When Joe King arrives at a Buenos Aires hotel to fly a movie star to a photo shoot, he’s ambushed by rivals who steal his clothes to detain him. To escape, Joe disguises himself as a showgirl and sets off to save the star and stop a mad scientist taking over the world.
Featuring a larrikin hero, Amazonian tribes and booby-trapped temples, you can see the influence of Indiana Jones on Flight of the Amazon Queen. Likewise, it features some outdated references and terminology, but John Passfield and Steven Stamatiadis’ game is emblematic of the popular 1990s point-and-click adventure genre, which often incorporated cinematic storytelling elements.
It’s inspired by games like LucasArts’ Monkey Island series (1990), which use on-screen directions like ‘use’, ‘open’, ‘talk to’ and ‘pick up’ to propel the gameplay. In another daring escape – this time down a laundry chute – Joe ‘picks up’ two sheets and ‘uses’ them to create a rope, just one of the many puzzles players solve.
The game has since been ported to smartphones, with the addition of improved graphics, full voice acting, multi-language support and a play through of the interactive interview mini-game with audio commentary by John Passfield, one of the game’s designers.
Curator Notes
From the moment the player encounters the game’s hero pilot-for-hire, it is apparent that the game is really leaning into the genre’s reputation for comedy writing. Flight of the Amazon Queen is fun in every sense, with its comic book graphics and humorous puzzles.
Creators John Passfield and Steve Stamatiadis met in the local comic store in Brisbane and translated their love of comics and videogames into the foundation of the studio Interactive Binary Illusions. Working on Amiga computers Passfield, a programmer, created the bespoke game engine JASPAR (John And Steve’s Programmable Adventure Resource) and all the tools for creating Flight of the Amazon Queen. Stamatiadis, a comic book artist, created the art in the Amiga program Deluxe Paint. In 1996, the two-person studio evolved into Gee Whiz Entertainment. At the end of the 1990s, Passfield and Stamatiadis teamed up with business savvy Robert Walsh to create Krome Studios, where they made the iconic Ty the Tasmanian Tiger games.
Dr Helen Stuckey | Play it Again Project
Works in this group
Related works
Related events
Content notification
Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.
Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.
How to watch
Collection
Not in ACMI's collection
Previously on display
23 June 2023
ACMI: Gallery 1
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
188460
Curatorial section
The Story of the Moving Image → Games Lab → GL-03. Cluster 3 → GL-03-C05
Object Types
Computer game/Game