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Hal Barwood is, in every sense of the phrase, a Renaissance man. Cutting his teeth as a Hollywood scriptwriter he penned contributions to the likes of Spielberg’s The Sugarland Express and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind. (The landing location of the alien mothership at the fi lm’s fi nale, the iconic Devils Tower, was his suggestion. His reward? A small cameo as one of the pilots of longlost Flight 19). In his role as producer on the Disney movie Dragonslayer (which he also co-scripted), he created a perennial cult favourite of many fantasy fans. And he even found a little time to put together a few games for LucasArts featuring the ‘Man In The Hat’.
“I’m an old friend of George Lucas,” begins Hal. “We went to film school together, and he knew of my interest in games way back in the early Eighties, when Lucasfilm Games was forming. He introduced me to Steve Arnold, who ran the Games Group for several years, and I started to hang around the company. I met David Fox, Ron Gilbert and Noah Falstein during that period. These guys worked hard as a triumvirate to produce the first Lucasfilm licensed property ever, Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade – a wonderful game based on the last Jones movie, and a sizable hit.” When Last Crusade wrapped, the LucasArts team fragmented and moved on to other things, so when the decision was made to create an Indy adventure sequel the door fell open for Hal. “They all had other projects they wanted to pursue,” he explains. “David wanted to move over into public space interactive attractions, Ron was busy on Monkey Island, and Noah was starting out on The Dig. They needed someone to rescue them from Jones, and they picked me.”
Hal’s proven scriptwriting background was an obvious advantage when it came to producing a traditional graphic adventure. Coupled with his avid interest in gaming (he’d once driven 200 miles for a game of Computer Space), he suited the project perfectly. “I had been designing ‘paper games’ since I was a kid,” reveals Hal, “and I had taught myself assembly language and built a flawed, but elaborate, RPG/action-adventure game on the Apple II platform on my own. So I sort of knew what I was getting into, and sort of knew what I was doing.”
The as-yet-untitled sequel to Last Crusade would, of course, become The Fate Of Atlantis, popularly hailed as the greatest Indiana Jones computer game of all time, as well as one of the most respected of LucasArts’ ‘classic’ graphic adventures. The game perfectly captures the spirit of the three existing Indy movies, while offering an original premise that stands up surprisingly well in comparison to those of the films. Indy’s frantic race against the Nazis to discover the whereabouts, and potentially lethal secrets, of the long lost civilisation of Atlantis, accompanied by the beautiful, but infuriating, spiritualist Sophia Hapgood, is a masterful piece of storytelling, and a spellbinding adventure.
Like the films, Fate Of Atlantis’s alternative take on a classic mythology, with an added sprinkling of historical fact – the sub-quest for the Lost Dialogue of Plato (the Greek scholar did indeed describe Atlantis in some detail) – creates a beguiling quest for the heroic archaeologist and his beau.”Jones’ adventures take place in an exaggerated version of the real world, with plenty of legitimate references to the treasures of antiquity,” acknowledges Hal. “It’s easy to run out of actual historical places and artefacts, but Atlantis is at least a ‘real’ myth – it all started with Plato, so its pedigree is perfect.”
“The layout just shouted, ‘I want to be a game!’ and we agreed.”
The fact that, in the absence of any new Indy movies to base a game on after Last Crusade, Hal was ultimately given free reign (and a helping hand, when available, from Noah Falstein) to create an original story would contribute greatly to his affinity for the project as it evolved. To begin with, however, a recently rejected Indiana Jones film script by Chris Columbus, writer of Gremlins and The Goonies, was proposed as the basis of the plot. The narrative would have taken Indy to Africa in pursuit of a number of long-vanished Chinese artefacts, hardly the strongest story idea the franchise had ever seen.
