Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
Encyclopedia
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a point-and-click
adventure game
by LucasArts
originally released in 1992. Almost a year later, it was reissued on CD-ROM as an enhanced "talkie" edition with full voice acting and digitized sound effects. In 2009, this version was also released as an unlockable extra of the Wii
action game Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, and as a digitally distributed Steam title. The seventh game to use the script language SCUMM
, Fate of Atlantis has the player explore environments and interact with objects and characters by using commands constructed with predetermined verbs. It features three unique paths to select, influencing story development, gameplay and puzzles.
The plot is set in the fictional Indiana Jones universe and revolves around the eponymous protagonist's
global search for the legendary sunken city of Atlantis
. Sophia Hapgood, an old co-worker of Indiana Jones who gave up her archaeological career to become a psychic
, supports him along the journey. The two partners are pursued by the Nazis who seek to use the power of Atlantis for warfare, and serve as the adventure's antagonists. The story was written by Hal Barwood
and Noah Falstein
, the game's designers, who had rejected the original plan to base it on an unused movie script. They came up with the final concept while researching real-world sources for a suitable plot device.
Fate of Atlantis was praised by critics and received several awards for best adventure game of the year. It became a million-unit seller and is widely regarded as a classic of its genre today. Two concepts for a supposed sequel were conceived, but both projects were eventually canceled due to unforeseen problems during development. They were later reworked into two separate Dark Horse Comics
series by Lee Marrs
and Elaine Lee
.
story system by Ron Gilbert
, Aric Wilmunder, Brad P. Taylor, and Vince Lee, thus employing similar gameplay to other point-and-click adventures developed by LucasArts in the 1980s and 1990s. The player explores the game's static environments while interacting with sprite
-based characters and objects; they may use the mouse cursor to construct and give commands with a number of predetermined verbs such as "Pick up", "Use" and "Talk to". Conversations with non-playable characters unfold in a series of selectable questions and answers.
Early on, the player is given the choice between three different game modes, each with unique cutscenes, puzzles to solve and locations to visit: the Team Path, the Wits Path, and the Fists Path. In the Team Path, protagonist Indiana Jones
is joined by his partner Sophia Hapgood who will provide support throughout the game. The Wits Path features an abundance of complex puzzles, while the Fists Path focuses heavily on action sequences and fist fighting, the latter of which is completely optional in the other two modes. Atypical for LucasArts titles, it is possible for the player character to die at certain points in the game, though dangerous situations were designed to be easily recognizable. A score system, the Indy Quotient Points, keeps track of the puzzles solved, the obstacles overcome and the important objects found.
. At the request of a visitor named Mr. Smith, archaeology
professor and adventurer Indiana Jones tries to find a small statue in the archives of his workplace Barnett College. After Indiana retrieved the horned figurine, Smith uses a key to open it, revealing a sparkling metal bead inside. Smith then pulls out a gun and escapes with the two artifacts, but he loses his coat in the process. The identity card
inside reveals "Smith" to be Klaus Kerner, an agent of the Third Reich. Another pocket of the coat holds an old magazine containing an article about an expedition on which Indiana collaborated with Sophia Hapgood, who has since given up archeology to become a psychic
. Fearing that she might be Kerner's next target, Indiana travels to New York
in order to warn her and to find out more about the mysterious statue. There, he interrupts her lecture on the culture and downfall of Atlantis
, and the two return to Sophia's apartment. They discover that Kerner ransacked her office in search of Atlantean artifacts, but Sophia says that she keeps her most valuable item, her necklace, with her. She owns another of the shiny beads, now identified as the mystical metal orichalcum
, and places it in the medallion's mouth, invoking the spirit of the Atlantean god Nur-Ab-Sal. She explains that a Nazi scientist called Dr. Hans Ubermann is searching for the power of Atlantis to use it as an energy source for warfare.
Sophia then gets a telepathic message from Nur-Ab-Sal, instructing them to find the Lost Dialogue of Plato, the Hermocrates
, a book that will guide them to the city. After gathering information, Indiana and Sophia eventually find it in a collection of Barnett College. Correcting Plato's "tenfold error", a mistranslation from Egyptian
to Greek
, the document pinpoints the location of Atlantis in the Mediterranean, 300 miles from Greece
, instead of 3000 as mentioned in the dialogue Critias
. It also says that in order to gain access to the Lost City and its colonies, three special stones are required. At this point, the player has to choose between the Team, Wits, or Fists Path, which influences the way the stones are acquired. In all three paths, Sophia gets captured by the Nazis, and Indiana makes his way to the underwater entrance of Atlantis near Thera
.
