Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders playthrough and hints

Not that small…

5 Likes

Kate, this is really a good idea!
I hope I’ll have the time to join the playthrough.

2 Likes

You should also be mindful of blurring spoilers when asking for hints. Imaginary example: I am stuck in the castle. I think I have to kill that dragon with the sword that I found on the dead knight, but it is missing an anti-fire breath spell.

1 Like

Yes, good point.

But smaller than our “real” newspapers here in Germany… :slight_smile:

You can use the water spell instead.

1 Like

First impression: Zak is much less annoying to control than MM because you can’t accidentally trigger the “switch kids” mechanism while blundering through the actions with the keyboard.

Second impression: @Sushi’s nickname suddenly took on a lot more meaning than I anticipated going in.

Edit: screens

scummvm00007

scummvm00008

4 Likes

And it could even be more than that.

Please don’t…

I was planning to post an overview of related things…

once everyone here finishes the game,

For anyone wondering:

Ok, I fixed that one. :wink:

1 Like

Yes, didn’t you have one as a child? It is fun. If you can sing, you can play it. You can even talk through it to make funny voices.

I thought it had the same UI and shortcuts…?

One of the most annoying things in MM and Zak is that you have to use the “What is” verb to find out which objects are where on the screen. In later games you just move the mouse over the object to get the name of that object.

That’s why I recommend v1! The pixels and objects are large and clearly contrasting colorwise, that it doesn’t become a “what is” pixel hunt.
By the way, the “what is” verb has another use in both MM and Zak, namely to find your way in the dark.

2 Likes

Frenzie, So you chose the IBM version, then?

@Ema, are you blurring pictures of blurred pictures, or have I just completely lost my mind here? :crazy_face:

Hopefully I’ll have time for a Zak replay tomorrow, too… with the C64 version of course. :slight_smile:
Not to judge any other versions, that’s just the way I remember it as a kid and has a great nostalgia factor for me.

2 Likes

So the whole forum is playing Zak tomorrow? :slight_smile:

And after the discussion about the different versions I actually think about playing the C64 and the FM Towns version. But where do I have my floppy drive for the C64…? :thinking:

2 Likes

I blurred an unblurred pic at first, but @Sushi gave me some shit :grinning: so I decided to double-blur it. Sorry, nobody will know what’s hiding there… :wink:

2 Likes

I have understood, even if blurred :blush:

4 Likes

I had no doubt about it.

The way I choose an action in these older games is basically by half-fumbling through the qwert/asdf/zxcvb control scheme. All of the actions except for “new kid” are exactly the same as in all the other games I ever played: they merely choose a verb to stick in front of an object on the screen. But MM has this horribly annoying “feature” where the new kid verb makes you unable to opt for “just one to the left/right”. Worst of all, it’s somewhere in the middle where you’re much more likely to accidentally hit it.

I have seen some forebodings in Zak that the in the beginning unused b will turn into Switch, presumably with the same obnoxious consequences. It really breaks the control flow.

The alternative is doing it all with the cursor, but most of the time, on most systems, I don’t care too much for all of the back and forth. It’s just nice to have the option.

It seemed slightly more charming somehow than the FM-Towns version, yes.

Me too, probably. I just played around a little earlier but I spent most of the afternoon reading It.

3 Likes

I’ll be playing it tomorrow, late afternoon-ish.

4 Likes