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Hal Barwood is, in every sense of the phrase, a Renaissance man.
A small cameo as one of the pilots of longlost Flight 19).
“I’m an old friend of George Lucas,” begins Hal.
I met David Fox, Ron Gilbert and Noah Falstein during that period.
“They all had other projects they wanted to pursue,” he explains.
They needed someone to rescue them from Jones, and they picked me."
This feature originally appeared inRetro Gamer magazine.
Hal’s proven scriptwriting background was an obvious advantage when it came to producing a traditional graphic adventure.
“The layout just shouted, ‘I want to be a game!’
and we agreed.”
“But after reading it I decided it was un-produced for a reason, and wanted something else.
The layout just shouted, ‘I want to be a game!’
and we agreed.”
What about more recent games?
“But that was of trivial importance.
The main research was done sitting on a couch watching the movies unspool on video tape.”
“I can’t remember!”
“The truth is, they were all fun, but Sophia entertained me the most.”
“The truth is, they were all fun, but Sophia entertained me the most.
“I just wish we had done more,” admits Hal.
“I would have liked a more sophisticated fighting mechanic, that’s for sure.
In my mind, it’s not a legitimate Jones yarn if he’s not in mortal danger.”
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.
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.”
“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.
Fate was the last pixel-paint project at LucasArts for PCs."
Fate is also notable for being the first LucasArts title to feature full rotoscoped in-game character animation.
“Then we projected the frames on a screen, and Collette drew pixels over them.
Crude, but effective.”
“If it had been a movie, I would have been intimately involved.
“I wanted to at least equal the success of Last Crusade,” he admits.
As it happened, commercially, Fate Of Atlantis topped them all.
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.”
“Endless compromises, but no cuts that I remember,” says Hal.
“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.
We propose that the game’s thoughtful plot would have made a rather good film.
“She became a spy, botched her assignments, was caught by the French, and executed.
We’re offering players the chance to improve on history, to perfect Mata Hari.”