The individual scenarios converge at this point and Indiana starts to explore the Lost City. He saves Sophia from a prison, and they make their way to the center of Atlantis, where her medallion guides them to the home of Nur-Ab-Sal. The Atlantean god takes full possession of Sophia and it is only by a trick that Indiana rids her of the necklace and destroys it, thus freeing her. They advance further and eventually reach a large colossus
the inhabitants of the city built to transform themselves into gods
. Using ten orichalcum beads at a time would enable them to control the water with the powers they gained, keeping the sea level
down to prevent an impending catastrophe.
Unknowingly, Indiana starts the machine with the stones, upon which Kerner, Ubermann, and the Nazi troops invade the place. Ubermann wants to use Indiana as a test subject, but Kerner steps onto the platform first, claiming himself to be most suitable
for godhood. Just as Ubermann wants to start the machine, Indiana mentions Plato's tenfold error, which convinces Kerner to use one bead instead of ten. He is then turned into a horribly deformed and horned creature, and falls into the lava. Indiana is forced to step on the platform next but threatens Ubermann to send him straight to hell once he is a god. Fearing his wrath, Ubermann uses the machine on himself, feeding it one hundred beads. He is turned into a green ethereal being before vanishing completely. Three bad endings see one of the protagonists undergo the second transformation if Indiana could not convince Ubermann to use the machine instead, or if Sophia was not freed from her prison or Nur-Ab-Sal's influence. In the good ending, Atlantis succumbs to the eruption of the still active volcano
as the duo flees from the city. The final scene depicts Indiana kissing Sophia on top of the escape submarine, to comfort himself for the lack of evidence for their discovery.
was decided, most of the staff of Lucasfilm Games was occupied with other projects such as The Secret of Monkey Island
and The Dig
. Designer Hal Barwood
had only created two computer games on his own before, but was put in charge of the project because of his experience as a producer and writer of feature films. The company originally wanted him to create a game based on Indiana Jones and the Monkey King/Garden of Life, a rejected script written by Chris Columbus for the third movie that would have seen Indiana looking for Chinese artifacts in Africa. However, Barwood thought the idea was substandard, having been declined for a reason, and requested to create an original story for the game instead. Along with co-worker Noah Falstein
, he visited the library of George Lucas
' workplace Skywalker Ranch
to look for possible plot devices
. They eventually decided upon Atlantis when they looked at a diagram in a Time Life volume, which depicted the city as built in three concentric circles.
Writing the story involved extensive research on a plethora of pseudo-scientific
books. Inspiration for the mythology in the game, such as the description of the city and the appearance of the metal orichalcum
, was primarily drawn from Plato's
dialogues Timaeus
and Critias
, and from Ignatius Loyola Donnelly's book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
that revived interest in the myth during the nineteenth century. The magical properties of orichalcum and the Atlantean technology depicted in the game were partly adopted from Russian spiritualist Helena Blavatsky's publications on the force vril
. The giant colossus producing gods was based on a power-concentrating device called "firestone", formerly described by American psychic
Edgar Cayce
.
Once Barwood and Falstein completed the rough outline of the story, Barwood wrote the actual script, and the team began to conceive the puzzles and to design the environments. The Atlantean artifacts and architecture devised by lead artist William Eaken were made to resemble those of the Minoan civilization
, while the game in turn implies that the Minoans were inspired by Atlantis. Barwood intended for the Atlantean art to have an "alien" feel to it, with the machines seemingly operating on as of yet unknown physics
rather than on magic
. The majority of the 256-color backgrounds in the game were mostly mouse-drawn with Deluxe Paint
, though roughly ten percent were paintings scanned at the end of the development cycle. As a consequence of regular design changes, the images often had to be revised by the artists. Character animations were fully rotoscoped with video footage of Steve Purcell
for Indiana's and Collette Michaud for Sophia's motions. The main art team that consisted of Eaken, James Dollar and Avril Harrison was sometimes consulted by Barwood to help out with the more graphical puzzles in the game, such as a broken robot in Atlantis.
The addition of three different paths was suggested by Falstein and added about six more months of development time, mainly because of all the extra dialogue that had to be implemented for the interaction between Indiana and Sophia. Altogether, the game took about two years to finish, starting in spring of 1990, and lasting up to the floppy disk
release in June 1992. The only aspect Barwood was not involved in at all was the production of voices for the enhanced "talkie" edition released on CD-ROM
in May 1993, which was instead handled by Tamlynn Barra. The voice-over recordings for the approximately 8000 lines of dialogue took about four weeks, and were done with actors from the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
. The "talkie" version was later included as an extra game mode in the Wii
version of the 2009 action game Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, and distributed via the digital content delivery software Steam as a port for Windows XP
, Windows Vista
and Mac OS X
that same year.
