In the late 80’s and early 90’s, adventure gaming on the PC was at its prime, and LucasArts was one of the kings of the genre. Then, after the commercial failure of what is considered one of the greatest of all time in Grim Fandango, it left adventure gaming behind. While it seems that there is no returning to the genre for LucasArts, that doesn’t mean that the fans aren’t willing to pick up the slack. In fact, there are currently at least two games being developed as freeware titles that utilize variations of the SCUMM engine and feature the biggest IP’s in the LucasArts stable: Star Wars and Indiana Jones.
For those who missed out on the age of adventure games, the SCUMM engine enabled players to choose from a series of predefined actions located at the bottom of the screen and then apply them to various objects in the environment. This system made adventure games more user friendly than their earlier counterparts, which forced gamers to memorize a list of commands and type them into a prompt at the bottom of the screen. What made the pre-SCUMM system even more troublesome was that if the player didn’t type a command in the exact way that the game would recognize, they would be treated to (and become very familiar with) an error message.
Developed by a group of computer game enthusiasts that go by the name of Screen-7, Indiana Jones and the Fountain of Youth is being conceived as a “sister product” to the classic Indiana Jones adventure, Fates of Atlantis. Conceived way back in the year 2000, Fountain of Youth has had a rocky road thus far in its development, but it also appears to be one of the most ambitious fan-made freeware games ever created. While there has been no word on progress updates or a release date for the product for quite some time, there is a demo that can be downloaded to whet your appetite until the full version is finally released.
Han Solo Adventures may be an even more impressive endeavor, as it is being developed single-handedly by Star Wars and adventure game super fan, Stacy Davidson. Billed as ‘interactive fan-fiction’, Han Solo Adventures will follow Han during his pre-Episode Three exploits. Being fan fiction, there’s a chance that we may see what happens when Han and Chewbacca finally give in to years of sexual tension after a night of drinking at the Mos Eisley cantina. If that doesn’t come to pass, you can still be sure of one thing: Han will always shoot first. While there isn’t a demo at this time, you can keep tabs on the game’s progress here. In the meantime, be sure to check out the preview video to get an idea of what to expect from the game (sans voice acting) below.
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