Hey, Super Adventures is back again! I'm ready to give you two more months of game articles, before disappearing off to write for Sci-Fi Adventures instead for a while. Actually, no, I'm bored of that system now. Plus telling people to come back in two months is kind of a terrible idea now that I think about it.
Okay, starting today I'm switching to a new plan: a new Super Adventures every two weeks, all year round. So one week I'll play a game, the next week I'll write about an sci-fi episode, the week after that I'll be back to playing a game, and so on. I'll be doing the same amount of work, you'll be getting the same number of articles, I'm just shuffling the order they get published in.
This week on Ray Hardgrit's Super Adventures, I'm playing FLIGHT OF THE AMAZON Queen.
I don't know why it's capitalised like that, but I have a suspicion that the gradient is inspired by the Indiana Jones logo. The title itself is probably inspired by the 50s adventure movie The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. The African Queen is actually the name of a boat in the movie, so it wouldn't have been doing much flying. I assume. I haven't actually seen it.
Flight of the Amazon Queen was the second and final game by Australian developer Interactive Binary Illusions, who'd previously worked on Halloween Harry (aka Alien Carnage). This is a point and click adventure and that's a run and gun platformer with a jetpack, so they've done a bit of a genre shift here.
It's another one of those freeware adventures available for free on GOG, like Lure of the Temptress, Beneath a Steel Sky and Teenagent, except with one major difference: I haven't written about it yet. I really did mean to though. In fact I pretty much announced that it was coming soon... back in March 2017. The thing you've got to understand about my plans, is that they were all made by an idiot. Speaking of things being announced, it was revealed earlier this month that a sequel is in development called Return of the Amazon Queen. I only just found out about this, so my timing here is pure luck.
Alright I'm going to try the game for a bit, just long enough to see what it's like and show off some pictures without really spoiling anything. I'll be playing the original PC version running through ScummVM (the free version released on GOG), not the updated 25th Anniversary edition sold on Steam.
The game begins with a image of a 3D rendered alarm clock inside an abandoned warehouse in Buenos Aires, 1949. So the game's set about 10 years after the first three Indiana Jones movies, and it looks like this dynamite is set to explode in about 1 minute and 24 seconds.
Wow, I'm getting Sam & Max: Hit the Road vibes from this intro all of a sudden. Only this time there's a guy tied up opposite the woman in distress and she doesn't seem all that happy with how their night's gone. He's called King and it turns out that he got them both into this mess by angering Rita's boyfriend. The man had kind of a negative reaction to finding out that King had taken his girl out for dinner and a movie.
Fortunately after about 30 seconds a bathtub full of bricks falls from the ceiling, manned by King's buddy Sparky.
Just then the boyfriend turns up with a mobster and a pimp to put an end to their last minute rescue. He sure takes his time though, keeping the camera on himself just long enough for Sparky to untie King and Rita's ropes off screen. In fact the three of them are able to do all kinds of stuff when the animator has an excuse not to show it, and by the time it cuts back to them they're just about through the hole to freedom.
The goons try to open fire but it's a bit late at this point. In fact it's been about 1 minute and 24 seconds.
The heroes escape in time to watch the building blow up, killing Rita's boyfriend. She's not overly bothered by it.
But King has to fly, as he's got another deadline: he's supposed to pick up Faye Russel, the famous movie star, in less than eight hours!
Then the opening credits come on, showing lots of shots of the Amazon Queen flying by while lots of names appear on screen. Apparently composer Richard Joseph worked on the music, which is cool. The guy worked on a ton of Sensible Software and Bitmap Brothers games. The James Pond games too!
Oh, the game's a talkie by the way, with full voices. I don't recognise any of these actors though. Wait, is that the Penelope Keith? Wow, IMDb says that it is. IMDb also says that Bill Hootkins played Porkins in Star Wars and Lt. Eckhardt in Batman.
King goes up to Faye Russel's hotel room so he can fly her to the Amazon for her photoshoot but instead he finds his arch rival Anderson waiting for him. Anderson intends to steal his contract for Flying Dutchman airlines, and King mostly just stands there as he explains his evil scheme to him.
Now that I've reached the actual game graphics I'm sensing a bit of LucasArts influence on the artwork.
Here's a shot from Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis just to give you a comparison. LucasArts were up to games like Full Throttle by 1995, but I think this is a better example of the style Amazon Queen is going for. It's just a shame that I didn't have a screenshot with a wooden floor, a window and the verb interface on it handy.
