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PurpleXVI posted:I'm assuming that if you pop someone's helmet off outside on Mars, it's an instant character death. It is indeed. I could have shown it off in the last video but I was more concerned with getting through the mazes smoothly. I will be showing off another death in the next video but it won't be set in space, I'll be heading back there in the following update and I'll kill off someone then. It's highly likely that this LP will be over with the sixth update. I'll definitely be following this up with the fan-made sequel.
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Mar 28, 2023 12:04
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Is the game actually cruel enough to allow you to do that?
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:I'll definitely be following this up with the fan-made sequel. 
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Mar 28, 2023 15:19
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:It's highly likely that this LP will be over with the sixth update. I'll definitely be following this up with the fan-made sequel. Huh, that's a shorter game than expected. I was feeling like it was finally starting to gather some steam.
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Mar 28, 2023 17:47
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PurpleXVI posted:Huh, that's a shorter game than expected. I was feeling like it was finally starting to gather some steam. This is a common issue with adventure games, unfortunately. Especially when it comes to the final act(s) as they expect you to spend the majority of your time in the first half of the game. There really isn't a lot of dialogue in this game and once you know how to solve the puzzles you can breeze through them fairly quickly. I'm contemplating on doing a video with some extra content as there are a few more things that I could potentially show off.
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Mar 28, 2023 18:05
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Getting the scroll always felt like a mid/late game puzzle when I played back in the day, but I remember spending hours trying to figure out what I needed to do.
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Mar 28, 2023 19:51
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Adventure game puzzles are boring compared to similar puzzles in actual puzzle games. Adventure game stories are at best above average for games, which makes them terrible by all other standards. Where adventures are best is with the short situational jokes. And as half of them are told when you do something wrong, it means that the "correct" way to play an adventure game is: Figure out what you are supposed to do and then do everything else first. So, yeah you absolutely should show us all the funny deaths and failures that this game has to offer.
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Mar 28, 2023 20:04
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VictualSquid posted:Adventure game puzzles are boring compared to similar puzzles in actual puzzle games. Adventure game stories are at best above average for games, which makes them terrible by all other standards. There isn't a whole lot to show off away from the beaten path but I will try to include what I can, if I can't then I will compile a short video with a few things that I'm aware of. The main issue that I have is that if you do something wrong you've either locked yourself out of completing the game or it's only a minor inconvenience. There's nothing to really show off if you have locked yourself out of completing the game, you can still play but you just can't make any progress. If you lose the crayon too early, waste the nests and\or lose the breadcrumbs you don't receive any kind of message to say that you've messed up. If you run out of currency you just can't go anywhere any more. If a character dies the game still progresses as normal but you're unable to complete the game, even if Zak dies you're able to carry on. As far as I'm aware, there are six ways to die in the game. I've already shown one way by trying to steal the flag in Katmandu, which technically isn't a death but it may as well be. I will be showing off another in the next update which may also include a second one but that may involve waiting around for an hour to see if it actually happens. I'm also going to show off something a little different when it comes to using the blue crystal too. The sixth update, which may potentially be the last, will include the final three deaths. There are a few things that I can think of a few extra things to include in a bonus video: Showing off more situations involving the blue crystal. Killing the squirrel and the consequences of it. Killing Sushi I should probably get play an older version of the game with the copy protection still enabled to show it off and to show off what happens when you fail it. If there are any other suggestions then please let me know. Deathwind posted:I could swear putting on the disguise while in the alien jail will get you out sooner. I've just tried this out and it does work. I will add this to the list as I have other plans for the next update.
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Mar 28, 2023 21:40
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I recorded the game for an hour (while I was busy doing other things) so I could capture a death and I have to say it was rather anti-climactic. Edit: I'm not sure whether it's worth putting in as you don't see anything at all, the game just cuts to another character.
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Mar 28, 2023 23:03
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PurpleXVI posted:Huh, that's a shorter game than expected. I was feeling like it was finally starting to gather some steam. The amount of padding you get from not doing things before you know to do them is pretty high. Summoning the bird, for example, could take as many as five flights to complete if you're playing blind (fly to that location, find the site, fly back, get the bread, fly back, find out you can't use the bread whole, fly back, find a way to crumb the bread (which may take a reload or two), fly back and get the bird.
