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A long time ago, in a studio far, far away, a game was made. This one featured a pixelated Indiana Jones as he romped around the world searching for artifacts, beating up Nazis, and narrowly escaping danger.
The game was a point & click (PnC) adventure, a genre often featuring non-violent stories based around exploration and solving puzzles. Indiana Jones: The Fate of Atlantis had a style of its own and a lasting charm—so lasting, in fact, that it still inspires game developers today. And one of these developers is Stacy Davidson, who is taking us to an unlikely corner of the galaxy with a hero every bit as famous as Indiana Jones: Han Solo, one of the star characters of the Star Wars films.
By piecing together stories about Han Solo’s adventures before the events in the first Star Wars film (Episode IV) Davidson has woven together a story following the pistol slinging, hyperspace jumping, scruffy looking smuggler we’ve all come to love.
Being about the many adventures of Han Solo, the game is fittingly called Han Solo Adventures, and we had the pleasure of speaking with Davidson about the upcoming game.
TechZwn:
Why did you choose to focus the game around Han Solo?
Davidson:
I always enjoyed the old Brian Daley Han Solo novels, and he seemed like the character who had the most fun outside of the movies with plenty of adventures to be had on his own. I think Han’s probably one of the most beloved characters in modern pop culture and fantasy, yet he’s basically only been in three movies and that’s about it. Unless you want to do a lot of reading.
TechZwn:
I’m wondering what your thoughts are about what happened to PnC games? They were huge for so long, then they were just about gone.
Davidson:
Yeah, I really think Lucasarts and Sierra [both large games developers in the ‘90s] basically innovated the genre right out of existence. Myst came out and started this interest in updating adventure games as a genre and challenging what they could be and, before you knew it, Sierra was making live-action adventure games. Then real-time 3-D became a thing and everyone started moving their adventure games in the direction of the going fads without stopping to consider if it was even appropriate. I always felt 3-D served action best, and full motion video serves no one because it’s awful—except in Dragon’s Lair and Space Ace.
TechZwn:
I like that you kept the old school graphics style. I’m curious why you chose this style, though. What do you think it adds to the game?
Davidson:
When Fate of Atlantis was released, that solidified my idea for what a Han Solo game could be. It seemed to make sense that it would be somewhat of a counterpart to [Fate of Atlantis], with similar artwork and interface. Of course this was all just my ridiculous “what if” game idea until recently.
TechZwn:
Is there anything else you’d like to say?
Davidson:
Yeah, check out Star Wars Uncut and the film The People vs. George Lucas. My game was featured in both and they’re definitely worth a look!
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