Previews » Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth [PC]
Previewed by pmglasser
Both Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. and producer Mark Lovegrove have a passion for protecting valuable historical artifacts. Although Jones used a pickax and shovel, Lovegrove’s tools include pixels and MIDI-soundtracks.
The 1992 LucasArts adventure game Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is a classic point-and-click adventure. Someday, Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth (a fan made-homage) might have the opportunity to sit in the same gallery as some of Jones’ more exotic archeological finds. FoY, which is currently in production, is not a sequel to FoA and, in fact, takes place before the quest for Atlantis begins. There are even a couple in-game jokes that use dramatic irony to reference to Indy’s future exploits.
“We consider FoY to be a ‘sister product’,” Lovegrove said.
Much more than a mere reproduction, Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth, remains true to the audio and visual stylizing of its’ source. Since 2003, Lovegrove and his team members have been working on FoY as a hobby during their spare time. They all have families and real jobs, but still find time to work on the project.
Inspired by the classic FoA, Lovegrove said he wanted to revive the point-and-click style of gameplay. Nostalgia was also a powerful motivation.
“As far as I was concerned it (the Fate of Atlantis) was a masterpiece, and I just wished there were more games like that to play,” he said in an interview.
The team uses the Adventure Game Studio engine to recreate the look and feel of the SCUMM-based FoA. Although they couldn’t obtain a license to use the original SCUMM engine, Lovegrove said it is a flexible alternative.
“Using its Windows based editor makes game creation easy - and it has a lot of similar…features to SCUMM,” he said.
The final product is designed to have more than 100 areas to explore, which are called rooms. So far, a 10-room demo without spoken dialogue has been released. Lead artist Misja Van Laatum said it takes several days to create a background scene based on what information is contained in the script.
“The first design step is usually a very rough storyboard that lays out all the rooms of one game location together,” he said in an interview. “After that I sketch a room in the old fashioned paper-and-pencil way.”
The team reviews the product and then it’s scanned in at 150 dpi as a grayscale image. Then, Jan Simon uses the design sketch, script and storyboard to program the room. Each area includes two different “masks” which control which parts of the area the character can explore. One mask allows Indy to walk down paths and around rooms. The other mask contains information for the images or objects Indy can walk in front of or behind.
Then, Simon adds all the entrances, exits and inventory items to the room. Sometimes, for simple segments, the room can be completed in less than four hours, but complex rooms can take days or weeks to program.
“I like to roughly model particularly complex rooms in a 3D program,” Van Laatum said. “That way I can get a good feel for the perspective and lighting of a room. But that obviously takes even more time.”
Simon said it could take days to implement all the programs inside a complex room, and weeks to de-bug and reprogram anything that needs to be fixed. A good example is the scene in the demo where Indy must outwit a drunk Nazi sentry, he said.
“With another character, several action sequences, dialog options, dynamic music changes and smoke rising in the background, it takes up to two or three days to implement everything,” Simon said.
The team is currently producing a “talkie” demo which includes spoken dialogue, but Lovegrove said the plan is to release the updated demo during Christmas 2006. However, there is no solid deadline for the full version of the game and incremental projects aren’t always complete by the time the deadline arrives. His best estimate puts the game at least two years out from completion.
“We understand that targets are needed to help us reach our end goal of a complete game,” Lovegrove said. “But, offering release dates usually result in great disappointment for fans of the game.”
The rate of progress (or lack there of) is the subject of a behind-scenes feature at the end of the demo. After the final cut0scene, Indy discovers a cave and as he wanders deeper into the darkness he discovers a half-finished sound-stage. The Screen 7 studio crew (Lovegrove, Van Laatum and Simon) are busy teasing each other in a good natured way about their foibles.
While being true to the artistic style of its predecessor, FoY also retains the warm sense of humor as well. Although it’s not a laugh factory, the demo includes several references to Star Wars that will make most fans chuckle. Lovegrove said that was an important part of the design process.
“I think we've got a great story with some excellent humor - but it's not all about the dialogue,” he said. “LucasArts and other top point & click developers thrive on rewarding the players, usually with animations. Indy is well known for ‘making things happen’, and so visual humor - slapstick etc, is equally important to the game as it was with the original LucasArts games.”
Similar to FoA, Lovegrove’s product will feature “Indy Quotient” Points and several possible paths that gameplay can follow. IQ points are obtained by solving puzzles and overcoming obstacles. The player can also choose to use his brains, his strength or teamwork to complete tasks.
The final product will include more than 20 characters, 100 rooms, animated cut-scenes and a full-length MIDI soundtrack.
Posts on the team’s forum indicated they are concerned about copyright infringement. Although Lovegrove declined to comment on the issue, this statement has been posted on the website:
“We understand that ‘Indiana Jones’, ‘Marcus Brody’ and ‘Barnett College’ are registered trademarks (™) of LucasFilm Ltd., LucasArts and George Lucas. All other characters and locations are original to the project. All artwork, animation, music, sound, story, dialogue and other elements featured on the website and in the game is original and is in no way affiliated with LucasFilm Ltd., LucasArts or George Lucas.”
The game will be available for free at its official website at BarnettCollege.com once it is completed. At the time of publication there was a demo version available without voice acting, also at BarnettCollege.com.