“When I signed up, it was on the understanding that I would develop a game based on an un-produced Indy script,” explains Hal. “But after reading it I decided it was un-produced for a reason, and wanted something else. I don’t think anyone already inside the company was all that enthusiastic about the script either, but I’m the one who said the emperor lacked clothes. Anyway, Noah and I strolled over to George’s well-supplied research library, pulled out some cheap coffee-table book on the world’s unsolved mysteries and spotted a diagram of Atlantis. The city, we were informed, according to such an august authority as Plato, was divided into three concentric rings. The layout just shouted, ‘I want to be a game!’ and we agreed.”
And like all good yarns based loosely on historical fact, a great deal of further, detailed research was necessary to flesh out the story in a convincing manner. Hal and Noah would spend many hours poring over theories and explanations of the Atlantean legends in the library at Skywalker Ranch, while assembling the lengthy script for the game. “Plato mentions Atlantis in a couple of his ‘dialogues’, and I came up with the notion of another work by Plato, lost to history, that detailed the place,” says Hal. “It was hard slogging to get through some of the crackpot ideas about Atlantis, but on the whole it was great fun.”
During the research sessions Hal would learn about the semi-precious alloy orichalcum, supposedly invented by the Atlanteans, which would become the basis of Indy’s competitive rivalry with the Nazi powers. It also fell to Hal to conceive of the game’s evocative title, which slots wonderfully well into the Indiana Jones universe. “The guy who ran the company just had no feeling for this sort of thing,” he says, “and just wanted to call it, ‘Indy’s Next Adventure’, but thankfully he and his marketing group eventually came around. I’ve always thought there’s something classy about the title that tells the potential player, ‘hey, this will be good’.”
There was the small but critical concern of keeping continuity within the confines of the Indiana Jones universe for the game’s plot, as well as the obvious need to instil the final product with an authentic feel of ‘Indy-ness’. “There was a timeline bible meant for authors who wrote Jones comic books and novels,” divulges Hal. “But that was of trivial importance. The main research was done sitting on a couch watching the movies unspool on video tape.”
When it came to creating the supporting characters around our Fedora-sporting protagonist, Hal’s addition of Indy’s glamorous ally Sophia Hapgood, along with the Nazi antagonist Klaus Kerner, rounded out the cast of the story. Sophia, possessor of a supposed Atlantean necklace, a pivotal plot device later in the game, may or may not also be under the spiritual influence of an ancient and malevolent Atlantean god. “We needed someone to unlock the story, and someone who could provide a key to its resolution,” explains Hal. “Kerner and his pals served the former purpose, and Sophia, with her physical and psychic bonds to the evil Nur-Ab-Sal provided the latter.”
Not averse to a little background ‘digging’ ourselves, RG puts forward the theory that Sophia’s family name might have been inspired by Charles Hapgood, an American academic who wrote and lectured on many archaeological subjects, including the possibility of the existence of a ‘real-life’ Atlantis. “I can’t remember!” says Hal. “There was a real Hapgood who trudged through South America uncovering Mayan sites, and if that’s the guy, then that’s the guy.”
“The truth is, they were all fun, but Sophia entertained me the most.”
He also says that, as a writer, the character was the most enjoyable of the supporting cast to conceive. “The truth is, they were all fun, but Sophia entertained me the most. Being at cross purposes with Indy, with a guilty secret, with psychic powers, with a sharp tongue in her mouth, she energised the story.” Both LucasArts’ Indiana Jones graphic adventures are renowned as being among the only titles in the company’s adventure catalogue allowing players to actually meet a sticky end, in stark contrast, for example, to the nigh-on invulnerable Guybrush from the Monkey Island games. The development meeting for Last Crusade, between a nervous David Fox and Noah Falstein, and Indy’s ‘creators’ Lucas and Spielberg, in which the game writers nervously asked the film-making duo if they would kindly give permission for Jones to ‘die’ in their game, is the stuff of legend.
Fate Of Atlantis resurrected Indy’s hard-won gaming mortality to create further tension for the player, in the spirit of the knife-edge matinee suspense of a Jones flick. “I just wish we had done more,” admits Hal. “I would have liked a more sophisticated fighting mechanic, that’s for sure. As to dying, it certainly went against the grain of the LucasArts house style, but felt right for Indy. In my mind, it’s not a legitimate Jones yarn if he’s not in mortal danger.”