The package illustration for Fate of Atlantis was inspired by the Indiana Jones movie posters of Drew Struzan
. It was drawn by Eaken within three days, following disagreements with the marketing department and an external art director over which concept to use. Clint Bajakian
, Peter McConnell
and Michael Land
created the soundtrack for the game, arranging John Williams
' main theme "The Raiders March" for a variety of compositions. The DOS
version uses sequenced music
played back by either an internal speaker
, the FM synthesis of an AdLib or Sound Blaster
sound card, or the sample-based synthesis
of a Roland MT-32
sound module. During development of the game, William Messner-Loebs and Dan Barry wrote a Dark Horse Comics
series based on Barwood's and Falstein's story, then titled Indiana Jones and the Keys to Atlantis. In an interview, Eaken mentioned hour-long meetings of the development team trying to come up with a better title than Fate of Atlantis, though the staff members could never think of one and always ended up with names such as "Indiana Jones Does Atlantis". The final title was Barwood's idea, who first had to convince the company's management and the marketing team not to simply call the game "Indy's Next Adventure".
LucasArts developed a port of the enhanced edition for the Sega CD, but the release was eventually canceled because The Secret of Monkey Island failed to be much of a commercial success on the platform. The arcade-style game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: The Action Game designed by Attention To Detail
was released almost simultaneously with its adventure counterpart, and loosely follows its plot.
, it was set after World War II
and featured Nazis seeking refuge in Bolivia
, trying to resurrect Adolf Hitler
with the philosophers' stone. The game was in development for 15 months before it was showcased at the European Computer Trade Show
. However, when the German coordinators discovered how extensively the game dealt with Neo-Nazism
, they informed LucasArts about the difficulty of marketing the game in their country. As Germany
was an important overseas market for adventure games, LucasArts feared that the lower revenues would not recoup development costs, and subsequently canceled the game. The plot was later adapted into a four-part Dark Horse Comics series by Lee Marrs
, published monthly from December 1994 to March 1995. In an interview, Barwood commented that the development team should have thought about the story more thoroughly beforehand, calling it insensitive and not regretting the cancellation of the title. Another follow-up game called Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny
was planned, which revolved around the Spear of Longinus. Development was outsourced to a small Canadian
studio, but eventually stopped as LucasArts did not have experience with the supervision of external teams. Elaine Lee
loosely reworked the story into another four-part comic book series, released from April to July 1995.
, Computer Game Review
, Games Magazine
and Game Players Magazine named it the best adventure game of the year. Based on six reviews, GameRankings calculates an average score of 90 percent for the game. Fate of Atlantis became a million-unit seller across all platforms it was released on, and is considered a genre classic today.
A review in Dragon Magazine
issue 193 called it a must-buy and gave it five out of five stars, commending the title's replay value and many cutscenes. In 2008, Retro Gamer Magazine praised it as "a masterful piece of storytelling, and a spellbinding adventure".
Point-and-click
Point-and-click is the action of a computer user moving a cursor to a certain location on a screen and then pressing a mouse button, usually the left button , or other pointing device...
adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...
by LucasArts
LucasArts
LucasArts Entertainment Company, LLC is an American video game developer and publisher. The company was once famous for its innovative line of graphic adventure games, the critical and commercial success of which peaked in the mid 1990s...
originally released in 1992. Almost a year later, it was reissued on CD-ROM as an enhanced "talkie" edition with full voice acting and digitized sound effects. In 2009, this version was also released as an unlockable extra of the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
action game Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, and as a digitally distributed Steam title. The seventh game to use the script language SCUMM
SCUMM
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion is a scripting language developed at LucasArts to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion....
, Fate of Atlantis has the player explore environments and interact with objects and characters by using commands constructed with predetermined verbs. It features three unique paths to select, influencing story development, gameplay and puzzles.
The plot is set in the fictional Indiana Jones universe and revolves around the eponymous protagonist's
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
global search for the legendary sunken city of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
. Sophia Hapgood, an old co-worker of Indiana Jones who gave up her archaeological career to become a psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
, supports him along the journey. The two partners are pursued by the Nazis who seek to use the power of Atlantis for warfare, and serve as the adventure's antagonists. The story was written by Hal Barwood
Hal Barwood
Hal Barwood is an American game designer and game producer best known for his work on games based on the Indiana Jones license.Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, he studied art at Brown University and later attended the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television, where he met and...
and Noah Falstein
Noah Falstein
Noah Falstein is a freelance game designer and producer who has been in the video game industry since 1980. He was one of the first 10 employees at Lucasfilm Games , DreamWorks Interactive , and The 3DO Company...
, the game's designers, who had rejected the original plan to base it on an unused movie script. They came up with the final concept while researching real-world sources for a suitable plot device.
