Zak McKracken and the Alien Rockstars (cancelled) [G] ZMAR-Team 2008

This is the first fan project to enter development and originally titled "Zak McKracken 2", later renamed Zak McKracken and the Alien Rockstars, which was started in 1996. It is one of the very first amateur projects in the adventure genre. 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 One of the game's official websites has been archived, allowing players to download the project's original German tech-demo, however their other, zak2.de, was lost due to the use of a robots.txt file, which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. Zak is a journalist for the National Inquisitor newspaper, which for some reason is very fond of publishing various sensations, to put it mildly dubious. Zak is constantly looking for something so incredible, for which he will immediately be given at least a Pulitzer prize. The action takes place in 1997. He learns about two students, Melissa Chain and Leslie Bennet, who landed on Mars to destroy the sinister plans of the Caponians (i.e., judging by the template-wise name, some highly developed aliens), secretly invading human society and stupidly affecting people using special interference in conventional communication lines. Fortunately, another ancient alien race, the Scolarians, had long devised a device to counteract the similar stupid impulses of the Caponians. Now Zach, along with another girl, Annie Larris, must collect parts of the protective device scattered in various parts of the Earth, and thus save the world. The plot in the sequel is a continuation of the first part. 10 years have passed since reporter Zak McCracken and his friends prevented the Caponians from enslaving the Earth. What happened during this time? Our Zak is now the editor-in-chief of the prestigious Nachtecho; he married the girl of his dreams, Annie Larris. His girlfriends Melissa Chain and Leslie Bennett settled on Mars, where they now run a small hotel. But recently, in the central park of New York City, a pyramid was discovered, the entrance to which was never opened. Zak quickly realized on the spot - and drew a mysterious drawing with a pencil. The door opened, and now in front of Zak is a dark corridor to the inside of the pyramid, the road to new adventures. The gameplay is typical of the quest genre. You can select questions in dialogs with the NPC. There is a wide range of actions (everything is in German): Öffne - open, Schließe - close, Gib - give, Schau an - see, Rede mit - talk, Nimm - take, Benutze - use, Drüсke - press, Zieh - pull. The inventory is designed for a dozen wearable items. Specifically, in the demo version at the hotel on Mars, you need to find some valuable amulet stolen from one respected guest, Mr. Black, and hidden somewhere here in the hotel. At first, only a few locations are available: reception, cellar, kitchen and restaurant hall. It will be very difficult to complete the task in the demo version, because the authors prepared strange situations, non-standard solutions, and illogical puzzles and even logical dead ends will make almost any player doubt their intellectual powers. The graphics are very pleasing to the eye: resolution 640x480, a soft palette and smooth contours for all graphic objects. The game menu interface has partly inherited the layout from the first game in the series. The use of digitized speech was envisaged, but in the demo version there is very little of it - only in the introductory part. A pleasant musical theme plays in the background. There is good originality and humor - these are the main components of this game series, which should be familiar to any self-respecting old gamer. The game was never completed but a playable version was released.
Screenshots
German Tech Level Demo 19.8MB (uploaded by Internet Archive Software Collection)
Videos


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