Fans of the game will remember that early on in the adventure, Fate offers a choice of three ‘paths’ through the main bulk of the story; Team, Fists or Wits. Depending on the player’s preference (Sophia’s company and hopeful co-operation, bare-knuckled action, or solo puzzle-solving), the game experience will change accordingly. Different ways of tackling puzzles and obstacles will present themselves, with the storyline and in-game dialogue being expertly adapted to each permutation of events. To gain the game’s maximum IQ (Indy Quotient) score, players must complete each path in turn. Hal concedes that creating and scripting these separate ‘paths’ was a challenging and time-consuming process.
“Noah wanted to do the three paths,” explains Hal. “He knew that the adventure-game audience shrinks from twitchy gameplay, and to be true to Jones we required some fi sticuffs, so he wanted nervous players to find a way to avoid the action stuff. Once we had settled on the overarching story and an outline of the paths, Noah went on to his other projects, and the details were left to me. So we found ways to vary the experience, each path with some overlap, and each path with some unique features.”
“I was enthusiastic, and it took me a while to understand how much work I was in for,” he continues. “Right in the middle of development, management started to get cold feet, but they never insisted on getting rid of the paths. I did do some trimming, however. The paths converge upon arrival in Atlantis. And we discovered that we should get Sophia offstage whenever possible. Having her follow Indy everywhere proved to be a nightmare. Too many opportunities for inane conversations, too much awkwardness in setting up stunts and so on. Getting the paths done added around six months to the project and many an all-nighter for me.”
As with all LucasArts graphic adventures, the visual design was an important consideration, and Hal and his team worked tirelessly to ensure that the final product looked truly stunning. The 16-colour visuals of Last Crusade pale in comparison to the beautifully atmospheric hand-drawn VGA artwork of the PC version of Fate Of Atlantis. The epic scope of the game, with its myriad locations spanning Iceland, Guatemala, Algeria, Crete, and Atlantis itself, created a huge workload for the LucasArts graphic designers. “Our artists, Bill Eaken in particular, were good at putting together a ‘Mediterranean’ style, kind of like Mediterranean cuisine; a little of this, a little of that. Knossos and Mycenaean Greece were the main inspirations, but there’s some Mayan stuff in there, too.” Art director Bill Eaken was also behind the game’s classic box cover, inspired by the iconic artwork of the veteran movie-poster artist Drew Struzan.
“I’m still irritated by the fact that we did everything right on the computer.”
From an art-direction perspective, the game would turn out to be the last of its kind for LucasArts. “I’m still irritated by the fact that we did everything right on the computer (with preliminary paper sketches, of course),” acknowledges Hal. “Scanners were new and cost $5,000 back then, and company management dithered about getting the right deal until it was too late for my project.
Fate was the last pixel-paint project at LucasArts for PCs.” A massive undertaking, even by modern standards, the game’s quota of around 120 separate locations and set pieces deserves credit; it’s one of the largest of all the LucasArts adventures. Particular standouts include the multiscreen scrolling backgrounds depicting Knossos (where Indy struggles to find the entrance to the Labyrinth with the help of a surveyor’s sextant), a Saharan archaeological dig site, a Nazi U-boat, and the atmospheric, ringed Lost City of the game’s climax.
Fate is also notable for being the first LucasArts title to feature full rotoscoped in-game character animation. “We got out a video camera and shot Steve Purcell (the creator of Sam & Max) to walk and whip for Indy, and my lead animator, Collette Michaud (now Steve’s wife) to do the same for Sophia,” explains Hal. “Then we projected the frames on a screen, and Collette drew pixels over them. Crude, but effective.”