Anyway Anderson walks out of the room, and slams a thick metal door down behind him, trapping King inside! I'm definitely getting the feeling that their rivalry's been going on a while by this point, because this isn't normal.
Alright I'm going to need to find a more ingenious exit out of this room. First though I should probably try to figure out this interface. It's apparently been designed for cavemen and I'm way too intelligent to understand it. Oh cool it tells me what the buttons do when I hover the mouse over them.
I've strarted off with a baseball bat and a journal that lets me save my game, but I'm sure there's probably other things I can grab in here. Not in the trunk though, he doesn't want to open that (he thinks it'll be a waste of time). And the chest is locked. I did find a wig behind the curtain though!
The good news is that the game tells me when I've got the cursor over something I can interact with. I can't find a button to highlight all interactive objects (that was later added for the 25th Anniversary edition apparently) but I expect I'll do okay by sweeping the mouse around. For instance when I hover over the mouse over the window it tells me I can use it. Seems like I've found my way out!
Soundproof glass? Damn, Anderson's thought of everything! My buddy Sparky is right there as well, waiting for me by the truck.
I tried using the bat to smash the window but King wouldn't do it, because "Now ain't the time to be playing baseball". King's kind of holding me back here. Also he doesn't seem to have unique lines for interesting combinations of items, which is a bit of a shame but understandible.
Aha, I just needed to pick up the sheets. Everything after that was obvious. And surprisingly well animated.
I guess I don't have to say much about the interface, as it's pretty standard for this era of adventure game. Nothing unusual here. Well, actually there is one thing I haven't seen before in other games: right clicking on a verb button and then right clicking on an object sets a new default action for it.
Also all the verbs have keyboard shortcuts associated with them in case I don't want to move the mouse over and click them each time (I'm going to carry on doing that).
Hey I slid down a chute into a basement like this at the start of Fate of Atlantis as well!
There wasn't much of a puzzle in here, I just moved the ladder so I can reach stuff on these shelves. There isn't much worth taking either, as all the tools and weapons are made of rubber. I was able to get a crowbar at least, along with a pair of 'comedy breasts™'.
The crowbar is more immediately useful as there's a locked door on the right that I want to be open... oh wait, turns out that King doesn't want to accidentally cause unnecessary damage. This guy's way too considerate of other people's property to be any good at this adventure game stuff. Guybrush would've destroyed this place by now.
Fine then, I'll go walk to the other door then. And I do mean 'walk' as I haven't found a run button.
Oh that's cool, the game has Monkey Island style dialogue system. It has empowed me to inflict several smart-ass answers upon this bellboy. The guy's got a bit of an annoying comedy voice but he's been very helpful and is answering all of my questions. He won't give me the key on the desk though as it's apparently for someone called Lola.
Okay, it doesn't seem like there's anything else I can do here and I'm kind of in a hurry, so I'm going to leave through the front door and see if I can catch up with Anderson before he steals my actress.
Son of a bitch.
Turns out that Anderson left a pair of goons waiting at the door in case I escaped his trap and they've just confiscated my clothes and locked me back in here. I tried to pick up those clothes on the rack behind him, but he won't even acknowledge it exists. I've still kept all my items though, somehow, so now I can try my crowbar on that locked chest and collect the treasure within.
King hit gave the chest a few taps wth the crowbar and it opened up to reveal... a towel. Now I'm making progress!
There's no reason I can't just leave the same way I did last time. He wasn't quite as graceful on the way down this time though. I have to respect all the work the animator's put in to give King a whole new set of frames for when he's in his underwear. I thought the artwork looked a bit amateurish at first but now I'm really starting to respect what they've done here.
Well now I'm back down in the basement again, except with less clothes and more towel. The situation's basically the same: I've got a locked door and I've got a bellboy that won't give me Lola's key. Man, I'm feeling really stuck right now.
Oh, I just told the bellboy that I was Lola's friend and he just handed the key to me without questioning it. I wasn't expecting that, but okay.
Turns out that King wasn't actually lying when he said he was Lola's friend! Well, maybe 'friend' isn't quite accurate... She's kind of pissed off with him, and says that things have been better for her since he walked out of her life. So it might be a bit of a struggle to get her to help.
I asked her for help anyway and she stood up, then walked into the shower fully clothed!
Oh I see, Lola was just working up to taking her clothes off. She wanted to make sure they were soaking wet first before stripping off right in front of him.
