Not everyone loves Zak McKracken...

Not everyone gives Zak 10/10. These are the criticisms people have:

• The graphics and control system
• The cashcard
• The possibility of death
• Other complaints
• and of course... the mazes

Most people consider Zak to be a classic. But a small minority of ingrates and sore losers drag out these same tired objections. Hehehe - only kidding. These are legitimate concerns. Or are they? One man's concern is another man's puzzle. And some of these puzzles are exceedingly good.

The graphics and control system

The verb system

Zak McKracken, and its predecessor, Maniac Mansion, revolutionised computer games. Before these, adventure games were controlled by text parsers. Text parsers! You had to type in the instructions, and if you guessed the wrong word, then tough. Zak and Maniac Mansion changed the world! Today we take mouse control for granted. Since then, all other changes have been refinements. And in some ways, Zak's verb-based system is superior to many modern games. Modern games often allow just one action - 'use' or its equivalent. Zak allowed real choices.

The graphics and sound

And back then, 16 color graphics were cutting edge. For the first time, a 16 color palette allowed shading and some degree of subtlety. The jump from 4 colors to 16 colors was therefore greater than the jump from 16 to 'true color.' And the sound, in the days before sound cards, was the best that most people had ever heard.

This brings up the philosophical issue of imagination - the pictures and sounds that matter are the ones in your head. If you demand perfection, then even today's Half Life 2 is awkward and unrealistic. But if you demand food for your imagination, it doesn't get better than Zak.

While on the subject of simplicity...

Finally, we have the issue of efficiency. I have said it before and will say it again: the whole thing fits onto 320 K. It respects your disk space. Last month I installed the Sims Deluxe. It took well over 1700 MB. That is FIVE THOUSAND TIMES bigger than Zak. And to run it, my computer has to be A THOUSAND TIMES faster than the systems that first ran Zak. As an amateur programmer, the elegance of Zak is nothing short of breathtaking. Don't get me wrong. I like the Sims. But Zak, with its global locations and beyond, just feels like a much bigger game.

The cash card

A lot of people complain that they cannot enjoy the game because they are always running out of money. (Hey, life's like that!) People - listen - this is a PUZZLE! That's P-U-Z-Z-L-E. As in 'Here is a problem, how can I overcome it?' People who say 'the lack of cash is a weakness of the game' have underestimated the game's depths. < sigh > Zak is underrated again.

There are clues everywhere. Read the newspaper that comes with the game. Look on the wall in Lou's Loans. Keep an eye on your cash card and the prices. Put two and two together. And if you're not sure, just save the game before making any major purchase. Then if you need to get money to Annie, think about what you can give her that has cash value, and where she can buy or sell it.

It's a puzzle, people!

 

The possibility of death

Another complaint against Zak is that you can die. That's true. But look at the alternative: in some later games, you cannot die at all. Where is the excitement in that? And look at the historical context: in 1988, the master of Adventure games was Sierra, and Sierra games involved frequent death without warning. Compared with a Sierra game, in Zak you're immortal.

And let us look at those deaths: Melissa and Lesley give frequent warnings of low oxygen - they only die if you want them to. There are similar warnings concerning the monster and other dangers. The only surprise death is probably if you jump out of the airplane and don't use your parachute. Look, I don't mean to criticise anyone, but if you jump out of an airplane without a parachute, what do you expect?

Other complaints: "we don't like puzzles"

For the sake of completeness, here are the other complaints I have heard about Zak. Again I must stress that most people think that Zak is a classic, but you can't please all of the people all of the time. The following complaints only arose once in online reviews. Maybe the reviewers were just having a bad day?

