My apologies, @milanfahrnholz
I was wrong.
Wow. Confession time…
Ron seems to enjoy (or at least is certainly very good at) ‘making’ good adventure games, but why would we assume he enjoys ‘playing’ them? 
I didn’t assume it. 
That’s why I’m asking. I think it’s interesting to know how much he knows the works of his close collegues and vice versa
I played all the games we made at Lucasfilm, but not at the depth the team did, or even fans. Same with new adventure games. I may have played them, but not at a deep deep level to pull every little bit of goodness from them.
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It’s understandable, and it is as I thought. Thank you for your reply. Is there a particular work or author that you remember better, or with affection or felt “yours” and maybe positively influenced your work?
I thought so. See from an outsider perspective it´s not easy to know how these things in a big game company like that function (and I´m not even sure if Lucasfilm worked like any regular game company, if there even is such a thing), so I think hearing things like that from you is very interesting.
Here it is.
This is the “ZLORFIK” reference from Zak McKracken And The Alien Mindbenders™.
It occurs when Zak uses the blue crystal on an animal, then Zak quickly escapes the room. After a few seconds, the Mindbender appears, and since he doesn’t find what is searching for, he exclames:
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Thanks, I was having a real hard time finding a video for that!
I know the game is called “and the Alien Mindbenders” but I thought in game the mindbender is the name of the device that makes you stupid (over the phone or being imprisoned in it) and the aliens are the caponians? Is this a translation thing? In spite of the games title it never occured to me to reference to the aliens as mindbenders.
Also there were two of them a smart one (with a purple tie) and a stupid one (with a yellow tie) who also happens to be the one to follow you.
Me too, so I decided to live play and to record a video by myself. That final animated GIF could now be added to the Zak McKracken archive.
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The aliens are called Caponians, while Mindbenders is an adjective.
I am used to refer to them by their name or their “quality”
Well, to be honest, and said by someone who make all the mistakes he can do in english grammar (me myself in person, obviously), Mindbenders is a proper name, in its plural number, while alien is the adjective, in the case of the expression “and the Alien Mindbenders”.
But this does not change the substance of what Zak Phoenix affirmed.
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Yeah still, in the game the aliens are called caponians and the mindbender is the name of the machine that makes the hum that makes you stupid. mindbender is definitly a noun and not an adjective.
This creature is an alien (noun)
This feels very alien to me (adjective)
This guy is probably a caponian (noun)
This man dresses in the caponian style (adjective)
Mindbender is not probably the only one of those that cannot be an adjective. The adjective of bend would be bending. And if you would want to call the guy the mindbending the sentence would be incomplete, maybe the mindbending alien (or caponian) would work. I know I´m saying this as one non native to another but I don´t think you´re right in this case.
Now that you mention it…
That’s true.
In italian, the sentence construction is the opposite than in English.
When I was a teen, with poor English knowledge, and read “the alien minbenders” I thought, in my italian mind, “the aliens who bend minds”.
Instead, I was wrong: the subject here is “Mindbenders”, and alien is an adjective. That’s clear, now…
How many surprises on my favourite games of all time, in two days…
Thank you guys!
I believe the best way to see it would be “the mindbenders who are from another world/someplace else” in this case. I thought the title was quite brilliant because it still implied that the game had some extraterrestials in it.
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Milan, I think we’re starting from the same point. “Mindbending” is a present participle (or a gerund) that can be used with the logical function of adjective referring to whom does the action, or as a noun referring to the action itself.
The mindbending aliens are coming!!! Flee!!! (adjective)
The mindbending of weak people is an action devoutly to be avoided. (noun)
While “Mindbender” has the “er” suffix, that is primarily used in languages for building nouns starting from a verb: “a suffix used in forming nouns designating persons from the object of their occupation or labor” cfr. ER Definition & Usage Examples | Dictionary.com
Anyway…only David can tell us if he meant the alien guys, the machine(s), or both. I still think he meant the alien guys, as the antagonists of Zak.
But you know English has gained a worldwide success also beacuse sometimes it can please everyone eheheh…
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Uhmmm… this conversation needs a trial, gffp and I at the defense’s bench, milanfahrnholz at the prosecutor’s bench and David Fox at the judge stand.
Coming soon… 
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I might have not been clear earlier but I think I said that it in fact can be in conjunction with something else but not on it´s own.
I also think it´s very possible that in the title the alien mindbenders refers to the caponians and not the machine, mostly because there is only one machine.
Be as it may, in spite of the title I´m plainly talking in game here. The aliens are always refered to as caponians (which is btw yet another thing that dawned on me years later that this was a reference to Al Capone) while “the mindbender” is the name of their machine. Of course you can argue that they become the mindbenders when they use the mindbending machine to bend minds. But all I´m saying is that this was the first time outside of what the title maybe implies that I´ve heard the aliens in the game called “mindbenders”.
Milan, the weird side is that I can write and write on grammar or translation, but I still make the same stupid mistakes while speaking or writing…eheheh It would take me half an hour to proof-read every long comment I write eheheh… Anyway probably it’s funny to native speakers (or at least I hope so…)
…not to mention when you (I) have to use the phrasal verbs…