Lola wants a towel before she'll help me, which means I've got full control back. I probably should've tried to try to swipe her handcuffs and teddy bear while I had the chance but time it occured to me it was too late. I'd already handed her the towel I'd picked up.
She put the towel on and then walked across to the clothes racks to find something that will help King escape the hotel...
I was expecting King to put up a
bit of resistance to taking the dress, but he was actually grateful for Lola's help (especially as it's his size) and doesn't make a single quip
about it.
This screenshot's from the Amiga version of the game by the way, which was developed first and is obviously suffering from not having as many colours on screen. Plus the other half of Lola's dressing room bed is missing!
The Amiga version is also missing the voices as it never got a CD release. I think I prefer its tracker music to the DOS game's midi soundtrack though.
Alright I already picked up the wig and comedy breasts™ so I'm ready to go straight away. It seems like it might be one of those kinds of games where you end up with an inventory full of stuff before you have any idea what you need it for.
This change of outfit means I've already gotten a third set of walking frames for King. I suppose I can just leave now, there's definitely no need for me to go back up to the locked hotel room again, but I'm heading back there anyway. I'm curious about what'll happen when I try to climb down the laundry chute again.
Poor guy gets a little worse at climbing down each time.
They didn't have to do this animation, they could've just made it so you couldn't climb back up the laundry chute in the dress, but they did it anyway. In fact you're able to climb up here in your jacket and jeans as well, so being stripped down to your underwear is optional as well. You can escape the hotel without the goons ever locking you away.
Alright now I'm definitely ready to go.
Oh hang on, that was unexpected. I'm not even out of the hotel yet!
This interlude is very Monkey Island. Actually it's very Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
Oh damn, I didn't realise I was playing Danger 5: The Videogame! The storyline's gone nuts all of a sudden. Plus there's lots of nice animation.
I hacked away most of this conversation in an editor to keep the GIF filesize down, but I expect you can get the gist of it. Doctor Ironstein (sounds like Einstein), has developed a machine to turn humans into dinosaur people with enhanced aggression and lots of sharp teeth. He's still working out some of the bugs though.
Man, this is all amazing. It's the best 'Meanwhile...' ever.
Anyway, now it really is time for me to get the hell out of this hotel already. With this disguise on I can just stroll past the two goons at the door and they'll have no idea.
Okay, starting today I'm switching to a new plan: a new Super Adventures every two weeks, all year round. So one week I'll play a game, the next week I'll write about an sci-fi episode, the week after that I'll be back to playing a game, and so on. I'll be doing the same amount of work, you'll be getting the same number of articles, I'm just shuffling the order they get published in.
| Developer: | Interactive Binary Illusions | | | Release Date: | 1995 | | | Systems: | MS-DOS, Amiga |
This week on Ray Hardgrit's Super Adventures, I'm playing FLIGHT OF THE AMAZON Queen.
I don't know why it's capitalised like that, but I have a suspicion that the gradient is inspired by the Indiana Jones logo. The title itself is probably inspired by the 50s adventure movie The African Queen, starring Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn. The African Queen is actually the name of a boat in the movie, so it wouldn't have been doing much flying. I assume. I haven't actually seen it.
Flight of the Amazon Queen was the second and final game by Australian developer Interactive Binary Illusions, who'd previously worked on Halloween Harry (aka Alien Carnage). This is a point and click adventure and that's a run and gun platformer with a jetpack, so they've done a bit of a genre shift here.
It's another one of those freeware adventures available for free on GOG, like Lure of the Temptress, Beneath a Steel Sky and Teenagent, except with one major difference: I haven't written about it yet. I really did mean to though. In fact I pretty much announced that it was coming soon... back in March 2017. The thing you've got to understand about my plans, is that they were all made by an idiot. Speaking of things being announced, it was revealed earlier this month that a sequel is in development called Return of the Amazon Queen. I only just found out about this, so my timing here is pure luck.
Alright I'm going to try the game for a bit, just long enough to see what it's like and show off some pictures without really spoiling anything. I'll be playing the original PC version running through ScummVM (the free version released on GOG), not the updated 25th Anniversary edition sold on Steam.
Fortunately after about 30 seconds a bathtub full of bricks falls from the ceiling, manned by King's buddy Sparky.
The goons try to open fire but it's a bit late at this point. In fact it's been about 1 minute and 24 seconds.
But King has to fly, as he's got another deadline: he's supposed to pick up Faye Russel, the famous movie star, in less than eight hours!
