Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (also erroneously called Indiana Jones 4) is a graphical adventure game, originally released in 1992 and published by LucasArts. It was the seventh game to use the SCUMM adventure game engine.

Plot

The game's plot was quite sophisticated, based on writings by Plato. Using the lead character from the well-known Indiana Jones film series but based on an original story, it concerned Indy who was asked by Marcus Brody and a certain Mr. Smith to find a particular strange idol from the College museum. When Indy returns, inside the statue they find a small metal bead and Smith, to their surprise, steals the statue. It is revealed his real name is Klaus Kerner and he is an agent of the Third Reich and his next target is Sophia Hapgood.

Sophia Hapgood, an ex-colleague of Indy, now presents herself as a psychic, giving seminars about Atlantis and communicating with the Atlantean god-king Nur-ab-sal. Kerner was after her medallion, which she and Indy found in Iceland and which helped her communicate with Nur-ab-sal. A race begins between Jones and the Nazis to find the mythical lost continent of Atlantis which may contain technology vital to the future of the world, since Kerner discovered that the metal bead found in the statue was Orichalcum, a legendary metal that holds far more energy than Uranium, without any harmful radiation. The element would be utilized to give extreme power to machines and create massive bombs. Kerner finds this out after bringing the bead and statue to his mad scientist boss, Dr. Hans Ubermann.

On some point, the team must find The Hermocrates, the lost dialogue of Plato discussing Atlantis further than his previous works (Timaeus and Critias). Indy visits places that are connected to the Atlantis literature, like a Mayan pyramid, the Azores, Thera and Crete, and the plot attempts to tie together many of the existing theories concerning Atlantis (which in reality are independent and don't necessarily co-exist).

The middle part of the game has three alternative paths. At the end, they all merge and Indy and Sophia meet again. Atlantis is found in the Aegean sea, and as expected, it is depicted in ruins but in a strange alien-like manner.

Technical details

More innovative than the earlier Indiana Jones adventure game, The Graphic Adventure, Fate of Atlantis featured a nod to originality by including three differing paths to the completion of the game and many alternative ways to solve puzzles. The player who finishes all of the puzzles in all three paths and all of the alternative solutions receives the 1000 full IQ (Indy Quotient) score. At one point in the game, during a dialogue sequence, the player chooses between three paths: The Wits path concentrates on puzzles, the Fists path is more dependent on fist fights (the game includes a rudimentary engine for such fights), and the Team path features Sophia Hapgood as a sidekick.

It is also significant for breaking with the LucasArts adventure game tradition of not allowing the player to die (though it was also possible to die at some points in The Graphic Adventure, Maniac Mansion and Zak McKracken). After the player's death, a short "what happened next" plot summary and a score appear. To the player's advantage, the game conveniently alerts the player of impending danger so that he or she can play more cautiously.

The project was led by Hal Barwood; Barwood wrote the story and designed the game together with Noah Falstein. The music was composed by Michael Land, Clint Bajakian, and Peter McConnell, based heavily upon the works of John Williams.

The game was re-released on CD-ROM with a full voiceover soundtrack in 1993, with the characters voiced in a very dramatic manner by a low-budget cast of (previously?) unknowns.

Trivia

Game resource editing programs like ScummRev have revealed that there is an unused room in the game code that didn't make it to the final version. This room is Sophia's bedroom, and lies next to her ransacked office. In the final version, all that takes place in Sophia's apartment is an extended dialogue in her office. In the bedroom, some objects can be identified with ScummRev; this indicates that the programmers intended some puzzle or additional action to be solved by the player, apart from the office dialogue. One of the useable objects is labeled as Chuck the Plant, which is an inside joke at LucasArts and a nod to several previous LucasArts games.
The adventure game was released simultaneously with The Action Game, a remake loosely following the same storyline, and belonging to the arcade-adventure genre. It never enjoyed great popularity.
A four-issue comic book mini-series based on the game's storyline was published by Dark Horse Comics in 1991 written by Lee Mars before the game was released. The following years, there were unsubstantiated rumours that the Fate of Atlantis franchise (known as Indiana Jones 4) was the official precursor to a fourth movie. As of 2006, there are rumours about an upcoming movie, but there will be no relation to the game.
LucasArts had planned on developing this game for the Sega CD, but canceled the game after its Sega CD edition of The Secret of Monkey Island failed to be much of a commercial success. It also canceled the Sega CD version of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck's Revenge.
The cover art for the game was painted by Drew Struzan, who had also painted the artwork for the posters of the original Indiana Jones movie trilogy. The stylistic similarity that followed further helped the game feel as part of the Indiana Jones canon, even though it is unknown whether George Lucas or Steven Spielberg ever gave their blessing to the storyline of Fate of Atlantis. Furthermore, at the time of the game's release, Struzan's artwork was printed as a poster to be used for the promotion of the game, with names of the game development team appearing at the bottom as on a movie poster.

Sequels

Since the planned sequel, Indiana Jones and the Iron Phoenix, was discontinued by LucasArts in 1995, a few fan groups started developing fan-games; but as of 2004, none of them had been finished. However, a demo is now available for the fan-game Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth (link below in External Links).

LucasArts also released two 3D action titles using the Indiana Jones license: Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine and Indiana Jones and the Emperor's Tomb, with a third currently in development.

External links

Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis section at The Indy Experience
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis 2 – A sequel game fan project
Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth – A game fan project inspired by Fate of Atlantis
Indiana Jones and the Crown of Solomon – A fan game project based on Last Crusade and Fate of Atlantis

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Plot

Technical details

Trivia

Sequels

See also

External links