I have also found this other website and version of the newspaper, if you are interested.
Ah yes that´s nice. I looked this up once before as I was looking for the hint books for Zak and MM. They are both written in prose and read like nice first person novels of the games plotlines.
There’s some resembling, around the eyes…
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Does somebody know which author(s) wrote the texts of the newspaper?
I don´t, but I´m sure there is somebody here, who should know…
@RobertaWilliams: who wrote the texts of the newspaper?
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I´ll admit, that got a light smile out of me…
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We´re talking about Zak.
Ah, sorry. Hmm, wasn’t me or Matt. By then we had some marketing people. Could have been Doug Glen, our head of marketing, or a contractor he hired for this. This page says Victor Cross did the design. He may also have written some of the text. http://www.mobygames.com/game/dos/zak-mckracken-and-the-alien-mindbenders/credits
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Well, they are good. Funny.
I like the way they have been used to justify the limits of budget/technology:
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Oh wow, the way this came about it´s almost surprising how consistent it is with the game(content, hints and humour). Must have been someone who really knew the game.
I loved that part as a kid.
Okay, the airports looking alike is not entirely true though.
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They all have the same layout, though, ie. doors, ticket machine, newspaper machine and signs are always in the same place.
True but the airports of Cairo, Kinshasa, Katmandu, Mexico and Lima look decidedly…let´s say third-worldly(and have propeller planes in the backround).
I have realized that there is no “Talk” verb. There is also no verb “Examine”, but sometimes it can be emulated with “Read”.
Yes, “look at”, “talk to” and the dialog system were introduced with Last Crusade.
You also may want to get aquinted with the verb “what is” as it´s useful in the dark.
Yes, I already knew it. If I remember it correctly, I used it in the first Indiana Jones PnC adventure game.
Ah yes, that had that still. The refined 9 verb version was only introduced with Monkey Island (and reused for Thimbleweed Park).
Maniac Mansion had many verbs that weren´t really needed because you could just use “use” instead like unlock or fix, new kid which could also be changed on the keyboard and I don´t really know why there also was “walk to” maybe to remove the last used verb, when you changed or mind or something…
Actually Monkey Island came out with a 12-verb UI
I think the 9-verb UI was implemented along with inventory icons for MI2, then back ported to the VGA version of MI1. I suppose that because the earlier floppy VGA version of MI1 still had the old UI.
Which is similar to Zak’s.
The only improvement is that in MI1 you don’t need the what is verb, and you can right-click for the preset verb.
By the way, to get back to the topic: @LowLevel if you want the original experience, head to the EGA version. But I think the FM-Towns version is much more enjoyable nowadays and it isn’t bad, except for the messy and flashy floor textures of some rooms (se above and below)
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