Oh, the game's a talkie by the way, with full voices. I don't recognise any of these actors though. Wait, is that the Penelope Keith? Wow, IMDb says that it is. IMDb also says that Bill Hootkins played Porkins in Star Wars and Lt. Eckhardt in Batman.
Now that I've reached the actual game graphics I'm sensing a bit of LucasArts influence on the artwork.
 |
| Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (MS-DOS) |
Anyway Anderson walks out of the room, and slams a thick metal door down behind him, trapping King inside! I'm definitely getting the feeling that their rivalry's been going on a while by this point, because this isn't normal.
I've strarted off with a baseball bat and a journal that lets me save my game, but I'm sure there's probably other things I can grab in here. Not in the trunk though, he doesn't want to open that (he thinks it'll be a waste of time). And the chest is locked. I did find a wig behind the curtain though!
The good news is that the game tells me when I've got the cursor over something I can interact with. I can't find a button to highlight all interactive objects (that was later added for the 25th Anniversary edition apparently) but I expect I'll do okay by sweeping the mouse around. For instance when I hover over the mouse over the window it tells me I can use it. Seems like I've found my way out!
I tried using the bat to smash the window but King wouldn't do it, because "Now ain't the time to be playing baseball". King's kind of holding me back here. Also he doesn't seem to have unique lines for interesting combinations of items, which is a bit of a shame but understandible.
I guess I don't have to say much about the interface, as it's pretty standard for this era of adventure game. Nothing unusual here. Well, actually there is one thing I haven't seen before in other games: right clicking on a verb button and then right clicking on an object sets a new default action for it.
Also all the verbs have keyboard shortcuts associated with them in case I don't want to move the mouse over and click them each time (I'm going to carry on doing that).
There wasn't much of a puzzle in here, I just moved the ladder so I can reach stuff on these shelves. There isn't much worth taking either, as all the tools and weapons are made of rubber. I was able to get a crowbar at least, along with a pair of 'comedy breasts™'.
The crowbar is more immediately useful as there's a locked door on the right that I want to be open... oh wait, turns out that King doesn't want to accidentally cause unnecessary damage. This guy's way too considerate of other people's property to be any good at this adventure game stuff. Guybrush would've destroyed this place by now.
Fine then, I'll go walk to the other door then. And I do mean 'walk' as I haven't found a run button.
Okay, it doesn't seem like there's anything else I can do here and I'm kind of in a hurry, so I'm going to leave through the front door and see if I can catch up with Anderson before he steals my actress.
Turns out that Anderson left a pair of goons waiting at the door in case I escaped his trap and they've just confiscated my clothes and locked me back in here. I tried to pick up those clothes on the rack behind him, but he won't even acknowledge it exists. I've still kept all my items though, somehow, so now I can try my crowbar on that locked chest and collect the treasure within.
King hit gave the chest a few taps wth the crowbar and it opened up to reveal... a towel. Now I'm making progress!
Well now I'm back down in the basement again, except with less clothes and more towel. The situation's basically the same: I've got a locked door and I've got a bellboy that won't give me Lola's key. Man, I'm feeling really stuck right now.
Oh, I just told the bellboy that I was Lola's friend and he just handed the key to me without questioning it. I wasn't expecting that, but okay.
I asked her for help anyway and she stood up, then walked into the shower fully clothed!
Lola wants a towel before she'll help me, which means I've got full control back. I probably should've tried to try to swipe her handcuffs and teddy bear while I had the chance but time it occured to me it was too late. I'd already handed her the towel I'd picked up.
She put the towel on and then walked across to the clothes racks to find something that will help King escape the hotel...
 |
| Amiga version |
This screenshot's from the Amiga version of the game by the way, which was developed first and is obviously suffering from not having as many colours on screen. Plus the other half of Lola's dressing room bed is missing!
The Amiga version is also missing the voices as it never got a CD release. I think I prefer its tracker music to the DOS game's midi soundtrack though.
This change of outfit means I've already gotten a third set of walking frames for King. I suppose I can just leave now, there's definitely no need for me to go back up to the locked hotel room again, but I'm heading back there anyway. I'm curious about what'll happen when I try to climb down the laundry chute again.
They didn't have to do this animation, they could've just made it so you couldn't climb back up the laundry chute in the dress, but they did it anyway. In fact you're able to climb up here in your jacket and jeans as well, so being stripped down to your underwear is optional as well. You can escape the hotel without the goons ever locking you away.
Alright now I'm definitely ready to go.
This interlude is very Monkey Island. Actually it's very Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.
