Flight of the Amazon Queen

Flight of the Amazon Queen

Flight of the Amazon Queen Box art
Developer(s) Interactive Binary Illusions
Publisher(s) Renegade Software
Designer(s) John Passfield
Steve Stamatiadis
Engine AMOS
Platform(s) Amiga, MS-DOS
Release date(s) 1995
Genre(s) Adventure
Mode(s) Single player
Distribution 1 CD-ROM (DOS)
6 Floppy disks (DOS)
11 Floppy disks (Amiga)

Flight of the Amazon Queen (FOTAQ) is a graphical point-and-click adventure game by Interactive Binary Illusions originally released in 1995 for Amiga and MS-DOS and re-released as free software in 2004[1][2] for use with ScummVM. It is very similar in style in many ways to LucasArts' many popular point-and-click adventures of the 1990s, and was inspired by Monkey Island[3] and Indiana Jones.[4]

Plot

Taking place in 1949, the game is a pastiche of adventure serials and pulp magazines of the time.

The player assumes the role of Joe King, pilot for hire and owner of the Amazon Queen airplane, who crash-lands in the Amazon jungle and subsequently has to save not only his passenger, the famous movie star Faye Russel, but also an entire tribe of Amazon women and even the world from a mad scientist and his lederhosen company, who have concocted a vile scheme to turn Amazons into Dinosaur warriors using his DinoRay invention.

The game includes multiple allusions to Indiana Jones (images of their main character and his fear of snakes).

Releases

Prior to release, the game was sent by the publisher to Future Publishing's Amiga Power magazine, to be reviewed by Jonathan Nash in issue 51. Whilst playing he found an error which prevented progression through the game (at the start, the bellhop would not relinquish the door key). He informed the publisher which resulted in the game release being delayed for several months as, at the time, the game had been sent to the disk duplication factory ready for reproduction. As it was also too late to change the magazine content and layout, the issue went to press with an apology that they had unintentionally reviewed an "unfinished" game, which was against one of their policies.[5] The screenshots for the issue came from the PC version, also against their policy. The front cover of this issue featured an artist's impression of the 'escape from Rio' car chase scene.[6]

The Amiga version had no voices, whereas the DOS CD version was a talkie featuring full voice-acting. The voice of the Temple Guardian was provided by British actress Penelope Keith. Actor William Hootkins, who played Red Six (Jek Porkins) in Star Wars, also voiced a number of characters.

The DOS CD version contained a Mini-Game of sorts. The file Queen.1 (1.82MB, CRC: D72DCD56) is found in the INTERVIE folder in the CD-ROM's Root. The Mini-Game is a fully playable adventure game, where the main character tries to get an interview from the game's development team. The game features MIDI music and full text, but no talkie version was ever released. The Mini-Game features familiar locations, characters, and game spoilers. The Mini-Game usually goes unnoticed as it is not bootable or playable from within the main game. The Mini-Game is fully supported by the recent ScummVM release.

In March 2004, the game was released as free software and support for it was added to ScummVM, allowing it to be played on Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, and many other operating systems and consoles. The datafiles for both the floppy disk and CD-ROM version are available from the ScummVM website. The Fedora RPM software repository has an installer for the game alongside ScummVM. This game is directly included in the Debian software repository.

In 2009, iPhSoft took ScummVM's FOTAQ iPhone / iPod Touch free port and modified it. This modification is being commercially sold on iTunes.

In 2013 released at GOG.com as a digital download ready to play on modern PCs.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate scores
AggregatorScore
GameRankings72.50% (iOS)[7]
75.00%[8]
Review scores
PublicationScore
Adventure Gamers[9]
Pocket Gamer7/10 (iOS)[10]
Slide To Play3/4 (iOS)[11]

Flight of the Amazon Queen received generally positive reviews from critics. At GameRankings the iOS version scores 72.50%[7] and the PC version 75.00%.[8] Pocket Gamer's Spanner Spencer called the iPhone release of Flight of the Amazon Queen "more of a direct conversion than an adaptation, the quality of the original still shines through and makes this an easy game to enjoy."[10]

References

  1. ↑ Gamershell.com (2004-04-26). Flight of the Amazon Queen Freeware. Retrieved on 2009-01-19.
  2. ↑ "Copyright file". Ubuntu. Retrieved 2009-11-15.
  3. ↑ Passfield, John (2007-04-27). "Scumm 20th Anniversary". Game Musings. Passfield Games. Retrieved 2007-05-15.
  4. ↑ Passfield, John. “Flight of the Amazon Queen” in Passfield Games. Retrieved on 2009-01-19.
  5. ↑ Nash, Jonathan. "Footnotes". AP2. Retrieved 2007-05-16.
  6. ↑ Amiga Power. Cover Image of issue 51. Retrieved on 2009-01-19.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Flight of the Amazon Queen for iOS (iPhone/iPad)". GameRankings. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Flight of the Amazon Queen for PC". GameRankings. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  9. ↑ "Flight of the Amazon Queen review". Adventure Gamers. 20 May 2002. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Spencer, Spanner (18 June 2009). "Flight of the Amazon Queen review - iPhone reviews". Pocket Gamer. Retrieved 26 May 2014.
  11. ↑ Kershaw, Stuart (12 June 2009). "Flight of the Amazon Queen Review". Slide To Play. Retrieved 26 May 2014.

External links