Games

Lucasfilm games

Lucasfilm - and today LucasArts - the great movie- and entertainment company by George Lucas.

Their games were always very special. Think of the many graphics adventure games, their air battle simulations and of course the Star Wars and Indiana Jones games (although these don't exist for the C64).

The first Lucasfilm games for the C64 in 1984 and 1985 were Rescue on Fractalus, Ballblazer, The Eidolon and Koronis Rift. They have all something common: 3D graphics using fractals. This was very special, these games had very fast graphics. It is definite worth to have a look at Ballblazer.

Then in 1986, Lucasfilm released their first adventure game, Labyrinth. It was the first game Lucasfilm programmed after a Lucasfilm movie! You do not need to type in the commands for the figures, you already could scroll through a list of words.

The first non-fractal action-game was PHM Pegasus in 1987. It puts you on the bridge of a hydrofoil, under mission of the NATO. The Sequel of this game was Strike Fleet, a more tactical game, where you command up to eight hydrofoils.

Maniac Mansion

Maniac Mansion was the second adventure game of Lucasfilm released in 1987. The programmers of Lucasfilm developed a special programming-system for this game, called SCUMM. It means SCripting Utility for Maniac Mansion. SCUMM was used also for the following games, Zak McKracken, Indiana Jones and Monkey Island.

20 years ago, a meteorite hit the earth near the Maniac Mansion. Maybe this is the reason, why Dr. Fred and his family went crazy... Dave's girlfriend Sandy disappeared, and it is rumoured that she was kidnapped by Dr. Fred.

You play Dave and two of his friends, in an adventure game that is full of puzzles. The game is very complex and there exist different solutions for the game, also depending of the two friends you choose out of six!

If you never played Maniac Mansion, you missed something.

Dave in front of the Maniac Mansion

Zak McKracken And The Alien Mindbenders

It's 1997, and the world is a dumber place than ever... Space Aliens have built a stupidity machine that's slowly reducing everyone's IQ to single digits. Worse yet, the only person who can stop them is Zak McKracken, reporter for the disreputable National Inquisitor, who dreams up stories about carnivorous cantaloupes and vegetarian vampires.

They've taken over the phone company... Sure sounds like another one of Zak's tabloid fantasies. But while most people wouldn't believe him, he finds three who don't need convincing - Annie, Head of the Society of Ancient Wisdom, and her friends, Leslie and Melissa, two Yale coeds who travelled to mars in their modified van. The four of them must piece together fragments of an ancient puzzle, unmask the aliens, and destroy the stupidity machine.

Here's where you come in... You direct the actions of Zak, Annie, Melissa and Leslie, taking them to many exotic places where they discover some pretty strange objects - and some even stranger characters!

In 1988 Lucasfilm published the most complex adventure game ever made for the C64. It is based on the same engine as Maniac Mansion, the SCUMM. It features many places around the world and even on mars. If you don't draw maps of the labyrinth in the pyramids and of the jungle, you get lost. Drive the stewardess crazy, remote control animals, talk to a guru in Katmandu, fly to the Bermuda triangle, drink whiskey with the Stonehenge guard in England and much other funny things. Zak McKracken lets you spend many many hours with your C64, trying to resolve all the puzzles and save the world from the alien mindbenders!

Zak in his room

The aliens with their stupidity machine

Is the phone company already under alien control?