I hacked away most of this conversation in an editor to keep the GIF filesize down, but I expect you can get the gist of it. Doctor Ironstein (sounds like Einstein), has developed a machine to turn humans into dinosaur people with enhanced aggression and lots of sharp teeth. He's still working out some of the bugs though.
Anyway, now it really is time for me to get the hell out of this hotel already. With this disguise on I can just stroll past the two goons at the door and they'll have no idea.
A MINUTE OR SO LATER
I love that reflection on the hubcap by the way. The artist's done a good job there. The whole scene's pretty well done actually.
Hang on, I recognise this scene! This was on the cover of an issue of Amiga Power. I'm going to go dig it out to compare.
Also I couldn't fit the whole thing into my scanner unfortunately so the image is a bit cut off around the edges. Funny thing is that the magazine switched to a smaller page size with the very next issue (the Amiga wasn't as its healthiest in 1995). By the way if you're wondering why the car is yellow on the cover, that's because it's an illustration of the Amiga version.
Alright I don't have that handy barrel of oil he's weilding, but I do have the chicken so let's see how that works against them! Oh, it just flew off into the distance. I hope it's okay!
 |
| Amiga version |
Then King went and spoiled the moment by quipping "Oil be back". That doesn't even make any sense in this context! Plus it's a quote from a movie that won't come out for another 35 years. King needs to get some better one-liners.
Trouble is that when Anderson hits the tarmac it reveals that the Amazon Queen's registration is '36D-BRA'. That's almost as bad as the aircraft in Deus Ex: Human Revolution with '800 B-EE' on the side!
Okay, a storm's coming in so we really need to take off and get out of Rio in a hurry. Next stop: the Amazon.
I should probably stop playing now, I've got plenty of pictures and a pretty good idea what the gameplay's like, but I can't quit Flight of the Amazon Queen before I've seen what the Amazon looks like!
Alright, time for me to step out into the Amazon and see if I can solve a puzzle or something before I turn the game off.
SOON
Hang on, isn't this a gorilla? I thought gorillas came from Africa.
CONCLUSION
I'm still annoyed about what happened to my Amiga Power magazine cover. Why couldn't it have been one of the rubbish covers that got inexplicably wrecked!
I'm also a bit annoyed at my past self for not bothering to write up this conclusion back when I started this article five years ago. Sure he left me a lot of screenshots and a handful of notes to work from, but I had to replay the game anyway so that wasn't much use to me. An insightful, well written first draft of a conclusion would've been so much help though! Especially as my past self was in a point and click adventure game mood at the time and had given himself a crash course in what makes them good by playing a whole bunch of them in a row. If he'd just waited a day in between each game to write up some text I would've had so many more articles to publish! The dumbass.
Anyway, Flight of the Amazon Queen definitely feels like it was made by people who played Monkey Island and decided they wanted to make one of them. Not just an adventure game, but an early 90s LucasArts adventure game specifically. It's got the absurdity of a Monkey Island combined with the classic adventure serial theme of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, and there's no cruelty in its design. As far as I can tell you can never put yourself into a dead end or get your character killed off.
I'm not sure I'd put the graphics or music on the same level as a LucasArts title (especially as they were releasing titles like Full Throttle by this point), but it really likes to show off with its animation. It also likes to show off its comedy, which is... fairly tame I guess. The protagonist is called 'Joe King', so that's the kind of level it's working on. It reminded me of the series Archer at times, but that was mostly because they've both pulled from the classic TV series Tales of the Gold Monkey, not anything to do with the quality of the humour. The voice acting's been pretty decent though, if you can get past the comedy voices they're putting on. I especially liked Joe King's performance as he's got the right kind of deadpan nonchalance to sell him as an easy-going pilot who's left a trail of exes around the world.
Some people have accused the game of being too easy, which sounds plausible considering how I breezed through the hotel. I also noticed that it doesn't seem to have a run button and double clicking an exit won't help you get there any faster. Another issue I had is the lack of unique dialogue when I used an item on something it wouldn't work with; so many missed opportunities for jokes! Though I suppose a CD can only store so many voiced lines. And floppy disks can store even less.
No one ever needs to think about playing the Amiga version off floppy disks anymore, but I went and did it anyway and it's a little less fun when you have to wait a few seconds every time an animation's about to play. Also the disk swapping is as bad as you'd expect. I don't know what's on disk 11 that it's so keen to get to all the time.