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Mar 29, 2023 01:01
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 Zak definitely got his money's worth when he paid for a tour of the Bermuda Triangle. Annie also springs into action in this video with a trip to an ancient place of worship. They both then reunite in Cairo as they work together to uncover the mystery of the sphynx. This recording felt fairly messy as there were several misclicks and I started to babble throughout. I decided to show off one death in this video and decided to explain the other as there wasn't anything new in the game to show it off. I was going to show off another death but I ran out of time so I'll be leaving it for the next video where I'll most likely pair it with another death. It also became messy when forgot to do one important thing with Sushi in my practice run and only remembered during the recording so things got a little all over the place.
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Mar 29, 2023 13:30
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Here's an interesting question, how does the game handle the death of ALL characters? Is there a special cut scene?
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Mar 29, 2023 15:11
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Deathwind posted:Here's an interesting question, how does the game handle the death of ALL characters? Is there a special cut scene? I've never thought to try that out but I will soon. I'm starting to think that I should have repaired the yellow crystal sooner but it would ruin the surprise of a couple of locations.
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Mar 29, 2023 16:04
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Deathwind posted:Here's an interesting question, how does the game handle the death of ALL characters? Is there a special cut scene? The game just cuts to the end credits like it does when you're on your own and imprisoned for life for attempting to steal the flag.
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Mar 29, 2023 21:48
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:
So guessing the dot on the map on the island is supposed to be Atlantis and not Britain.
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Mar 29, 2023 22:57
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Rectus posted:So guessing the dot on the map on the island is supposed to be Atlantis and not Britain. It must be, I definitely did not see any platforms at Stonehenge.
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Mar 29, 2023 23:16
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It's such an amazingly pure example of Adventure Game Logic that the only metal rod you're able to acquire on the entire planet is the strictly-guarded flagpole holding the national flag of Nepal. In general, it's an interesting idea to let the player freely travel all around the world, but it's also very weird that each destination consists of exactly one important spot in the middle of nowhere that Zak and Annie just somehow intuitively know to head to.
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Mar 29, 2023 23:58
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Carpator Diei posted:It's such an amazingly pure example of Adventure Game Logic that the only metal rod you're able to acquire on the entire planet is the strictly-guarded flagpole holding the national flag of Nepal. I understand what you are saying but this game was originally released in 1988 on the C64. I believe that the game came on two discs which could hold a total of 170kb each. I would love a modern remake of this game which wouldn't be as constrained as this game had to be at the time.
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Mar 30, 2023 00:40
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I'm travelling to Scotland tomorrow to visit my daughter for the weekend, she is officially turning into a teenager tomorrow. I've just completed a practice run of the next update and it will be the final one of this game, I just won't be able to record it until early next week. I did however record some additional footage earlier and I will try to find some more when I return home after the weekend, I'll try to compile and upload something after the finale has been uploaded. I am having some difficulty sourcing a version of the game with the copy protection still enabled though, I'll try again after the weekend.
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Mar 31, 2023 00:15
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 This is the finale of Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders. I don't want to spoil anything so I'll talk a bit more in the next day or two. This was horrendous to record as I put too much pressure on myself as I have no idea when I'll be able to record this week and how long I will have to do so when I do. This ended up taking twice as long to record than usual and it's a patchwork of constant stops and starts. I probably should have waited until I was a bit more composed but I really don't know when my next recording window will be. I do need to record some more footage for the bonus video that will follow and I'm hoping to have it up before the end of the week. It helps that I can work on it in bits and pieces instead of devoting a whole chunk of time to it. I'll write some more tomorrow as it's getting late and this has taken an hour longer than I thought it was going to. I hope that you enjoy the finale!
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Apr 4, 2023 00:04
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:I understand what you are saying but this game was originally released in 1988 on the C64. I believe that the game came on two discs which could hold a total of 170kb each. I would love a modern remake of this game which wouldn't be as constrained as this game had to be at the time. This probably explained why there were so many mazes. Thank you for the LP. I doubt I would have made it past San Francisco, much less get to Mars.
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Apr 4, 2023 02:54
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Oooh, Zak McKraken! The original DOS release is what I had as a kid, with EGA colors and the C64 art style rather than the VGA stuff. Mind that early Lucasarts VGA was kinda rough in spots, like Zak's apartment here. As a kid I never got too far, I'd hit the copy protection and not having the manual ended up in pirate jail once I unlocked the other characters and tried to leave the US. I don't think it would've helped though. I think all the locations would make a map and notes for the obstacles in each area, what you could find in them, and plotting a route without running out of money was gonna be beyond kid me, nevermind half the puzzles. Plus the ol' 286 and this game didn't gel well together, the cursor wasn't exactly speedy and controlled by the keyboard, and if there were keyboard shortcuts my kid brain never remembered to use them. I did like the modern setting in an adventure game, even if San Fransico, the airplane, the stupid dark cave, and Mars were kinda limited to explore. But again it was a game made for few floppies instead of QfG2's 9 or so floppies and the like, and years between 'em too. Modern settings felt more cohesive or familiar, same with Indy3, LSL2, and PQ2 that I grew up with. Thanks for the LP! I never knew there was a fan sequel so I'm curious how that goes.