Fate of Atlantis was praised by critics and received several awards for best adventure game of the year. It became a million-unit seller and is widely regarded as a classic of its genre today. Two concepts for a supposed sequel were conceived, but both projects were eventually canceled due to unforeseen problems during development. They were later reworked into two separate Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
series by Lee Marrs
Lee Marrs
Lee Marrs is an American comic book writer, animator, and one of the first women underground comix creators. She is best known for her comic book series, The Further Fattening Adventures of Pudge, Girl Blimp, which lasted from 1973 to 1978.-Underground comics:Marrs was a frequent contributor to...
and Elaine Lee
Elaine Lee
Elaine Lee is an American actor, playwright, comic book colorist and comic book writer.-Theatre:She received a 1980 Daytime EMMY nomination for her role on NBC-TV’s The Doctors and was a founding member and artistic director of Manhattan-based theatre company, Wild Hair Productions.Wild Hair began...
.
Gameplay
Fate of Atlantis is based on the SCUMMSCUMM
Script Creation Utility for Maniac Mansion is a scripting language developed at LucasArts to ease development of the graphical adventure game Maniac Mansion....
story system by Ron Gilbert
Ron Gilbert
Ron Gilbert is an American computer game designer, programmer, and producer, best known for his work on several classic LucasArts adventure games, including Maniac Mansion and the first two Monkey Island games. Gilbert was also co-founder of Humongous Entertainment and its sister company Cavedog...
, Aric Wilmunder, Brad P. Taylor, and Vince Lee, thus employing similar gameplay to other point-and-click adventures developed by LucasArts in the 1980s and 1990s. The player explores the game's static environments while interacting with sprite
Sprite (computer graphics)
In computer graphics, a sprite is a two-dimensional image or animation that is integrated into a larger scene...
-based characters and objects; they may use the mouse cursor to construct and give commands with a number of predetermined verbs such as "Pick up", "Use" and "Talk to". Conversations with non-playable characters unfold in a series of selectable questions and answers.
Early on, the player is given the choice between three different game modes, each with unique cutscenes, puzzles to solve and locations to visit: the Team Path, the Wits Path, and the Fists Path. In the Team Path, protagonist Indiana Jones
Indiana Jones
Colonel Henry Walton "Indiana" Jones, Jr., Ph.D. is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Indiana Jones franchise. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg created the character in homage to the action heroes of 1930s film serials...
is joined by his partner Sophia Hapgood who will provide support throughout the game. The Wits Path features an abundance of complex puzzles, while the Fists Path focuses heavily on action sequences and fist fighting, the latter of which is completely optional in the other two modes. Atypical for LucasArts titles, it is possible for the player character to die at certain points in the game, though dangerous situations were designed to be easily recognizable. A score system, the Indy Quotient Points, keeps track of the puzzles solved, the obstacles overcome and the important objects found.
Plot
The story of Fate of Atlantis is set in 1939, on the eve of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. At the request of a visitor named Mr. Smith, archaeology
Archaeology
Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...
professor and adventurer Indiana Jones tries to find a small statue in the archives of his workplace Barnett College. After Indiana retrieved the horned figurine, Smith uses a key to open it, revealing a sparkling metal bead inside. Smith then pulls out a gun and escapes with the two artifacts, but he loses his coat in the process. The identity card
Identity document
An identity document is any document which may be used to verify aspects of a person's personal identity. If issued in the form of a small, mostly standard-sized card, it is usually called an identity card...
inside reveals "Smith" to be Klaus Kerner, an agent of the Third Reich. Another pocket of the coat holds an old magazine containing an article about an expedition on which Indiana collaborated with Sophia Hapgood, who has since given up archeology to become a psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
. Fearing that she might be Kerner's next target, Indiana travels to New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
in order to warn her and to find out more about the mysterious statue. There, he interrupts her lecture on the culture and downfall of Atlantis
Atlantis
Atlantis is a legendary island first mentioned in Plato's dialogues Timaeus and Critias, written about 360 BC....
, and the two return to Sophia's apartment. They discover that Kerner ransacked her office in search of Atlantean artifacts, but Sophia says that she keeps her most valuable item, her necklace, with her. She owns another of the shiny beads, now identified as the mystical metal orichalcum
Orichalcum
Orichalcum is a metal mentioned in several ancient writings, most notably the story of Atlantis as recounted in the Critias dialogue, recorded by Plato. According to Critias, orichalcum was considered second only to gold in value, and was found and mined in many parts of Atlantis in ancient times....
, and places it in the medallion's mouth, invoking the spirit of the Atlantean god Nur-Ab-Sal. She explains that a Nazi scientist called Dr. Hans Ubermann is searching for the power of Atlantis to use it as an energy source for warfare.
Hermocrates (dialogue)
Hermocrates is a hypothetic dialogue, assumed to be the third part of Plato's late trilogy along with Timaeus and Critias. Since Plato never completed the Critias for an unknown reason, it is quite certain that he never began writing the Hermocrates...