But as far as free adventure games go you can do far worse than Flight of the Amazon Queen I reckon. It ain't bad at all for the developers' first try at the genre. In fact it probably deserves better than all this faint praise I've been damning it with.
I've switched to publishing a new article every two weeks, so now you've got twice the time to figure out what the next game will be from the clue on the left. I'm curious to see if anyone manages to get it this time, because it's kind of an obscure game. Also let me know if you like the new logo!
I do like the new logo! The "in gaming" bit is going to annoy me because I can't quite place what it's referencing.
ReplyDeleteThe next game is, I think, one of the MLB/The Show series, but I'm not sure which one. Probably 1998 since it's the first one, but the browns and greys say "Amiga" to me, and MLB was PlayStation.
I'd forgotten what it was referencing as well. So I went looking through my old files and eventually found a work in progress image that reveals that the 'IN GAMING' text was inspired by... the Saints Row IV logo. I put the spiky wings on the side afterwards because I thought they'd look a bit Mega Drive.
DeleteYou're wrong about the next game being MLB, you're right about it looking Amiga.
Huh, it was the wings that looked familiar. It looks almost like the logo from some failed console from 2001. Hrm.
DeleteOh, is it Mig-29 Fulcrum? That was very brown and grey.
DeleteI did a bit more digging and I've figured out what the wings were inspired by! The Xenon 2 logo.
DeleteSorry the next game isn't Mig-29 Fulcrum. That's a few years too early.
I'll spare you the tedium of me guessing every single Amiga flying game. Maybe I'll just take half a point for identifying that it's an Amiga game.
DeletePorkins and Eckhardt are the same actor? Huh. It's obvious now I think of it, but I never spotted it.
ReplyDeleteThe guy who plays Harvey Dent looks familiar too.
Oh, and I see this game was Flight of the Amazon Queen, and the Next Game has a "flight" button in the screenshot, so either the theme for 2022 is "flight" or each game will have a clever link to the next.
ReplyDeleteOr it's a coincidence.
That's a 'fight' button, sorry. Though it does say 'pilot' next to it...
DeleteAh, I see what's happened here. It's a classic 'fight or flight' response.
DeleteHehehe
Deleteawesome ! Back to graphic adventures. I beat this game in 2020 after being in my list for 25 years. It reminded me a lot to Simon the Sorcerer 1 (and LucasArts games as well). I had to use walkthough a lot of times, I didn't find the game easy, tons of backtracking.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what the next game is, reminds me of that weird first Dune game, which had adventure and flying sequences.
I cheated and looked at the filename of the image. I confidently predict that the next game is going to be the classic late-period Amiga space station management title VvXsEhtdl13nZRPPKBVFKrkh txkkXZ3w1FlnZoAw1hem2qZI 5S6BwZBwP3OUbd__vRM2djb1 D9lVlhDGHlipw79nwcFjcXVq Tv1i_ZZ5vyQWuWSxYfwVy-Up XLnadGKH3Nishnl0fx-ggHJz DjrE246PQ87u0-JwhSET0Qz4 FWMCT5rGUznhoKayPWsZBAh =s80.
DeleteYou mark my words.
Ah yes, I remember it well. Only released in Belgium and Poland, as I recall.
DeleteSorry, Blogger's started doing that with my filenames lately and it's annoying. The original filename was 'Flight_of_the_Amazon_Queen_next_game.png".
DeleteGood write up!
ReplyDeleteI got Flight of the Amazon Queen on a demo disc attached to a PC mag back in the day, so had only played up until the hotel escape - until last week that is, when I managed to get through the entire thing using ScummVM on my Android phone during a 23 hour transit from UK to Sydney.
Was pleased to only need a walkthrough reference twice - and I think in one instance it was because the order in which I combined two items in my inventory was the wrong way around (though I was quite sleep deprived at the time so perhaps I imagined having tried it before).
As you mentioned, fast traveling between exits would have been a very welcome feature as a LOT of time was spent walking through familiar but unnecessary screens to get from A to B.
Overall really enjoyed it! Did you know the original developer recently announced a sequel?
http://amazonqueengame.com/
...though unfortunately (imo) it seems to have a whole new art direction. I would have really liked to see them keep a lot of the graphical style and flair of the original, with some welcome enhancements.
Something about the display of the next game looks familiar, like it's something that I've seen before but maybe in a different game by the same developers; like how the Bitmap Brothers have that distinctive style. I actually thought it was one of theirs for a split second.
ReplyDeleteNew logo is cool and looking forward to the release format you're going with.