Hal’s role as project leader extended to overseeing all aspects of the game that made it to the floppy release, encompassing script creation and editing, game design, and art direction. In fact, pretty much the only aspect he wasn’t involved in was casting and recording the voice actors for the PC CD-ROM ‘talkie’ version. “If it had been a movie, I would have been intimately involved. But by the time we turned it into the company’s first real talkie, I was off on another project, and all the voice stuff was in other hands. Some of it is good [Doug Jones’ Indy was particularly well received by fans], but it was a pioneering effort, and some of the casting and voice direction left me cold, especially the sneering attitude of the villains.”
At the time of Fate’s release, any new Indiana Jones game from the Lucasfilm stable was sure to create a certain level of high-profile interest from fans and the media, especially with the cinematic release of Last Crusade still fresh in people’s minds. But with a completely original premise rather than a direct film licence, was Hal ever worried about matching the popularity of Last Crusade (the graphic adventure), or competing with in-house titles like Ron Gilbert’s Monkey Island?
“I wanted to at least equal the success of Last Crusade,” he admits. “I wasn’t worried about Monkey Island in the least, because it was still in production when I started, and it was a comedy game instead of a melodrama. As it happened, commercially, Fate Of Atlantis topped them all. By the time of Fate we worked in 256 colours (a first at LucasArts), could do quasi-3D movement, and Fate was the first fully voiced game we ever made.” Indeed, a million-unit seller, the game remains one of LucasArts’ most successful and best-loved graphic adventures.
“George and Steven would never consider a movie plot for Jones that wasn’t original.”
Retro Gamer wonders how the final product compares to Hal’s personal vision when he started on the project, and whether any story or game ideas ended up on the cutting-room floor, so to speak. “Endless compromises, but no cuts that I remember,” says Hal. “We were changing publishers as Fate neared the finish line, and I was given a couple of months to polish and kill the last few bugs, an opportunity I cherish and never had again.”
With regards to the finished product, Hal still has a healthy degree of respect for Fate Of Atlantis, despite a few reservations about the obvious shortcomings of a 15-year-old game. “It’s painful to look at these days, because the art for modern games has become so sophisticated, stylish and detailed,” he admits. “Voice acting has likewise made huge leaps. I imagine that looking back on that period is like movie makers looking back on silent films. Historically intriguing, but painful. On the other hand, allowing for the state of the art of the time, yes, I am proud of it.” We propose that the game’s thoughtful plot would have made a rather good film. “I’m glad you think so,” responds Hal, “but George and Steven would never consider a movie plot for Jones that wasn’t original.”
In total, the development of Fate Of Atlantis took around two years, from Hal’s arrival at LucasArts in early 1990 to the game’s release in mid 1992. Following the completion of Fate, Hal remained with the company, working again as a project leader on a further two Jones titles (Indiana Jones And His Desktop Adventures and Indiana Jones And The Infernal Machine) and the SNES action game Big Sky Trooper, before leaving in 2003 to revive his freelance media and game design consultancy, Finite Arts. In 2007, and to the excitement of many adventure fans, it was announced that Hal would once again be teaming up with ex-LucasArts colleague Noah Falstein, for the first time since the Atlantis days, and producing a new PC graphic adventure for German publisher, Anaconda Games. The new game, Mata Hari, is based on the exploits of the infamous Dutch spy.
“Mata Hari was a Dutch beauty who made her name as a scandalous exotic dancer just about a century ago, in the years leading up to World War I,” says Hal. “She became a spy, botched her assignments, was caught by the French, and executed. Because she was already notorious, and because her spying involved her womanly wiles, her sad story has reverberated down through the years. Our game proposes that she was actually such a good spy that her real exploits have never come to light. We’re offering players the chance to improve on history, to perfect Mata Hari.”
It’s hard not to wish them well on their intimate, but promising, venture to revive a much-loved, but long-thought unprofitable, genre. Although Hal admits that the new game, with its two-man script-writing team and independent publisher, can’t hope to emulate big budget productions like Fate Of Atlantis, the veteran duo’s cumulative industry experience, and proven story-building record means they deserve another bite of the graphic-adventure apple.