, a book that will guide them to the city. After gathering information, Indiana and Sophia eventually find it in a collection of Barnett College. Correcting Plato's "tenfold error", a mistranslation from Egyptian
Egyptian language
Egyptian is the oldest known indigenous language of Egypt and a branch of the Afroasiatic language family. Written records of the Egyptian language have been dated from about 3400 BC, making it one of the oldest recorded languages known. Egyptian was spoken until the late 17th century AD in the...
to Greek
Greek language
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
, the document pinpoints the location of Atlantis in the Mediterranean, 300 miles from Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
, instead of 3000 as mentioned in the dialogue Critias
Critias (dialogue)
Critias, one of Plato's late dialogues, contains the story of the mighty island kingdom Atlantis and its attempt to conquer Athens, which failed due to the ordered society of the Athenians...
. It also says that in order to gain access to the Lost City and its colonies, three special stones are required. At this point, the player has to choose between the Team, Wits, or Fists Path, which influences the way the stones are acquired. In all three paths, Sophia gets captured by the Nazis, and Indiana makes his way to the underwater entrance of Atlantis near Thera
Santorini
Santorini , officially Thira , is an island located in the southern Aegean Sea, about southeast from Greece's mainland. It is the largest island of a small, circular archipelago which bears the same name and is the remnant of a volcanic caldera...
.
The individual scenarios converge at this point and Indiana starts to explore the Lost City. He saves Sophia from a prison, and they make their way to the center of Atlantis, where her medallion guides them to the home of Nur-Ab-Sal. The Atlantean god takes full possession of Sophia and it is only by a trick that Indiana rids her of the necklace and destroys it, thus freeing her. They advance further and eventually reach a large colossus
Statue
A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, an idea or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...
the inhabitants of the city built to transform themselves into gods
Deity
A deity is a recognized preternatural or supernatural immortal being, who may be thought of as holy, divine, or sacred, held in high regard, and respected by believers....
. Using ten orichalcum beads at a time would enable them to control the water with the powers they gained, keeping the sea level
Sea level
Mean sea level is a measure of the average height of the ocean's surface ; used as a standard in reckoning land elevation...
down to prevent an impending catastrophe.
Unknowingly, Indiana starts the machine with the stones, upon which Kerner, Ubermann, and the Nazi troops invade the place. Ubermann wants to use Indiana as a test subject, but Kerner steps onto the platform first, claiming himself to be most suitable
Nazism and race
Nazism developed several theories concerning races. The Nazis claimed to scientifically measure a strict hierarchy of human race; at the top was the master race, the "Aryan race", narrowly defined by the Nazis as being identical with the Nordic race, followed by lesser races.At the bottom of this...
for godhood. Just as Ubermann wants to start the machine, Indiana mentions Plato's tenfold error, which convinces Kerner to use one bead instead of ten. He is then turned into a horribly deformed and horned creature, and falls into the lava. Indiana is forced to step on the platform next but threatens Ubermann to send him straight to hell once he is a god. Fearing his wrath, Ubermann uses the machine on himself, feeding it one hundred beads. He is turned into a green ethereal being before vanishing completely. Three bad endings see one of the protagonists undergo the second transformation if Indiana could not convince Ubermann to use the machine instead, or if Sophia was not freed from her prison or Nur-Ab-Sal's influence. In the good ending, Atlantis succumbs to the eruption of the still active volcano
Volcano
2. Bedrock3. Conduit 4. Base5. Sill6. Dike7. Layers of ash emitted by the volcano8. Flank| 9. Layers of lava emitted by the volcano10. Throat11. Parasitic cone12. Lava flow13. Vent14. Crater15...
as the duo flees from the city. The final scene depicts Indiana kissing Sophia on top of the escape submarine, to comfort himself for the lack of evidence for their discovery.
Development
At the time a sequel to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic AdventureIndiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure is a graphical adventure game, originally released in 1989 , published by Lucasfilm Games . It was the third game to use the SCUMM engine.-Plot:The plot closely follows, and expands upon, the film of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade...
was decided, most of the staff of Lucasfilm Games was occupied with other projects such as The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island
The Secret of Monkey Island is a graphic adventure game developed by Lucasfilm Games and published by the same company after its name was changed to LucasArts. The game spawned a number of sequels, collectively known as the Monkey Island series...
and The Dig
The Dig
The Dig is a graphical adventure game developed by LucasArts and released in 1995, and a game based on an idea for an Amazing Stories episode by Steven Spielberg...
