THE MAKING OF INDIANA JONES and the LAST CRUSADE THE GRAPHIC ADVENTURE

WHEN GEORGE LUCAS AND STEVEN SPIELBERG WANTED TO TAKE INDY FROM THE BIG SCREEN TO CRT MONITORS IN CINEMATIC STYLE, THEY KNEW WHO TO CALL. WE SPOKE WITH THE LUCASFILM GAMES TEAM WHO HELPED SHAPE THIS POINT-AND-CLICK CLASSIC

- GRAHAM PEMBREY

In the autumn of 1988, bosses at Lucasfilm Games handed Noah Falstein a highly confidential, unfinished script of the third Indiana  Jones film. The brief? To design a graphic adventure that followed the events of the film, and to finish up in time for the premiere the next summer. “I was pretty overwhelmed by the responsibility,” Noah admits.

Noah was an experienced game designer by this time in his career and certainly no stranger to pressure. Four years earlier he had become one of the first ten employees of Lucasfilm Games after it was founded by Star Wars creator George Lucas. He had also just successfully produced the flight simulation action game Battlehawks 1942 for the company. But despite having no shortage of good ideas about how to make an Indiana Jones adventure game work well, this was a big project with a hard and fast deadline. “I think by early December 1988 I went to Steve Arnold, our boss (and still a good friend) and told him I couldn’t get the game out close to the summer 1989 movie launch without a lot of help.”

At this point two other esteemed game designers, who Noah says also remain his good friends, step into the story. Ron Gilbert paused work on what would later become The Secret Of Monkey Island to join the fold. David Fox had just finished