkey Island 1 2 and 3, Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, Sam & Max Hit the Road, The Dig, Grim Fandango. These are all great Lucasfilm/LucasArts games.
Flight of the Amazon Queen is worth mentioning too. It's similar to some LucasArts titles.
If you haven't played the whole Broken Sword series, they're totally worth checking out. Gabriel Knight 2 is also very good but, unlike the first one, it's an FMV point and click adventure.
I had Phantasmagoria when I was a kid and it scared the crap out of me and I thought it was great, despite the cheesy acting. It's an FMV point and click adventure too. It's been a long time since I've last played it though and I don't know what I would think of it nowadays. I also had Leisure Suit Larry 7 by Sierra and remember it being good. I'm not too familiar with other Sierra games besides these.
The Tex Murphy series are very good too! Especially Under a Killing Moon and Pandora Directive. The controls might take some time to get used too, but once you do, you're in for a great game.
I've started to play Resonance for the first time recently and it's very good so far.
Hope this list helps.

As said in the previous comment, the Lucas Arts games are a great place to start if you haven't tried them all.

Other favorites of mine from the old days are the Kyrandia and the Gobliiins series.

As for more recent recommendations, some of my favorites are FoxTail (though it's still in development), Fran Bow, The Last Door and The Blackwell series.