. Designer Hal Barwood
Hal Barwood
Hal Barwood is an American game designer and game producer best known for his work on games based on the Indiana Jones license.Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, he studied art at Brown University and later attended the University of Southern California's School of Cinema-Television, where he met and...
had only created two computer games on his own before, but was put in charge of the project because of his experience as a producer and writer of feature films. The company originally wanted him to create a game based on Indiana Jones and the Monkey King/Garden of Life, a rejected script written by Chris Columbus for the third movie that would have seen Indiana looking for Chinese artifacts in Africa. However, Barwood thought the idea was substandard, having been declined for a reason, and requested to create an original story for the game instead. Along with co-worker Noah Falstein
Noah Falstein
Noah Falstein is a freelance game designer and producer who has been in the video game industry since 1980. He was one of the first 10 employees at Lucasfilm Games , DreamWorks Interactive , and The 3DO Company...
, he visited the library of George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
' workplace Skywalker Ranch
Skywalker Ranch
Skywalker Ranch is the name of the workplace of film director and producer George Lucas. It is located in a secluded, but open area near Nicasio, California, in Marin County. The ranch is located on Lucas Valley Road, although Lucas is not related to the road's namesake, who was a...
to look for possible plot devices
MacGuffin
A MacGuffin is "a plot element that catches the viewers' attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction". The defining aspect of a MacGuffin is that the major players in the story are willing to do and sacrifice almost anything to obtain it, regardless of what the MacGuffin actually is...
. They eventually decided upon Atlantis when they looked at a diagram in a Time Life volume, which depicted the city as built in three concentric circles.
Writing the story involved extensive research on a plethora of pseudo-scientific
Pseudoscience
Pseudoscience is a claim, belief, or practice which is presented as scientific, but which does not adhere to a valid scientific method, lacks supporting evidence or plausibility, cannot be reliably tested, or otherwise lacks scientific status...
books. Inspiration for the mythology in the game, such as the description of the city and the appearance of the metal orichalcum
Orichalcum
Orichalcum is a metal mentioned in several ancient writings, most notably the story of Atlantis as recounted in the Critias dialogue, recorded by Plato. According to Critias, orichalcum was considered second only to gold in value, and was found and mined in many parts of Atlantis in ancient times....
, was primarily drawn from Plato's
Plato
Plato , was a Classical Greek philosopher, mathematician, student of Socrates, writer of philosophical dialogues, and founder of the Academy in Athens, the first institution of higher learning in the Western world. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the...
dialogues Timaeus
Timaeus (dialogue)
Timaeus is one of Plato's dialogues, mostly in the form of a long monologue given by the title character, written circa 360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world and human beings. It is followed by the dialogue Critias.Speakers of the dialogue are Socrates,...
and Critias
Critias (dialogue)
Critias, one of Plato's late dialogues, contains the story of the mighty island kingdom Atlantis and its attempt to conquer Athens, which failed due to the ordered society of the Athenians...
, and from Ignatius Loyola Donnelly's book Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World is a book published during 1882 by Minnesota populist politician Ignatius L. Donnelly, who was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania during 1831...
that revived interest in the myth during the nineteenth century. The magical properties of orichalcum and the Atlantean technology depicted in the game were partly adopted from Russian spiritualist Helena Blavatsky's publications on the force vril
Vril
Vril, the Power of the Coming Race is a 1871 science fiction novel by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, originally printed as The Coming Race. Many early readers believed that its account of a superior subterranean master race and the energy-form called "Vril" was accurate, to the extent that some theosophists...
. The giant colossus producing gods was based on a power-concentrating device called "firestone", formerly described by American psychic
Psychic
A psychic is a person who professes an ability to perceive information hidden from the normal senses through extrasensory perception , or is said by others to have such abilities. It is also used to describe theatrical performers who use techniques such as prestidigitation, cold reading, and hot...
Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce
Edgar Cayce was an American psychic who allegedly had the ability to give answers to questions on subjects such as healing or Atlantis while in a hypnotic trance...
.
Once Barwood and Falstein completed the rough outline of the story, Barwood wrote the actual script, and the team began to conceive the puzzles and to design the environments. The Atlantean artifacts and architecture devised by lead artist William Eaken were made to resemble those of the Minoan civilization
Minoan civilization
The Minoan civilization was a Bronze Age civilization that arose on the island of Crete and flourished from approximately the 27th century BC to the 15th century BC. It was rediscovered at the beginning of the 20th century through the work of the British archaeologist Arthur Evans...
, while the game in turn implies that the Minoans were inspired by Atlantis. Barwood intended for the Atlantean art to have an "alien" feel to it, with the machines seemingly operating on as of yet unknown physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
rather than on magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
. The majority of the 256-color backgrounds in the game were mostly mouse-drawn with Deluxe Paint
Deluxe Paint
Deluxe Paint is a bitmap graphics editor series originally created by Dan Silva for Electronic Arts .The original version was created for the Commodore Amiga and was released in November 1985...
