THE MAKING OF: AFTERLIFETHE MAKING OF: AFTERLIFE
gluttony, simply displays his dating profile,
outlining his stinginess, high libido and hatred
for drag racing. Klak’taklun’rk, on the other hand,
committed the sin of wrath; her habit of giving
generously to charity outweighed by taking credit
for other people’s work. The game’s pause menu,
meanwhile, brings up throwaway lines like “Game
pause, dog paws, we all pause, for game pause.”
When the demiurge essentially loses too much
money, a SimCity-style disaster is triggered,
where the Four Surfers Of The Apocalypso sweep
in to destroy the entire afterlife. If gamers use
cheat codes three times, they are punished by
the arrival of a Death Star, hovering over hell, and
sporadically destroying buildings.
Although Afterlife enjoyed some critical success,
Mike says it was a ‘commercial dud’, and “even at
their most experimental, LucasArts was interested
in making a buck”. He adds: “LucasArts almost
clawed back some of my Sam & Max royalties on
account of its dudness.”T
he game’s main shortcoming, he
concedes, was that it was too niche.
“Building games to amuse oneself is a
great way to create capital-A art, but it’s
a lousy way to capture a large-scale audience.”
He did, however, sufficiently rile up one “confused
young man” enough to send in a “vaguelyDEVELOPER
HIGHLIGHTS
THE SECRET OF MONKEY
ISLAND PICTURED
SYSTEM: VA RIOUS
YEAR: 19 9 0
INDIANA JONES AND
THE FATE OF ATLANTIS
SYSTEM: VA RIOUS
YEAR: 19 92
SAM & MAX:
HIT THE ROAD
SYSTEM: VA RIOUS
YEAR: 19 93threatening letter”. He continues: “But we get
vaguely threatening letters when we change Max’s
voice actors, so that’s kind of par for the course.
In the end, I think Afterlife was too silly to get
anyone’s knickers in a twist – which is what we
were going for all along.”
Though Mike has few regrets, two in particular
do spring to mind. “Originally, every tile in the
game was supposed to get a beautiful portrait of
its reward or punishment, not just a few. I wish
we could have had the budget for that. Also, in
hindsight, we really should have programmed the
silly thing in C++.”Zoning a 7x7 grid in a certain manner unlocks
the Mother Shak building, an Easter egg with
a message outlining Mike’s views on purpose.
Looking back, he reflects: “When I designed
Afterlife I was still a Roman Catholic, conflating
my love of a good story with evidence of a divine
creator. In the years since, I have transitioned to
full-blown atheism. I still love a good story, and
believe that the stories we tell can shape the
world – but I recognise that they are, in the end,
only stories. For the moment, my interest in the
spiritual is at a low-ebb. I’m much more interested
in the cosmic at this juncture in my life.”It was completely
unlike any of the
other projects at the
company
Mike StemmleAVARICE
SHOCK MARKET
QHere, stockbrokers attempt to amass enough
riches to buy their way out of hell. It always ends
the same way, with them hurling themselves off
the 58th floor of Shock Market Towers – only to
survive, and repeat the process all over again.WROTH
ILLUMINATILAND
QThough it resembles heaven, residents of
Illuminatiland soon begin to grow paranoid,
increasingly spotting patterns and conspiracies –
which fall upon deaf ears. After being kidnapped
by Men In Black, they descend into madness.LUST
ROBOTO
QHere, lustful souls, addicted to the pleasures
of the flesh, are trapped inside robotic bodies,
unable to hear or feel anything. A sensory
deprivation tank on legs, they must roam a city
of similarly trapped hedonists.» [PC] If the Four Sur fers Of The Apocalypso show up, it means you’re absolutely aw ful with money.RETRO GAMER | 83