Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders playthrough and hints

The GOG version comes with DOS EGA v2 (PC) and the VGA (FM-towns) versions. That DOS version is the closest to the Amiga version.
You should try it if you haven’t yet!

That’s because of the infamous SID chip on the C64 (of course all of that is just emulated now)

It scared the :poop: out of me when I first heard it on the C64. But that’s the purpose…

Related to the sounds: also the warning signal in the space Cadillac is much better and apparent in the non-FM-towns versions

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Did the Amiga version have better audio?

Compared to the C64, yes because of its dedicated sound chip.
The Dos EGA version (v2) is identical in graphic to the Amiga version. I remember that the sound was different (worse), but maybe only if it was played through the standard speaker.

Yes, but the FM-Towns version seems to be using fairly high-quality waveforms. It seems to be the actual audio choices that are… weird. Slightly limited in dynamic range of course, but… okay, let’s take this recording I made on the C64 version as an example:

If I resample that to 11025 Hz it sounds worse than the original to be sure, but still better than the equivalent in the FM Towns version! More than that, according to Wikipedia, the thing did 19.6 kHz. Yet you can resample it all the way down to about 16 kHz before it truly starts to sound noticeably worse. (Okay, I can clearly hear it on my Sennheiser headphones but on my laptop speakers it should be barely perceptible.) In fact it’s pretty obvious that ~19 kHz is a great compromise between size and quality.

tl;dr I don’t think CD quality versions of those sound effects would sound all that much better. It appears to me like an overreaction or perhaps even a fully conscious artistic choice to be overly subtle compared to the affected brutality of the C64.

PS Why is the C64 sound chip infamous?

Not on my real C64! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Maybe he is thinking of the different versions of this little chip because each version sounds a little bit different.

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Altough I still have a C64, a C128, an Amiga 500 and an Amiga 1200 in my garret, nowadays I use the emulators on Windows: VICE for C64/C128 and WinUAE for Amiga. Or, when needed, ScummVM.

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Blasphemy!

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ZLORFIK, they are so comfortable… I can open a window ad use all my old C64 in its full glory!

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Here it is! :blush:

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What a happy broom he is :smile:

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@tasse-tee, please don’t read the blur below until you have advanced further in Zak (real spoiler)

luckily, she thinks you only posted it because of the drawing on the wall… so although the broom is a spoiler, she doesn’t realise it. I hope. Nice broom by the way!

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Just water it if it’s unhappy. Or is that plants. :stuck_out_tongue:

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Argh! Why are you doing this to me, Sushi?! :confounded:

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No, you need to sing to those. Or sweet-talk.

You’ll thank me later for it! :anguished:

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@tasse-tee Where in Zak are you by now, anyway? :slight_smile:

Umm… I have a scroll, and found the crystal shard in the Mexico maze (but can’t retrieve it right now). Gonna look around some other places and try to find some leads.

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Ohhh, so if I keep bugging the baker, then I get the bread I need :grinning:

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Yes! Zak encourages you to live out all your neuroses!

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I was just getting into it again but now I have to stop to cook dinner, grr. I am working from home tomorrow though…

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Same here… dishes… squeeze in a little 5k run before sunset… shower… and then Zak!!

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