, though roughly ten percent were paintings scanned at the end of the development cycle. As a consequence of regular design changes, the images often had to be revised by the artists. Character animations were fully rotoscoped with video footage of Steve Purcell
Steve Purcell
Steve Ross Purcell is an American cartoonist, animator and game designer. He is most widely known as the creator of Sam & Max, an independent comic book series about a pair of anthropomorphic animal vigilantes and private investigators, for which Purcell received an Eisner Award in 2007...
for Indiana's and Collette Michaud for Sophia's motions. The main art team that consisted of Eaken, James Dollar and Avril Harrison was sometimes consulted by Barwood to help out with the more graphical puzzles in the game, such as a broken robot in Atlantis.
The addition of three different paths was suggested by Falstein and added about six more months of development time, mainly because of all the extra dialogue that had to be implemented for the interaction between Indiana and Sophia. Altogether, the game took about two years to finish, starting in spring of 1990, and lasting up to the floppy disk
Floppy disk
A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...
release in June 1992. The only aspect Barwood was not involved in at all was the production of voices for the enhanced "talkie" edition released on CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
in May 1993, which was instead handled by Tamlynn Barra. The voice-over recordings for the approximately 8000 lines of dialogue took about four weeks, and were done with actors from the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
American Federation of Television and Radio Artists
The American Federation of Television and Radio Artists is a performers' union that represents a wide variety of talent, including actors in radio and television, as well as radio and television announcers and newspersons, singers and recording artists , promo and voice-over announcers and other...
. The "talkie" version was later included as an extra game mode in the Wii
Wii
The Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
version of the 2009 action game Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings, and distributed via the digital content delivery software Steam as a port for Windows XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
, Windows Vista
Windows Vista
Windows Vista is an operating system released in several variations developed by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs, and media center PCs...
and Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
that same year.
The package illustration for Fate of Atlantis was inspired by the Indiana Jones movie posters of Drew Struzan
Drew Struzan
Drew Struzan is an American artist known for his more than 150 movie posters, which include all the films in the Indiana Jones, Back to the Future and Star Wars film series. He has also painted album covers, collectibles, and book covers.- Early life and education :Drew Struzan was born in Oregon...
. It was drawn by Eaken within three days, following disagreements with the marketing department and an external art director over which concept to use. Clint Bajakian
Clint Bajakian
Clint Bajakian is an American video game composer and musician.-Biography:Bajakian was born in Massachusetts, United States. He was linked with music since age of 8. In middle school Bajakian played in marching bands, and also played in range of rock bands...
, Peter McConnell
Peter McConnell
Peter N. McConnell , also known as Peter Mc, is an American video game music composer who worked for LucasArts for nearly ten years. He studied music as an undergraduate at Harvard University in 80s under Timothy Vincent Clarke, Curt Cacioppo and Ivan Tcherepnin...
and Michael Land
Michael Land
Michael Z. Land is an American video game composer and musician best known for his scores for various games produced by LucasArts.-Early life and career:Michael Land was born in the North Shore area north of Boston, Massachusetts...
created the soundtrack for the game, arranging John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
' main theme "The Raiders March" for a variety of compositions. The DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
version uses sequenced music
Music sequencer
The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...
played back by either an internal speaker
PC speaker
A PC speaker is a loudspeaker, built into some IBM PC compatible computers. The first IBM Personal Computer, model 5150, employed a standard 2.25 inch magnetic driven speaker. More recent computers use a piezoelectric speaker instead. The speaker allows software and firmware to provide...
, the FM synthesis of an AdLib or Sound Blaster
Sound Blaster
The Sound Blaster family of sound cards was the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until the widespread transition to Microsoft Windows 95, which standardized the programming interface at application level , and the evolution in PC design led to onboard...
sound card, or the sample-based synthesis
Sample-based synthesis
Sample-based synthesis is a form of audio synthesis that can be contrasted to either subtractive synthesis or additive synthesis. The principal difference with sample-based synthesis is that the seed waveforms are sampled sounds or instruments instead of fundamental waveforms such as the saw waves...
of a Roland MT-32
Roland MT-32
The Roland MT-32 Multi-Timbre Sound Module is a MIDI synthesizer module first released in 1987 by Roland Corporation. Along with its compatible modules, it established an early de-facto standard in computer music and was the first product in Roland's ミュージくん line of Desktop Music System packages...
sound module. During development of the game, William Messner-Loebs and Dan Barry wrote a Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics
Dark Horse Comics is the largest independent American comic book and manga publisher.Dark Horse Comics was founded in 1986 by Mike Richardson in Milwaukie, Oregon, with the concept of establishing an ideal atmosphere for creative professionals. Richardson started out by opening his first comic book...
series based on Barwood's and Falstein's story, then titled Indiana Jones and the Keys to Atlantis. In an interview, Eaken mentioned hour-long meetings of the development team trying to come up with a better title than Fate of Atlantis, though the staff members could never think of one and always ended up with names such as "Indiana Jones Does Atlantis". The final title was Barwood's idea, who first had to convince the company's management and the marketing team not to simply call the game "Indy's Next Adventure".
