Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures
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| Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures | |
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 The boxart for Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures features a still of Indiana Jones from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom |
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| Developer(s) | LucasArts |
| Publisher(s) | LucasArts |
| Platform(s) | Windows 3.x, Apple Macintosh |
| Release date(s) | April 1996[1] |
| Genre(s) | Adventure |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone (E) OFLC: General (G) |
| Media | Floppy Disk |
| System requirements | Windows 3.1 and up, IBM and 100% compatible computers, 486/33 or faster CPU, 8MB RAM, PCI graphics card. |
Indiana Jones and his Desktop Adventures is a 1996 computer game. Desktop Adventures was made to run in a windowed form on the desktop to use the least amount of memory possible and still allows the player to perform other on screen tasks. This game is the first Desktop Adventures game, and was followed by Star Wars: Yoda Stories in 1997.
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[edit] Plot
This game is set in mid-1930s Middle America with motley characters, challenging puzzles, and a huge variety of outcomes. Each game averages 30 minutes. The plot, size, and direction of each game are randomly generated at the start, with locations and items being different every time.
[edit] Gameplay
The playing area is displayed from an overhead perspective that is divided into many invisible squares within which Indy can only move between squares but one square at a time. To control Indy the up, down, left, and right arrow keys are used or by holding down the left mouse button and moving the mouse can control Indy and to shoot is the right mouse click button. To change weapons it used the classic drag and drop system into a box between the health meter and map arrows. The health meter turns through green, yellow, red, and black as Indy's health deteriorates. The green arrows to the left of the health meter indicate if Indy can travel any further off this side of the screen (the arrows going grey when he can't). The various characters that speak to Indy during the game use a simple white speech balloon to display their text which uses just as simple scrolls and close buttons on the right hand side of the balloon to view the speech. A few seconds after the winning screen at the end of the game comes up, clicking on the picture will take you back into the game leaving you free to explore around the game. For the most part, there is little else to do except kill any remaining enemies and restart the demo quest, although you can return to Marcus and receive congratulations on a job well done. Also, during this continued play, Indy cannot be killed, even when the health meter is completely black.
[edit] Current availability
As LucasArts no longer sells this game (and has not done so for a long time), it is generally considered abandonware, but there are still a few copies floating around on eBay and shops. The game was originally released on a 3 1/2 Inch floppy diskette so use on modern day computers can be difficult. However, it is possible (with the use of a floppy drive or an external floppy drive) to burn the disk's content onto a CD and use it that way.
In 1999 a Desktop Adventures fansite had zip files for both Indiana Jones and Yoda Stories full game downloads for free but the site owner eventually abandoned the site and the downloads subsequently got lost. The demo is more commonly found at many places.
[edit] Influence
Although Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine was a direct sequel to Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, elements from Desktop Adventures found their way into the next game:
- The round health meter that changes colours ranging green, yellow, red, black as Indy's health deteriorates, this round meter was also used for the design of the breath, puncture and Aetherium threshold meter.
- Health herbs, in small and large varieties, can be found growing throughout the game, also there was the introduction of a Venom-Kit and the Health Kit (although a health kit like the one in Desktop Adventures could be found after much searching in the Castle area of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure LucasArts had produced in 1989).
- Scorpions, spiders, snakes and the odd jaguar were introduced in Infernal Machine along with wolves, monkeys, sharks and piranha. All could be killed with the exception of jaguars, wolves and monkeys when LucasArts was told by one of the play testers that even though these animals posed a threat they did not like the idea of killing them, LucasArts thus changed the programming slightly so that these animals would run away at the sound of gun fire giving the player time to get away from them. However, their dying "animation" was not actually removed from the game so with a carefully placed satchel charge, hand grenade or rocket they can still be killed.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- GameSpot review by Editorial staff
- Adventure Classic Gaming review
- Demo at Download.com
- TheRaider.net review
- Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures at MobyGames
