As spotted by the International House of Mojo, a duo named Error47 has released a new interactive music video that combines the worlds of the Lucasfilm Games' adventure titles Maniac Mansion (1987) and Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders (1988).
Fans of Zak McKracken will already know that there is a ton of references to Maniac Mansion in that game, such as clever winks to the Edisons and Razor and the Scummettes. This short graphic adventure, however, imagines a more overt crossover where Zak McKracken finds himself transported to the Edison's spooky mansion.
Similar to those classic Lucasfilm adventure games, you must guide Zak through the Edison mansion solving puzzles with your inventory and verbs included on the game's interface.
The description of the game from the two developers reads:
"In this game, Zak McKracken - the titular hero of the game Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders - finds himself inexplicably transported to the front law of the Edison family’s mansion. But all is not right. In this reality, something has gone wrong. The kids never made it out alive. The Edison family are dead and haunting the mansion as malevolent spirits. A mysterious evil is keeping them in this realm, deep within the bowels of the mansion. And, if that wasn’t bad enough, a band has turned the former dungeon into their rehearsal space. Can you help Zak defeat the evil that keeps these spirits bound to the dilapidated mansion and finally get the band to play their latest single?"
This interactive music video was made for the song 'Zak the Maniac', a mash-up of the two main themes from the Lucasfilm adventure games Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken, and is included on the duo's latest album "C:\DOS\RUN". This album includes 10 covers of classic DOS tunes, performed in an industrial-rock style with modern synths, live guitar, and drums.
If you want to download the interactive music video, you can do so from the band's Itch.io page. The full album, meanwhile, is on sale from bandcamp, with pre-orders also available for vinyl copies from Diggers Factory. It's a neat marketing trick, and certainly got our attention!