Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures
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''Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures'' is a 1996
adventure An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...
video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...
. ''Desktop Adventures'' was made to run in a windowed form on the desktop to limit memory use and allow the player to perform other tasks. This game was the first ''Desktop Adventures'' game, and was followed by '' Star Wars: Yoda Stories'' in 1997.


Gameplay

The game is set in mid-1930s Middle America with a variety of characters, puzzles, and outcomes. The plot, size, and direction of each game are randomly generated at the start, with locations and items being different every time, though each storyline has a pre-scripted resolution. The playing area is displayed from an
overhead perspective A variety of computer graphic techniques have been used to display video game content throughout the history of video games. The predominance of individual techniques have evolved over time, primarily due to hardware advances and restrictions ...
. The player-controlled Indiana Jones is limited to
orthogonal In mathematics, orthogonality is the generalization of the geometric notion of ''perpendicularity''. By extension, orthogonality is also used to refer to the separation of specific features of a system. The term also has specialized meanings in ...
movement, which is controlled with the arrow keys or with the mouse. The mouse is also used for other actions, such as managing inventory and using weapons. Each scenario is randomly generated by selecting each element (such as the item Indiana Jones must collect at each stage of the adventure) from a set of possibilities. After winning, the player can continue to explore the setting.


Reception

Trent Ward of ''
GameSpot ''GameSpot'' is an American video gaming website that provides news, reviews, previews, downloads, and other information on video games. The site was launched on May 1, 1996, created by Pete Deemer, Vince Broady and Jon Epstein. In addition ...
'' reviewed the game as having low-quality visuals and audio but being possibly useful for passing time.
Billboard magazine ''Billboard'' (stylized as ''billboard'') is an American music and entertainment magazine published weekly by Penske Media Corporation. The magazine provides music charts, news, video, opinion, reviews, events, and style related to the music ...
mentioned the game's randomly generated environment and its target audience of "gamers on the go", and deemed it "An unambitious title that will rope you in." A '' Next Generation'' reviewer noted that the randomly generated scenarios are essentially repetitive, and complained at the fact that the player character cannot shoot diagonally but enemies can. He concluded, "All this said, however, the game only costs around 12 bucks and if you don't expect too much, it is pretty fun. The underlying idea is sound, and if you don't mind repetition, check it out." Charles Ardai of ''
Computer Gaming World ''Computer Gaming World'' (CGW) was an American computer game magazine published between 1981 and 2006. One of the few magazines of the era to survive the video game crash of 1983, it was sold to Ziff Davis in 1993. It expanded greatly through ...
'' wrote, "For a genius,
George Lucas George Walton Lucas Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American filmmaker. Lucas is best known for creating the ''Star Wars'' and ''Indiana Jones'' franchises and founding Lucasfilm, LucasArts, Industrial Light & Magic and THX. He served as chairm ...
sure has a lot of bad ideas. ..Some time ago, someone from his computer game division must have come to him and said, 'Hey, let's put out a really simple, randomly generated RPG-style adventure game, stick a whip in the hand of the main character, use the Indiana Jones nameand make it look really ugly.' And Lucas must have said, 'Sounds good to me.'" Ardai wrote that Indiana Jones fans may enjoy the theme music featured in the game, but concluded that the game was, "Embarrassingly retro," with its "overly simplistic gameplay; crude visuals and sound" and "ludicrous ethnic stereotypes." Rob Tribe of ''
PC Zone ''PC Zone'', founded in 1993, was the first magazine dedicated to games for IBM-compatible personal computers to be published in the United Kingdom. Earlier PC magazines such as ''PC Leisure'', ''PC Format'' and ''PC Plus'' had covered games but ...
'' called it "very, very addictive," though like ''Next Generation'', he criticized the fact that the player character cannot shoot diagonally but enemies can. Shane Mooney of ''
PC Games A personal computer game, also known as a PC game or computer game, is a type of video game played on a personal computer (PC) rather than a video game console or arcade machine. Its defining characteristics include: more diverse and user-dete ...
'' found it repetitive and expected a better game from LucasArts. In 1996, ''Computer Gaming World'' declared ''Indy's Desktop Adventures'' the 15th-worst computer game ever released.


References


External links

* {{Indiana Jones 1996 video games Desktop Adventures Classic Mac OS games Video games developed in the United States Video games set in the 1930s Video games set in Mexico Windows games LucasArts games