"You" are visiting an exhibit on Egyptian artifacts, including the mummy of King Buthramaman, and soon discover its diary. But the diary and other items in the exhibit are not what they seem to be, and you must survive the mummy's plans.
Diary of a Mad Mummy provides examples of:
- An Arm and a Leg: One of the most gruesome examples ever put in these kind of books, and that is saying a lot. In one of the bad endings, the mummy grabs you by one hand intending to drag you into a coffin, and the book asks if you're allowing the mummy to pull you in or to yank your hand as hard as possible. If you choose that option... the next page will say the mummy is still holding your hand, but it isn't connected to your body anymore.
- But Thou Must!:
- When you're going through the underground passages and have a choice between turning left or right, your guide Mohammed tells you cryptically to "follow your heart". Your heart is on your left side, but on the other hand, the right passage looks much brighter and safer than the left one... If you choose the left passage nonetheless, Mohammed laughs at you for following your head instead of your heart - and bluntly tells you to choose the passage on the right.
- If you decide to remove your bandages after you're transformed into a mummy, you end up captured by two guards who toss a coin on whether to steal you or transport you back to the museum. Unfortunately, the guard who did the tossing wants to steal you — so he's using a coin with two tails.
- Covers Always Lie: The mummy experimenting with all those beakers, as seen on the cover? Nothing of the sort occurs in the story. Also the cover shows the mummy actually writing into the diary, when in the story itself the mummy actually projects his thoughts into the diary via Telepathy.
- Gratuitous Laboratory Flasks: On the cover, artist Mark Nagata saw fit to include the diary-scribbling mummy mixing green chemicals together in test tubes, while all manner of other bits and bobs of lab glassware is visible (none of which appear in the book itself, outside of a single beaker).
- Cruel Twist Ending: In one ending, you've proven yourself to become a member of kid assistants to help the FBI catch art thieves, with the benefits of no school for a year and pay. You proceed to blow it by absent-mindedly drinking the blue lemonade (with sleeping potion) they were using to test you.Oh, well. You'll wake up soon, but they'll never let you be a secret agent now. Too bad you made a mistake when you were so close to a happy
- The End... Or Is It?: One ending has you successfully steal your body back from the Mummy and return to your family, but then you find a new entry in the Mummy's Diary promising he will escape and get revenge on you one day.
- Fake Interactivity: Diary of a Mad Mummy features a bit where you're riding on camelback, believing you're being followed. The book then instructs you to briefly turn to different pages of the book in order to try to throw off the pursuers before moving on with the story. It doesn't work.Try a sneaky maneuver to get away. Turn to PAGE 56, then 92, then 103, then 24, then back to 56 again. Don't read those pages, silly! Just turn to them. Maybe that will confuse whoever is following you. Then sneak over to PAGE 52 and see if you've lost them.
- Here We Go Again!: In one of the endings, you get the mummy to enter into a beauty spa for a "Rejuvenating treatment". He comes out looking... slightly better. He goes away with a smile. But then you return to the hotel and find out that there's a new entry in the diary saying that today he met a new friend that showed him modern marvels and that now he'll have to keep following him to learn what else he knows. Oh boy...
- Kleptomaniac Hero: The entirety of this adventure is kicked off when "you" decide to steal the mummy's ancient diary from a museum because you're fascinated by what's written on it.
- Meat-O-Vision: A variant happens where, if you try to distract a crocodile by throwing gummy candy at it, you then run out and the crocodile sees you as a gummy candy... and eats you.
- Moon Logic Puzzle: You are in Egypt, being attacked by a crocodile. The book asks you if you are carrying some gummy candy to distract the crocodile. If you don't it kills you. If you do... he follows you around to get fed more, and you know one day you'll run out, and the croc will have to find something (or someone) else to eat...
- Morton's Fork:
- If you get trapped with the crocodile in Egypt, he either eats you right away, or you stall by giving the crocodile gummy snacks. Unfortunately, since there's no rescue on the horizon, you'll eventually get eaten anyway after the snacks run out.
- Likewise, if you decide to remove your bandages after you're transformed into a mummy, you end up captured by two guards who toss the coin twice to decide your fate, and the book tells you to do it as well. The first time it's even not a real choice, since the guard who tosses the coin is using a two-headed one - and the second time, if you get tails, you end up tossed to sharks. If you get heads, the guards return you to the museum... but the museum director has no intention of letting you go, and wants to keep you as a part of his exhibit forever.
- No Ending: One ending has you accidentally drink something that was drugged, so you lose consciousness and wake up to find that the diary was stolen. The story ends there and you're told that without the diary you can't go on any further, since the whole book is about the diary.
- Reduced to Dust: One of the bad endings has you and your brother Derek failing to complete an incantation, resulting in your bodies being turned to dust. As an added insult, the spell then results in a breeze that blows your ashes halfway across the world from San Francisco to Egypt.
- Schrödinger's Gun: In the book, the mummy's diary may be either a real thing, a prank by your brother Derek, or a hoax planted by a government intelligence agency with the intention of recruiting you as an agent. The hieroglyphs in the diary are either clues pointing to hidden treasure or reviews for Egyptian restaurants, and in one more subplot, the mummy is revealed to be an animatronic.
- Shout-Out: To The Day the Earth Stood Still. When choosing the incantation to put the titular mummy to rest, one of the possible choices of words is "Klaatu Barada Nikto"...
- Two-Headed Coin: There is one scenario where you end up becoming a mummy yourself, and the two museum guards tasked with escorting you decide to toss a coin on whether to steal you or transport you back. Unfortunately, the guard who did the tossing wants to steal you — so he's using a coin with two tails.
- Video Game Cruelty Punishment: If you try to leave your six-year-old sister to be killed by the mummy, he calls you out on it and then takes her to safety and makes her rich and famous.