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Apr 4, 2023 06:03
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One note about the van, the news report said the trip took months. If you launch the van of course you basically lose the characters in it, they are on their long trip home.
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Apr 4, 2023 06:22
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Scrublord Prime posted:Oooh, Zak McKraken! The original DOS release is what I had as a kid, with EGA colors and the C64 art style rather than the VGA stuff. Mind that early Lucasarts VGA was kinda rough in spots, like Zak's apartment here. As a kid I never got too far, I'd hit the copy protection and not having the manual ended up in pirate jail once I unlocked the other characters and tried to leave the US. I don't think it would've helped though. I think all the locations would make a map and notes for the obstacles in each area, what you could find in them, and plotting a route without running out of money was gonna be beyond kid me, nevermind half the puzzles. Plus the ol' 286 and this game didn't gel well together, the cursor wasn't exactly speedy and controlled by the keyboard, and if there were keyboard shortcuts my kid brain never remembered to use them. From what I remember of the Atari ST release the graphics weren't too far off of this version of the game. It's a game that definitely relies on trial and error and unfortunately by the time that you've realised that you've made some of those errors it's far too late to circumvent them. Now that I've replayed the game again some of the puzzles are a lot more straightforward than I remembered from my younger years. Although some of them do seem a little out there, such as a random altar being in stonehenge and a flagpole from Nepal being the only available lightning rod in the game. Deathwind posted:One note about the van, the news report said the trip took months. If you launch the van of course you basically lose the characters in it, they are on their long trip home. I really should have included this in the main playthrough. I just started to panic last night and wanted to get a recording done after the numerous stopping, starting and re-recordings.
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Apr 4, 2023 11:08
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I like the end of game theme, but man, Zak's "I just won the game"-grin was terrifying. Not the worst adventure game I've ever seen, but I feel justified in not beating my head against it as a kid until I figured it out, now.
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Apr 5, 2023 20:16
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You know who Zak reminds me of when he's facing to the side? A younger "Weird Al" Yankovic.
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Apr 5, 2023 23:48
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Bonus Video: Additional Content This is a collection of additional content that was missed during the main playthrough. These clips are all optional choices that we can make in the game as well as some alternate ones. I did a little exploring with Annie but apart from a few extra lines, there wasn't anything really of note to add to this compilation. I probably should have taken out the clip of Zak emerging from the back room as it only contains one line of minor dialogue. I've put timestamps in the video and these include: Taking Care Of Sushi, Emerging From The Back Room, Needing More Light, Playing With The Squirrel, Fun With Yaks, Annie's Travels, Meeting The King & The Long Drive Home. Next up: Zak McKracken: Between Time And Space. I'm still figuring out what is going to follow afterwards as Zak McKracken was the last on the list of my last planned batch of games. I have three games in mind right now that are worlds apart from each other.
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Apr 6, 2023 23:14
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Wow, they did ANOTHER Zak game? Interesting. I honestly feel like the most interesting read of this one is as Zak's idle daydreaming about why the rest of the world is so stupid and doesn't appreciate his journalistic skills: Clearly, they're so dumb because of an ALIEN CONSPIRACY. Now imagine, Zak daydreams, if he, Zak, was just the man to save the world, and he got to hang out with a bunch of cute girls while doing it and then also got to date one of them?
