Video Game Memories #2 – Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis

The game that introduced me to my favorite hero, Indiana Jones, and can instantly transport me back to every place I’ve ever lived.

Life is change. Sometimes, it’s hard to see that change as one year blends into the next, people age, and novel experiences become routines, then traditions. But when you’ve moved as much as I have, that change is particularly visible. You mark off the sections of your life into distinct eras based on where you lived.

Before age 12, five different houses and five different elementary schools.

Two colleges, including one dorm room and two apartments.

One grad school, three different houses.

In adulthood, three cities (Denver, Los Angeles, and Seattle) with five apartments between them.

Sometimes, I suspect that the reason I’m so deeply attached to media, especially childhood media, is because it’s been one of the few constants in an ever-shifting life. It gives me comfort to fire up an old video game and breathe a sigh of relief, reassured that it’s exactly the same, thirty years later.

And there’s one game that holds a special place in my pantheon. A game that can connect me to almost every single house, apartment, and dorm room I’ve ever lived in. To every stage of life from age 5 to 35. A game that doesn’t even make me feel nostalgic because it’s never been in the past; it’s still present.

That game is Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

It’s not only one of the finest adventure games ever made, with a compelling story, smart dialogue, engaging puzzles, and a sweeping score. It’s one of the reasons I’m here today, still writing.

In 1995, my Dad picked up a few more computer games along with Myst. The point-and-click adventure game was in its heyday (so called because of the simple, user-friendly interface; you could play just using a mouse to point and click). Two major companies vied for dominance: Sierra and Lucasarts, the video game division of Lucasfilm. Lucasarts was an incredible company, fondly remembered by many fans today. Its innovative, exciting titles like Grim Fandango, Monkey Island, the Dark Forces series, and many others, pushed the boundaries of gaming and helped it blossom into a major art form. With the studio’s emphasis on storytelling and high production values, in the 90s, that L-shaped logo stood for quality.

And so my Dad came home one day with The Lucasarts Archives, Volume 1.

If you’re a parent and you ever need an example of how a small impulse purchase can radically change your child’s life, this is it. These games and demos laid the foundation for my love of video games, movies, entertainment, and storytelling.

Fate of Atlantis was the next game my Dad and I tackled after Myst. No notes this time: just our own wits. This experience is ingrained into me so deeply that I still remember the dialogue options we chose in certain scenes. When I’m playing the game today, I can still follow what I call “the Dad path.” We got as far as the ruins of Knossos on the Team Path, where we couldn’t figure out how to unearth the Moonstone. We knew it had something to do with aligning the surveyor’s transit with the tall horns, but we were stuck.

When my Aunt Karen swooped in to the rescue. My cousins were into the game too, and they had the official hint book from Lucasarts. And so Aunt Karen actually brought the hint book into her office, photocopied each page by hand, assembled a little booklet, and gave it to me. I still have it today and I’m still touched by what a thoughtful gesture it was.

My Dad moved on from the game, but I was still hooked. Thanks to Aunt Karen’s hint book and my perseverance, I was able to get unstuck from the Moonstone puzzle, and Fate of Atlantis became the first game I ever finished on my own. That’s why I still know it like the back of my hand. If you’re ever in one of those classic sci-fi situations where someone has cloned me, the clone and I are standing side by side, and you need to figure out who’s the real Alex Reed, just ask us some obscure Fate of Atlantis trivia. Example:

“If you’re the REAL Alex Reed, then finish this line. ‘How nice…'”

Correct answer: “Wait, there’s a chain running up behind the waterfall! It must be holding the elevator’s counterweight!”

I’ve often thought that Fate of Atlantis (and Day of the Tentacle from the same collection) played a part in teaching me how to read and write. Their unique interface consists of constructing short sentences to carry out simple actions. For example, in the below scene from early in the game, you have to distract a Broadway stagehand and get him to leave the room. Giving him a newspaper will do the trick. So you click on the verbs and icons to build a sentence: “Give… newspaper… to… stagehand.”

Playing through a whole game like this undoubtedly boosted my book smarts, especially with an entire hint book to pore over. Imagine a kid lost in this game for hours and hours, exploring every nook and cranny, filling up all 100 save slots, and you’re imagining a kid who’s discovering a lifelong love of reading and writing, with the encouragement of one of pop culture’s coolest heroes.