• "Very few clues are given to you"
  This is a maybe a problem if you don't have the newspaper, but if you read the newspaper it's full of clues. Even the game itself has clues along the way. Sometimes they are very blatant, like when Zak says 'I should make a copy of that map.' Sometimes the clues are more subtle, as when the witchdoctor says the dance "unlocks the door to the head" - but the clues are all there.
• "long stretches of seemingly inconnected adventures"
  It's called non-linearity, friend. But most users found that the structure was perfectly clear. It was spelled out several times: get the five parts of The Device. Heck, there was even a chart on the wall, and Zak carried a map. How could the adventures be any more clearly connected?
• "The whole ordeal starts to reek of the "click-on-stuff-until-some-s**t-happens" with alarming ease"
  Do we detect a tiny bit of frustration here? Is it possible that one of us could not figure out the puzzles and began randomly clicking everything instead? Hey, I've been there. We all have. But there is no need to give up like this. The puzzles all have their own logic, and the clues are in the game and in the newspaper. This reviewer confesses that he "bashed the monitor in frustration for countless times." Hmmm. If you don't like puzzles, maybe adventure games aren't for you.
• "the code-system sucks"
  I suppose this is a matter of opinion. I found it added to the sense of going somewhere special. I have only seen this complaint once, so I think the codes must have worked pretty well. And remember that they were only needed for a small number of airports. Hey, come to think of it, this is another way that Zak was ahead of its time. Obtrusive airport security? Sounds familiar, post 9/11?
• "The ending wasn't rewarding enough"
  I suppose different people expect different things. Another reviewer said the ending was well worth the wait. So let's recap what happens in the ending (spoiler ahead!): the Skolarian Device, the goal of the game from the beginning, is finally assembled. We see the pyramid's top open up and a purple ray of light shoots out into space. We see it envelop the world with a protective glow. We see the Caponian machine break up and the Caponians flee. Zak and Annie look lovingly at each other (I think there were hearts somewhere?) All the major loose ends are completed, the hero saves the world and gets the girl, the bad guys are defeated, we see the effects on the whole globe... what more do you want?
• and finally... "My disks broke"
  It's a bummer when that happens. But it's not the software's fault - this is an issue for the distributor, etc. These days it's not really a problem at all, since Zak's tiny file size can be easily backed up anywhere.

I suppose I should confess my own deep dark secret here. The first time I played Zak, I also used a cheat sheet for some parts. But in my defense, I never had the newspaper - the newspaper has all the clues you need for the harder puzzles.

 

Mazes

Mazes are puzzles. Like all puzzles, you either like them or hate them. Some people find them too difficult and hate them. Even David Fox agrees that the Mazes were not popular:

Question: Is there anything you would do different if you were making Zak again?
Answer: "Hah! NO LABYRINTHS!! That was the one thing I wish we hadn't have done so much of. But considering how much space we had on the floppy disk (wasn't Zak two sides of a C64 disk - about a total of 320KB?), that was the most space-efficient way to prolong gameplay. At least we didn't keep killing you off!" - David Fox

But other people enjoy the challenge. Actually, the mazes are much simpler than they seem:

Mexico - the Aztec temple

When you enter the temple, you soon find three things:

1. Torches on the walls - these are easily lit with the lighter used earlier in the game.
2. There are three sets of rooms: with six doors, five doors and four doors. There are four rooms in each set, and they join from left to right (see graphic).
3. Each set has a stone pillar in the first room.

Thanks to the yellow crayon puzzles, you already have a pencil and paper. So it is a simple matter to make a quick map, as follows:

 

Jungles

The most common maze is the jungle near various airports. These aren't what they seem.

Warning: spoiler ahead!

David Fox explains: 'These weren't mazes at all. There's no structure to the jungles. I'm just counting the number of new doors you go through!'

 

Egypt - the Sphinx

Actually, this maze isn't hard at all. Just go through the doors with a sun symbol, then finally the door with the eyes symbol.

Mars - the Great Chamber

Two of the Mars mazes are very simple, but the first one is a little more complicated. However, the passages are all different, so if you make a sketch map you can't get lost.

There, that wasn't too hard, was it?

In conclusion, I love the mazes. The idea of going deeper and deeper into an Aztec pyramid was exciting. I loved discovering the Martian air conditioner in the dark - especially in the 256 color version, with the great chasm, which reminds me of that scene in the film Forbidden Planet. The Egyptian maze seemed too easy at first, but the monster made it fun.

If you are one of those who hated the mazes, why not try them again? You might be pleasantly surprised.

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