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Apr 7, 2023 01:46
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PurpleXVI posted:Wow, they did ANOTHER Zak game? Interesting. it's an unofficial sequel without the involvement of lucasarts et al https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zak_McKracken:_Between_Time_and_Space
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Apr 7, 2023 03:46
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PurpleXVI posted:Wow, they did ANOTHER Zak game? Interesting. sb hermit posted:it's an unofficial sequel without the involvement of lucasarts et al Aye, it's a fan-made sequel. I've had some unexpected free time this morning so I decided to do a test run for a potential first video. I haven't played this game before but I'm pretty impressed with it so far and it seems pretty solid. The game was released for free and is available to download here: http://www.mckracken.net/cms/directorscut.html
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Apr 7, 2023 09:06
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Let's Play: Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space is an unofficial fan-made sequel to the original Zak McKracken that was initially released in 2008. The game was made by the Artificial Hair Bros, it took over seven years to make and was originally released in their native language of Germany. They released a director's cut of the game in 2015 that fixed numerous bugs, expanded upon the story and they translated the game into English and French. I believe that as of this point in time, only the German and English versions of the game contain voice acting. This is pretty impressive considering that this game was released for free and still is to this day. I was very aware of this game when it was being developed and kept my eye on it over the years. I'm very glad that it saw the light of day and was even gladder when it received an English translation. Even though I've been aware of it for all of this time, this is my first time playing through the game. I said in this video that I've played only as far as the end of the update but that isn't true, I thought that I'd progress more quickly so I've played a little further on than what you've seen in the video. I thought that I'd cut it where I did so I wouldn't have to rush around the next section. My commentary in this game isn't the best as my speech falters at times. Normally I'd stop and restart the recording if my ability to speak starts to go out the window too much, but due to the uncertainty of the windows to record this week I thought that a few fluffs in my speech wouldn't be the end of the world. The UI isn't the best in this game and there are many options that illicit the same response to others, so there may be some repeated lines of dialogue as I'm trying to remember all of the unique ones. If you want to play the game for yourself you can download it for free here: http://www.mckracken.net/
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Apr 7, 2023 23:40
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I believe I had some second hand experience with this, seeing someone do a very speeded up playthrough in the original German language. To this day, I still can't quite recall much of what happened. I also recall another fan sequel, though more in line with the DOS graphics (or was it FM Towns?), and with the action and inventory system of Monkey Isle for some reason.
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Apr 8, 2023 01:49
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This looks really good, and the humour is already on point. And thanks, Zak, for making me feel somewhat less bad about the state of my apartment 
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Apr 8, 2023 02:08
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I look forward to more german accented characters. I hope the initial security guard isn't the only one. For a fan game, it seems very well done, especially the writing.
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Apr 8, 2023 02:31
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I seem to recall there was another Zak fan game, closer to the original style, that had a graphic sex scene out of nowhere near the end.
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Apr 8, 2023 22:03
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Gilgamesh255 posted:I believe I had some second hand experience with this, seeing someone do a very speeded up playthrough in the original German language. To this day, I still can't quite recall much of what happened. gschmidl posted:I seem to recall there was another Zak fan game, closer to the original style, that had a graphic sex scene out of nowhere near the end. "The New Adventures of Zak McKracken" was made using graphics from the FM-Towns version as well as taking graphics from various Neo-Geo games. There was indeed a graphic sex scene at the end but the developers changed it after they learnt that the female characters in the first game were based on real people. I did think about playing this as well but I may save it for another time. I've been tentatively thinking about starting an LP megathread for freeware games for some time now but I'm not sure if I'd actively have time to update semi-frequently to it, it would be more of a side-hobby that I'd engage in once a month. I did play one freeware game which I ended up posting in the casual LP thread. There are a lot of short, fan-made, adventure games that I've found that are based on many different LucasArts titles that I can potentially show off at some point. There are also a lot of other freeware games that I'd like to show off at some point which is a mix of excellent, mediocre, horrifying and interesting. If you want to give New Adventures a try you can find it here: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/40-the-new-adventures-of-zak-mckracken/
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Apr 8, 2023 23:36
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 Zak explores 13th Avenue Street in this video and it's looking a little different. Things don't seem to be adding up and when he visits the local businesses things just seem to get even weirder. I was hoping to have something up before now but I've come down with a horrible stomach bug. I was sent home from work today because of it but I was feeling well enough to record something, I'm just sitting around on my rear end anyway so I thought that I'd try to be productive.
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Apr 12, 2023 19:12
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Rocket Baby Dolls posted:
there is a lot of heart in the voice acting in this game I love it.
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Apr 12, 2023 21:35
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Interestingly, Zak's voice acting is almost exactly like I imagined his voice in the first game.
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Apr 14, 2023 00:34
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sb hermit posted:there is a lot of heart in the voice acting in this game The person playing Murray in this game really went to town and I thought Denny Delk already made the character as hammy as possible. PurpleXVI posted:Interestingly, Zak's voice acting is almost exactly like I imagined his voice in the first game. It's not far off what I imagined either, although I was having some concerns as he does look a little bit like Seinfeld.
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Apr 14, 2023 11:40
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 Zak visits his office in this video and he's found out that it's been redecorated in his absence. We meet a couple of new people, one of which Zak traumatises and the other one Zak insults repeatedly. I'll leave it up to you to work out how he effects either one of them. Rocket Baby Dolls fucked around with this message at 11:01 on Apr 19, 2023 |
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Apr 16, 2023 23:41
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