Hal Barwood

By Randy Sluganski

Hal Barwood is LucasArts's Project Leader for Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine.

Now that the engine is in place and the game is a bestseller, can we expect an annual sequel?

Indy will return for another adventurous bout with evil, no doubt ... as soon as he finds out where it's lurking next. LucasArts has never gone in for the "annual sequel" race, and I doubt we'll start now.

In Infernal, Indy matches wits with the "godless communists" circa 1947. What prompted your decision to jump so far forward in time from previous stories that were set during the Nazi regime or earlier?

It's a jump of about 10 years past a major watershed in human history, so it opens the door to new characters, new issues, new opportunities. A lot more fun than retreading the Nazis, don't you think?

How much final approval does LucasArts have over the storyline?

The Indy character is a property of Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL), and the story is something I cooked up. Naturally, LFL doesn't want their character appearing in situations inappropriate for him, but it was never an issue. As for LucasArts (LEC), once I pitched the concept, I was on my own. As the team assembled, the design broadened, and level designers, artists and programmers all had significant input.

Do you think Indy/Infernal has a greater appeal to action gamers or to adventure gamers?

Both, I hope. It was never meant to be a frag-fest, so it will disappoint those who just want to blast whatever is hiding around the next corner, and it will reward those who want to explore and discover an intricate world of traps and mystery. We made it tunable, so that action junkies can crank up the combat difficulty and adventureheads can back it off as desired.

Part of the Indiana Jones series' popularity can be attributed to its foothold in reality. Is the plot of Infernal based on historical fact, or is it entirely fiction?

It's as fictional as I could make it, but like all Jones adventures, the plot springs from reality. Babylon, a real city that flourished under King Nebuchadnezzar II around 600 BCE, is a well-explored archeological site, about 50 miles south of modern Baghdad. Marduk was the principal god of the region. Scholars believe that the ruins of Marduk's temple, Etemenanki, is the biblical Tower of Babel. Presumably there's no machine under there, but who knows? The oldest known real machine is a set of bronze gears found by sponge divers in a shipwreck off the coast of Greece in 1900. This stunningly modern-looking mechanism dates from 78 BCE and pre-dates the widespread use of mechanical devices by a thousand years. It got me wondering about ancient technology being more advanced than is commonly supposed, and I thought Indy would be just as intrigued by such artifacts as I was.

Did you find it restricting to create a game around a character with a pre-established identity? Do you feel this handcuffed your creativity or inspired you to focus more on the storyline?

Well, it is restricting, as it oughtta be. Indy is Indy, and no one wants to find him in a court room drama, or silly comedy, or in long-winded conversations wherever he is for that matter. But he doesn't come with any fictional history. There is no "Indy Universe" like the "Star Wars Universe." Instead, he inhabits the real world from a certain historical period and gravitates toward the most exotic parts thereof. So, when we do a Jones game, we get a character ready-made, and it's our job to maximize his potential in an exciting tall tale.

Do you think it helps or hinders sales that Harrison Ford will not do voice-overs for his computer game character?

I don't think it matters. In the movies, Harrison is the star, and we all admire and enjoy his derring-do. In a game, the player is the star. Some of the time, the player feels like s/he's guiding Indy, some of the time the player feels like s/he actually is Indy. But Indy is Indy, neither Harrison nor the player really--a set of larger-than-life character ideas. In addition, I think most people realize that movies are a certain kind of entertainment and games another. Indy has at least three identities, the film icon, the character in the novels, and the figure running, leaping and whipping his way past the Communists in our latest game.

Do you find it frustrating that every review of Infernal has inevitably compared the game to the Tomb Raider series?

No. I liked TR1 and TR2, and we're vaguely in the same genre, so comparisons are natural, just as happens with Star Trek and Star Wars. At the level of actual experience, they diverge rather sharply.

Can you give us a specific example of something you did in Infernal that players could point to and say, "This is better done than it was in the Tomb Raider series?"

There is no one thing. We're not in a feature competition with anyone, nor do I like to think about games that way, as if they were productivity software. For me, the overall feel and fun are paramount, so how about the story?

Is there any one puzzle or action sequence in the game that is meant to separate the men from the boys (or the Indys from the Laras, so to speak)?

Combat and puzzle sequences are by nature unpredictably easy or frustrating. What one player finds impossibly difficult others breeze right by, depending on mindset. There's some pretty heavy combat in the Volcano, transforming the caretaker of Shambala is a long, sustained physical puzzle that requires determination, and locating all the riches of King Sol's mines is definitely a challenge. Games like Infernal Machine are meant to be completed, so we actively try to make the going fun. We included chalkmarks and a hint system to help players find their way around, and a difficulty scale to tame the timing puzzles and combat for those who are simply overwhelmed. From what I've been reading, some players have had trouble identifying how to zap the Ice Boss, so I hereby reveal--find and use Urgon's Infernal Machine Part and shatter the guy! And there are reports coming in that players haven't learned to power up their whips after defeating Marduk's first incarnation. Make sure you charge your whip multiple times!

The actor from Fate of Atlantis voiced Indy/Infernal also, which makes for a nice sense of continuity. Are there any other voices in Infernal we should recognize?

Indy's voice is Doug Lee, the perfect Indy in a game. He's particularly adept at doing those thinking-out-loud lines that help players stay on track. They're all talented voice talents more generally heard than seen, but Bruce McGill is an accomplished character actor who has appeared in a number of films including Animal House and My Cousin Vinny.

Indy/Infernal is very story-driven and linear in nature. Is there any possibility that a sequel could have a chapter where we play as Indy and then a chapter where we play as Sophia as a way to immerse ourselves deeper into the story?

That sounds like a lot of work, a lot of design difficulty, and in a Jones game where the hero is so prominent, maybe not. It's something I did in Fate of Atlantis, and something I'm interested in for slightly different kinds of stories.