Visiting LucasArts: a Party with Matthew Kane and Brunch with David Fox

Shortly before the release, project lead Thomas “Marvel” Dibke spent three weeks in California and met both creators of Zak McKracken. His report from January 2007, translated and slightly shortened.

Act 1: Invited to a very special party

The trip started in Frankfurt on December 15, 2006. After more than 20 hours of travel, including a false bomb alarm during the stopover, we finally landed in San Francisco. The very next day we were invited to a party at the home of Matthew Allan Kane.

Matt Kane worked at Lucasfilm Games for several years. After smaller tasks on Maniac Mansion he became one of the two lead developers of Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. Together with project lead David Fox he wrote large parts of the story and the code, and he composed the Zak McKracken theme, which has reached cult status since.

“Hello Marvel, as for this Saturday, the 16th, I am quite busy during the day, and that evening starting at 6 PM we are having a small holiday gathering at our home for some friends. You and your friends are welcome to join us!”

Matthew Kane

We drove up into the hills of Berkeley, with a stunning view over the city. Matt greeted us with a loud “Hey Marvel!”, and he was wearing a Zak McKracken T-shirt. Apparently he was crazy enough to believe we would really come.

Of course the talk soon turned to Zak. Were there any secrets in the original nobody had found yet? Matt thought hard; after 20 years almost everything had been discovered. But then he revealed why the game was so incredibly hard: it was a request from Lucasfilm. A hard game meant longer play time, they aimed for 100 hours, and above all it sold hint books. Lucasfilm made only a few dollars per copy of the game, but a ten dollar hint book was good money. He also told us that the whole game was made on a budget of about 100,000 dollars.

Later Matt played blues and jazz on the piano with two saxophone players, and I grabbed a ukulele. He signed some of our DVD covers, and I gave him a DVD with videos, backgrounds, music and voice recordings from our project.

Act 2: Looking for Zak McKracken

With three days left in San Francisco, I went looking for traces of our favorite tabloid reporter. There are so many avenues that finding Zak's home is not easy. I did find a sign with his name misspelled, though. And San Francisco has a real squirrel problem. They are not two headed, but one climbed up my leg and stole my Snickers.

Act 3: Brunch with David Fox

David Fox could not make it to Matt's party, so after two weeks on the road through California we called him and met for brunch at the Rain Tree Cafe near San Francisco. I waited in nose glasses and a Zak T-shirt for the godfather of noseglasses and french bread.

David said it was wonderful that his games are still being played. Back then the team assumed nobody would care about them after four years. That fans travel to San Francisco 20 years later to present their fan project thrilled him. Why were the games so popular in Germany? He did not know for sure, but mentioned that his great great grandmother came from Germany.

He told us that George Lucas never had much interest in the games and was not a gamer, while Steven Spielberg was. When Spielberg visited Skywalker Ranch he often dropped by to see the progress, and during Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade he took test versions home and gave the developers tips.

Act 4: Visiting Lucasfilm

David's last tip: LucasArts had just moved into a new building. So we went there, found Yoda in front of the entrance, and I walked in wearing hat and nose glasses. The security guard laughed and let me look around the lobby. There were plenty of Star Wars figures, but no Zak, no Hoagie and no Indiana Jones. Into game development he could not let me.

Act 5: Afterword

“Hey Marvel, I have looked at, and totally enjoyed, every file on the DVD you gave me. I'm blown away by the quality of your game and can't wait to play it!”

Matthew Kane

“I just took a look at the videos and screens and am listening to the music now. I'm very impressed! You guys did a great job on the opening sequence, and everything looks great.”

David Fox

A great feeling that a project we had worked on for four years was well received by the original developers. I hope this motivates every hobby developer who has set out to make something big. Keep at it, we look forward to your games.