Why Blood of Atlantis? Inside the series's origins

Every tale has a beginning

The year was 1990-something. 

I was at my cousin’s house for winter break, and after having spent most of the previous year's break playing Secret of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge, I returned to find that she had acquired a new game. 

And it was based on something familiar: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis. 

I spent most of that visit playing the opening half of the game, hunting down Plato’s Lost Dialogue, and inadvertently selecting the Team path for the next portion of the game. 

But then I got stuck on the island of Crete, where there was a certain door that for the life of me I could not figure out how to open. I wandered around that (digital) island for days, but still could not figure out how to open the path forward.

And so I returned home, dejected, without having solved the puzzle. 

Now, due to some arcane law of parenting (sorry Mom and Dad if you’re reading), I wasn’t allowed to buy my own copy of the game, but instead was only able to secure a copy of the LucasArts Classic Adventures collection. This did not include Fate, but it did include other classics like Maniac Mansion, Zak McCracken and the Alien Mindbenders, and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. 

I satisfied my adventure game needs with the movie-tie in game, but longed to return to the voice-acted adventure I had previously experienced. 

Eventually, I convinced a friend to lend me his copy of Lucasarts Archives, which had Fate and Day of the Tentacle, and the rest was adventure game history. 

That game and the Atlantis mythology have stuck with me all these years (along with DotT, The Dig, and the Monkey Island series). 

So when it came time to give Beatrice, who previously was a secondary character in the Guild series, her own Quest, I was immediately drawn to the idea of her seeking out the Lost City. 

I had planted some of the seeds in earlier stories (go read Guild of Tokens: Relic Hunter to find out what they are), and this was the perfect opportunity to add my own spin on Atlantis. And to create a really fun adventure that captured the essence of Fate: puzzles, teamwork, and a bit of action. 

So from that beginning, Blood of Atlantis was born.

I’m not shy about its Indy roots, as you can see from our campaign header and our Pulp Homage variant cover. And while I would love to read new Indiana Jones stories, those don’t seem very high on the priority list of Disney and Marvel at the moment.¹ So it's up to our creative team to grab the mantle and deliver an all-new epic adventure for the modern age!

The Kickstarter campaign for issue #1 has about a week left, and we’re closing in on the second stretch goal, with a really fun third stretch goal after that, that you’re going to love if you're an Indiana Jones super fan.

The issue is completely done, clocking in at an oversized 34 pages, so you won't have to wait long to read it. And by backing the campaign, you'll help us start production of issue #2 right away.

If you’ve already backed the campaign, thank you so much for your support. We are a small team of independent creators, and it means the world to us that you have chosen to back our book.

1. A year later and I remain convinced that the screenwriter of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was a Fate of Atlantis fan, given the number of scenes that pay homage to the game.