The game ends with the credits rolling over a tentacle-shaped American flag, one of the more significant results of their tampering in history. Following a string of successful adventure games, LucasArts assigned Dave Grossman and Tim Schafer to lead development of a new game. The two had previously assisted Ron Gilbert with the creation of "The Secret of Monkey Island" and "", and the studio felt that Grossman and Schafer were ready to manage a project. The company believed that the pair's humor matched well with that of "Maniac Mansion" and suggested working on a sequel. The two developers agreed and commenced production. Gilbert and Gary Winnick, the creators of "Maniac Mansion", collaborated with Grossman and Schafer on the initial planning and writing. The total budget for the game was about $600,000, according to Schafer. In planning the plot, the four designers considered a number of concepts, eventually choosing an idea of Gilbert's about time travel that they believed was the most interesting. The four discussed what time periods to focus on, settling on the Revolutionary War and the future. The Revolutionary War offered opportunities to craft many puzzles around that period, such as changing the Constitution to affect the future. Grossman noted the appeal of the need to make wide-sweeping changes such as the Constitution just to achieve a small personal goal, believing this captured the essence of adventure games. The future period allowed them to explore the nature of cause and effect without any historical bounds. Grossman and Schafer decided to carry over previous characters that they felt were the most entertaining. The two considered the Edison family "essential" and chose Bernard because of his "unqualified nerdiness". Bernard was considered "everyone's favorite character" from "Maniac Mansion", and was the clear first choice for the protagonists. The game's other protagonists, Laverne and Hoagie, were based on a Mexican ex-girlfriend of Grossman's and a Megadeth roadie named Tony that Schafer had met, respectively. Schafer and Grossman planned to use a character selection system similar to the first game, but felt that it would have complicated the design process and increased production costs. Believing that it added little to the gameplay, they removed it early in the process and reduced the number of player characters from six to three. The dropped characters included Razor, a female musician from the previous game; Moonglow, a short character in baggy clothes; and Chester, a black beat poet. Ideas for Chester, however, morphed into new twin characters in the Edison family.