The story of Fate of Atlantis is tight and intelligent, written by Hal Barwood and Noah Falstein. Barwood was one of George Lucas’ filmmaking colleagues from USC whose experience as a professional screenwriter greatly enriches the game. We find the Nazis, just like in Raiders of the Lost Ark, pursuing another ancient legend: the lost city of Atlantis. They plan to use Atlantis’ power source, the rare metal orichalcum, to fuel their quest for world domination. Once Indy gets word, he’s hot on their tail, with the help of his old flame Sophia Hapgood, a world-renowned psychic whose magical necklace may be possessed by the spirit of an Atlantean king. It’s a rip-roaring adventure tale with action, intrigue, and archeological puzzles galore. Once we learn that the Atlanteans were trying to build an unholy machine to “make themselves like gods,” it becomes a fable about the perils of trying to transcend our humanity.

It’s a fine introduction indeed to the world of Indiana Jones. I was too young for the movies, so this game let me experience the character in all his whip-swinging, treasure-hunting, Nazi-punching glory. I think every fan who’s played the game would agree it channels the Indy spirit better than some of the movies (looking at you, Crystal Skull).

A unique feature of the game is that it branches into three paths based on your choices: Team, Fists, and Wits. The Fists Path focuses on action, the Wits Path on puzzle-solving, and the Team Path is a balance of the two, with Sophia joining the adventure. As I grew up, I grew through all three paths. The Fists Path was my favorite as a kid because you got to punch people (and kudos to the designers for including the “sucker punch” option to make the fights easier for kids). Then, once I got smart enough to solve puzzles on my own, it was the Wits Path. Now it’s the Team Path since it’s more character- and dialogue-driven, and Sophia’s sassy spunk and kooky spiritualism enlivens the journey.

I could gush forever about how great this game is, but the best compliment I can give is that it’s grown with me from age five to the present. Through the years, I’ve always found new things to discover: how the street names in Monte Carlo reference everything from Jean-Luc Picard to Les Misérables, how the Lost Dialogue of Plato is cleverly written in the style of an ancient Greek dialogue a la the Symposium. Heck, I didn’t even discover the alternate ending until age 31!

For the most detailed possible deep dive into Fate of Atlantis, this fan site has excellent features on all the Lucasarts adventure games. What I would add is some advice for new players. Fate of Atlantis was released during gaming’s transition into the talkie era (just like movies, games had a “silent” and “talkie” era). When the game first came out on floppy disc, it was a “silent” version with no recorded dialogue, just text. A year later, it was re-released on CD-ROM with voices, which are generally good, especially Doug Lee’s excellent performance as Indy. But the fidelity isn’t the greatest and compression is heavy, so I recommend subtitles for clarity, and to see how the game’s dialogue originally looked.

And make sure you’re listening to the original MIDI score, which is magnificent and, in my opinion, one of the great video game scores. A product of Lucasarts’ three in-house composers, Clint Bajakian, Peter McConnell, and Michael Z. Land, it has everything you could ask for: scope, range, variety, leitmotifs, and a genuinely gripping and dramatic climax. Like Lucasarts’ previous point-and-click adventure Monkey Island 2, part of the reason it’s so great is that, like a silent film, the music has to carry the entire aural experience. It’s an integral part of the gameplay, not just background wallpaper. So crank up the tunes!

Ultimately, though, I can never experience this game the way a first-time player would, because playing through every scene triggers fractals of memory embedded throughout my entire life. Like how, when my sister Laura would watch me play, she enjoyed the Team Path the most because it had Sophia. And how frustrated she’d get on my behalf when Nazi meathead (and Schwarzenegger parody) Ahhhhhnold would clobber me over and over again.

Or how, during my ninth birthday party, I tried to get my friends interested in the game, but all they wanted to do was stupid shit like trying to push Sophia off cliffs, so I just gave up and let them run amok like lunatics.

Or the night that I finished moving into my final college house. The fresh, clean, bright feeling of that neat, impeccable room with everything in place, shared with my best friend. The excitement of an incredible year about to begin. And how I fired up Fate of Atlantis to celebrate.

Or when my sisters and I had a video game day for fun, where the three of us picked separate games to speedrun and spent the entire play playing side by side. Laura picked Pokemon Blue and finished it in seven hours, beating the Elite Four for the first time. Kayla picked The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and made it all the way to the Water Temple. I picked Fate of Atlantis and played the whole thing from beginning to end in one sitting: 3 1/2 hours.

Some things are impossible to recapture. I can never go back to my childhood homes or feel the electric potential energy of another year of college. But Fate of Atlantis will always be there, on my laptop emulator, just a click away.