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Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders

aka: Zak McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders

Description official descriptions

Zak McKracken is a tabloid reporter (and not a very good one at that). After having a psychedelic dream one day, Zak realizes that something is wrong -- space aliens are dumbifying the general public through the telephone system. Zak must stop this, but he can't do it alone. After finding a strange crystal, Zak manages to get the help of the anthropologist Annie and her friends, Melissa and Leslie. The four unlikely heroes must now figure out a way to destroy the dumbifying devices and save the Earth.

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders is a third-person puzzle-solving adventure similar in gameplay to Maniac Mansion. The player chooses verb commands (Open, Pick Up, Give, etc.; there are no Look or Talk commands) to interact with the game world. The game features up to four controllable protagonists; it is possible to switch between them at any time after they have been introduced, and also exchange inventory items if the characters are in the same location. The game can be described as a "globe-trotting" adventure, since the heroes are required to travel to different exotic countries and even leave the Earth for a while in order to complete it. Some of the puzzles are optional or can be solved in different ways.

The FM Towns version has VGA graphics with 256 colors and higher-quality music and sound effects.

GOG release comes with two versions of the game that install simultaneously. One is FM Towns version with updated graphics, while the other is marked as Floppy version which is the old DOS version of a game.

Spellings

  • Zak McKracken and the Alien Mind Benders - Alternate spelling
  • ザックマックラッケン - Japanese spelling

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (Amiga version)

28 People (27 developers, 1 thanks) · View all

Created and Designed by
Scripted and Programmed by
"SCUMM" Story System by
Background Art by
Character Animation by
Sound Effect by
Original Music by
Amiga Version By
Creative and Technical Support by
Project Directed by
Lucasfilm Games General Manager
Production Management
Marketing Management
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Discussion

Subject User Date
US version VS UK Version Edwin Drost (5624) 2017-03-10 12:40:03
A new Zak McKracken Remake Project Joey DiPerla 2008-03-03 03:40:54

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Copy protection

All versions of Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, except for the FM Towns release, require the player to enter copy protection codes when leaving the USA, but not when re-entering it or when at an airport in another country. After entering five incorrect entries in a row, Zak is put into Pirate Jail and the game is automatically over. The codes were printed on dark red paper in order to make it harder to copy them.

Concept and inspirations

David Fox wanted the game to have a "New Age" concepts like spirituality, Karma, alien history and he spent a few days brainstorming with a spiritual author - David Spangler. They came up with a list of every thing that might fit into the game and tried to get it all in, including the Face on Mars, Mt. Ranier, Mayan ruins. Names of the female characters came from designer's wives and girlfriends while Zak's name was taken from the Seattle's phone book. "No, there wasn't a Zak McKraken listed - we just pulled a first and last name that worked." - said David Fox in the interview for Retro Gamer 27.

The game took only nine months to complete from initial design to the final version.

Fangames

The first fan project to enter development was "Zak McKracken 2", later renamed Zak McKracken and the Alien Rockstars, which was started in 1996. Because a lot of people joined and left the team over the course of its development, the game progressed slowly, to the point where it disappeared completely in 2001. In 2005 it was re-announced as a new project, being re-developed from scratch. The project was eventually cancelled in 2008, however, as the developers felt that Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space, a fangame that had been released in the meantime, was good enough to warrant abandoning their own project. One of the game's official websites has been archived, allowing players to download the project's original German tech-demo, however their other, zak2.de, was lost due to the use of a robots.txt file, which actively prevented its archival. The New Adventures of Zak McKracken is an Adventure Game Studio remake developed by LucasFan Games.

Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space was started in 2001 by fans who thought that the Zak McKracken and the Alien Rockstars project detailed above was dead. It was ultimately released in 2008

Zak Mckracken and the Lonely Sea Monster, an Adventure Game Studio remake was first announced for a July 2007 release, however it was subsequently delayed until 2008. After several years the project was confirmed to be abandoned in 2010. As of December of 2012, however, the original developer has resumed development.

Platform differences

The game was made with three different styles of graphics: the Commodore 64 multicolor style (low resolution using 256 characters and 16 colors), the higher resolution 16 color version that uses bitmaps and finally the 256 color version (same style as Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure) which seems to have only been released in Japan on the Fujitsu FM Towns system.

References

A poster of one of LucasFilm's early games, Rescue on Fractalus!, can be seen in the machine room next to a map of Earth. Like Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders, it was also designed by David Fox. In the FM Towns version the Rescue on Fractalus! poster was replaced by a poster for Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure, another game David Fox was involved with alongside Ron Gilbert.

During the scene on Mars, the tune heard when playing the music cassette in the radio is by "Razor and the Scumettes". Razor is one of the original characters in Maniac Mansion, a LucasArts adventure game released the previous year.

There's a can of gasoline to be found on Mars. If the player tries to pick it up the character says it's for a different game. This is a nod to the red herring in Maniac Mansion, where there's a chainsaw in the kitchen but it's out of gas... and there is no gas in that game.

When reading the telephone inside the The Phone Company's office, it will show a four digit telephone number. This number can be called from Zak's house and a sales representative will pick up. He'll think that it is Edna again, a reference to the player calling Edna in Maniac Mansion.

Awards

  • Commodore Format
    • July 1991 (Issue 10) - listed in the A to Z of Classic Games article (Great)
  • Power Play
    • Issue 01/1989 - Best Graphics Adventure in 1988
    • Issue 04/1989 - Game of the Year 1988 (Readers' Vote)
  • ST Format
    • January 1990 (issue #06) - Included in the list 50 Games of the Year
    • January 1991 (issue #18) – #5 Best Adventure Game in 1990 (Atari ST)

Information also contributed by Daniel Albu, Kevin Carnes, MAT, Mirrorshades2k, Scott G, and Ye Olde Infocomme Shoppe.

Related Games

Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space
Released 2008 on Windows
The New Adventures of Zak McKracken
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Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space - Director's Cut
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Mindbenders
Released 1984 on Commodore 16, Plus/4
Mensa Mindbenders
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Alien³
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Related Sites +

  • HighLand Productions
    Contains MIDI versions of themes from some LucasArts games, including Zak McCracken.
  • LucasArts' Secret History
    A multi-article feature about the game by the LucasArts news site, The International House of Mojo. The feature article includes an unscored review, short responses written by members of the site's community, trivia, and a transcription of the original hint book.
  • ScummVM
    Get "Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders", as well as many other adventure games, to run on modern systems by using ScummVM, a legal and free program.
  • The Adventure Games Hall of Fame
    Short review, walkthrough and screenshots.
  • The Zak McKracken Archive
    The world's largest collection of Zak McKracken materials

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 305

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Olivier Masse.

Amiga added by POMAH. Commodore 64 added by Rebound Boy. Linux, Windows, Macintosh added by click here to win an iPhone9SSSS. FM Towns added by Terok Nor. Atari ST added by Belboz.

Additional contributors: Trixter, MAT, Apogee IV, HeX-Omen, formercontrib, Chris Tolworthy, Zeppin, Cantillon, Lance Boyle, Patrick Bregger, mailmanppa, Jo ST, FatherJack.

Game added October 5th, 1999. Last modified May 2nd, 2023.