LucasArts developed a port of the enhanced edition for the Sega CD, but the release was eventually canceled because The Secret of Monkey Island failed to be much of a commercial success on the platform. The arcade-style game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis: The Action Game designed by Attention To Detail
Attention To Detail
Attention To Detail was a Warwickshire-based British software house that endured nearly 15 years, from its foundation by five University of Birmingham graduates in September 1988 to their liquidation in mid-2003...
was released almost simultaneously with its adventure counterpart, and loosely follows its plot.
Legacy
After the release of the game, a story for a supposed successor in the adventure genre was conceived by Joe Pinney, Hal Barwood, Bill Stoneham, and Aric Wilmunder. Titled Indiana Jones and the Iron PhoenixIndiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix
Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix is a Dark Horse Comics limited series starring the fictional archaeologist Indiana Jones. It was the seventh Indiana Jones limited series by Dark Horse, and the sixth about the adult Indiana...
, it was set after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and featured Nazis seeking refuge in Bolivia
Bolivia
Bolivia officially known as Plurinational State of Bolivia , is a landlocked country in central South America. It is the poorest country in South America...
, trying to resurrect Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
with the philosophers' stone. The game was in development for 15 months before it was showcased at the European Computer Trade Show
European Computer Trade Show
The European Computer Trade Show, commonly known as ECTS, was an annual trade show for the European computer and video game industry, which first ran in 1988, with the last event occurring in 2004....
. However, when the German coordinators discovered how extensively the game dealt with Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism
Neo-Nazism consists of post-World War II social or political movements seeking to revive Nazism or some variant thereof.The term neo-Nazism can also refer to the ideology of these movements....
, they informed LucasArts about the difficulty of marketing the game in their country. As Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
was an important overseas market for adventure games, LucasArts feared that the lower revenues would not recoup development costs, and subsequently canceled the game. The plot was later adapted into a four-part Dark Horse Comics series by Lee Marrs
Lee Marrs
Lee Marrs is an American comic book writer, animator, and one of the first women underground comix creators. She is best known for her comic book series, The Further Fattening Adventures of Pudge, Girl Blimp, which lasted from 1973 to 1978.-Underground comics:Marrs was a frequent contributor to...
, published monthly from December 1994 to March 1995. In an interview, Barwood commented that the development team should have thought about the story more thoroughly beforehand, calling it insensitive and not regretting the cancellation of the title. Another follow-up game called Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny
Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny
Indiana Jones and The Spear of Destiny is a four-issue comic book mini-series published by Dark Horse Comics from April to July 1995. It was their seventh series about the adult Indiana Jones.-Canyon of the Crescent Moon, 1938:...
was planned, which revolved around the Spear of Longinus. Development was outsourced to a small Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
studio, but eventually stopped as LucasArts did not have experience with the supervision of external teams. Elaine Lee
Elaine Lee
Elaine Lee is an American actor, playwright, comic book colorist and comic book writer.-Theatre:She received a 1980 Daytime EMMY nomination for her role on NBC-TV’s The Doctors and was a founding member and artistic director of Manhattan-based theatre company, Wild Hair Productions.Wild Hair began...
loosely reworked the story into another four-part comic book series, released from April to July 1995.
Reception
At the time of its release, Fate of Atlantis was met with considerable critical acclaim. Reviewers of Game InformerGame Informer
Game Informer is an American-based monthly magazine featuring articles, news, strategy, and reviews of popular video games and associated consoles. It was formed in August 1991, when FuncoLand started publishing a six-page magazine, free in all its retail locations...
, Computer Game Review
Computer Game Review
Computer Game Review was a print magazine covering both computer gaming, and at the time upper end video gaming. Also known as Computer Game Review and 16-Bit Entertainment, and then later as Computer Game Review and CD-Rom Entertainment.Reviews typically consisted of a short, impartial synopsis of...
, Games Magazine
GAMES Magazine
Games magazine is a United States magazine devoted to games and puzzles, and is published by Games Publications, a division of Kappa Publishing Group.-History:...
and Game Players Magazine named it the best adventure game of the year. Based on six reviews, GameRankings calculates an average score of 90 percent for the game. Fate of Atlantis became a million-unit seller across all platforms it was released on, and is considered a genre classic today.
A review in Dragon Magazine
Dragon (magazine)
Dragon is one of the two official magazines for source material for the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game and associated products, the other being Dungeon. TSR, Inc. originally launched the monthly printed magazine in 1976 to succeed the company's earlier publication, The Strategic Review. The...
issue 193 called it a must-buy and gave it five out of five stars, commending the title's replay value and many cutscenes. In 2008, Retro Gamer Magazine praised it as "a masterful piece of storytelling, and a spellbinding adventure".