How to play Raiders of the Lost Ark online
This game uses two joysticks at once. The right-hand joystick moves Indy and the left-hand one manages his inventory. In the emulator these are the Player 2 and Player 1 controllers, so you need both hands on the keyboard.
- Move Indy: T / F / G / H (up / left / down / right)
- Use the selected item: A
- Choose an item in the inventory strip: left and right arrow keys
- Drop the selected item: Space bar
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves, Alt + 0–9 loads
The Select and difficulty switches are not used, and there is only one game mode.
Gameplay
The year is 1936. Starting in an entrance room and a marketplace in Cairo, Indy has to reach the Map Room, work out which desert mesa hides the Well of Souls, and dig up the Ark. On the way you pass through the Temple of the Ancients with its Spider Room and Treasure Room, a mesa field, the Valley of Poison, a Thieves’ Den and a Black Market.
You pick objects up by walking over them, and Indy can carry up to six. They appear in a strip at the bottom of the screen, where the left joystick moves a small white marker to choose one. Items include a whip and a revolver, grenades for blasting through walls, a key, a parachute, a flute that keeps snakes and tsetse flies away, coins for trading and a shovel. Some characters, such as the sheiks, will trade with you or let you pass if you pay.
You have three lives. You earn and lose adventure points as you play, and at the end your score is shown by the height of the pedestal the Ark stands on.
Tips
- Practise the controls first. Try selecting, using and dropping items in the entrance room before going anywhere dangerous.
- Stock up on coins. The temple’s Treasure Room has an unlimited supply, and you need money for the sheiks and the Black Market.
- Keep moving when you attack. The whip and the revolver only work while Indy is in motion.
- Manage your six slots. Dropped items return to where you found them, so you can leave something and fetch it later.
- Carry the flute in the Valley of Poison. It keeps the tsetse flies off, and the mud there slows you down.
- Take notes in the Map Room. It is easy to forget which mesa is the right one.
The story behind Raiders of the Lost Ark
Warshaw volunteered for the project, met Steven Spielberg to discuss it and started work in mid-1981. He wanted new play situations rather than a retelling of the film, and he did not want the one-item limit of earlier adventure games, which is why the inventory has its own joystick. Jerome Domurat animated Indy, and the whole game fits on an 8-kilobyte cartridge.
Reviews were mixed. The Space Gamer called it the adventure cartridge of the year, while Electronic Games felt it fell short of the film. Warshaw disliked Atari’s decision to print hints in the manual, since they gave the puzzles away. Sales reports disagree; one account puts them under one million copies by early 1983, below Atari’s hopes. The cartridge also hides Warshaw’s initials, “HSW2”, and a cameo by a Yar from Yars’ Revenge.
Similar games to play next
- Yars’ Revenge – Howard Scott Warshaw’s first game, a fast shooter
- E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial – Warshaw’s next film adaptation, another item hunt
- Adventure – Atari’s original 2600 adventure, with keys, castles and dragons
- Haunted House – search a dark mansion for the pieces of an urn
- Pitfall! – Activision’s jungle treasure hunt, with vines to swing on