Despite the age of the game, the background art continues to stun. Why do you think time is kinder to a game like Fate of Atlantis than most others?

That, I don't know. I cringe when I look at it, myself. I tried letting my son play it and he could never get into it because of the animation. He's growing up in the Xbox universe! But one of the things I like about Atlantis is that we had so many limitations, including that it had to be realistic like the movies (as opposed to Monkey Island which could be highly stylized and cute) that we were forced to use traditional painting to pull it off. What you end up with is a little bit more of a natural feel to everything. I still like the scene inside the Mayan tomb. I can almost feel the coolness of the stone and smell the humidity. What can I say? James and Avril are very talented traditional painters and maybe that's what comes through in Atlantis, as opposed to cartooning that can be beautiful, but doesn't have as much tangible atmosphere.

With the game's excellent cover painting (a homemade poster of which hangs in my room!), you approximated the style of Drew Struzan. Did he ever give you any feedback?

No. I would have loved that because I always loved his work. It was a ton of fun to imitate him, although I feel I fell a little short. I did that painting in three days! I really needed a week. I still like the design, though.

How would you compare the work environment at LucasArts in the glory days with your experiences in modern game development?

There was a lot of good and bad back then. We had so much freedom, and that made for an exciting working environment. We were treated almost like a think tank. George didn't care if we made any money (even though we usually did). He just wanted us to push the envelope because he imagined it was all leading somewhere. However, too much freedom tends to breed a lot of BS. People lose sight of their objectives. I didn't care too much about computer games. I just liked being really creative, and getting paid to do it! Tell me the parameters, then get out of the way and let my try to impress you with it.

Politics is something I seem to be immune to, or perhaps too stupid to play along. So it was often frustrating when I would see people with a little too much creative freedom go to pieces. Atlantis was way over budget and schedule, for example. It could have been just as good, maybe better, with some clearly defined parameters. You know that old saying, "The time required to finish a task always expands to fill the amount of time available," or something like that. I'm not sure I'm saying that right, but maybe you get the idea. Flexibility is a tool for creativity, not an end in itself. Too much freedom produces a lot of creativity, but a lot of weirdness, too.

On a similar note, how has the role of art in games changed over the years from your perspective? Has it been a positive change?

Yes. Back in the day, programmers imagined themselves to be the creative leaders. Nonsense! Anyone can be creative, even we little artists. I enjoy brainstorming sessions. But I do not like uncreative people who don't seem to know they aren't. Nowadays it just seems the less creative types know it and back down. Also, everyone, including managers, seem to pay more attention to good ideas, no matter where they come from. Don't get me wrong, it's not perfect. But back at Lucasland I remember having programmers who weren't even good programmers critiquing my art... and what they were saying was wrong! There was a kind of turf war back then. They were literally trying to keep the artists from getting too much creative authority because it might make them look bad, or cause them to lose "power." It's something the artists still, to this day, look back and shake our heads about. Today is much better in that sense.

You're still involved with adventure games to this day, and I believe you're currently working with Bill Tiller on Autumn Moon's gorgeous-looking A Vampyre Story. What is it about the genre that's made it such an attractive place to devote your talents to for so long?

I'm not on "A Vampyre Story" at the moment. I did a lot of design, and some background art for it, but I'm now off painting and working on my own projects. I like the adventure games because they're just more visually attractive. I think of them as interactive illustrated books. Or maybe interactive films, but they seem more like living, interactive books to me. I enjoy the puzzle part of it most of all. Running around shooting monsters that pretty much look like every other monster in every other Xbox game, doesn't give me much of a thrill. I'm usually too busy looking at the designs everywhere, anyway. I like Halo mostly because it looks so cool. And there's another one, I think it was Bioshock, that just looks great.

I got my son to play Curse of Monkey Island (of which I did a few of the backgrounds) and he loved it. He wanted to get his friends to play it. It's the atmosphere and sense of art taking you to a place. Those games are "experiences," not merely something to kill time (or monsters) with. A good story, good artwork that helps tell it, enjoyable characters that, again, rely on artwork to come alive, are what it's all about for me. I like a good arcade game now and then, too. But if that's all there is, I'm too busy working on my projects to waste hours killing monsters.

What do you believe the advantages are for hand-drawn 2D artwork over 3D environments?

2D art relies more on composition for its appeal to the eye and brain. 3D art can be really fun, but for different reasons; it's more like a playground experience than an aesthetic one (in games, I mean). I like living in a world where we get to enjoy both. But in 2D art there has to be good composition, good sense of light to direct the eye around, yet still have staging for the action. The elements of good composition are wired into the brain so that well designed 2D satisfies the senses in special ways that 3D doesn't (but often can). And in adventure games it's harder to design backgrounds than for animated films, because in a film you see it for maybe a second, and the action is in one specific place.

In a game, you might find yourself staring at it for hours (God forbid!). So it has to have all the qualities of traditional painting, while giving the player plenty of things to explore with the eye, and allow space for lots of different action to move around in. And all the while it has to conceal elements of puzzles without giving them away. Now that is a tall order! And when you pull it off, all that went into it is sensed by the player and enjoyed on some deeper level. There's a feeling of order and sophistication that you don't quite get in a 3D game. Maybe it's not as fun to play for our modern generation. I don't know. But it's much more fun to create.

As someone who played a substantial role in an Indiana Jones project that many consider to be on par with the films themselves, what'd you think of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?

Oops. I was afraid of that question. I never saw it. Maybe I will when it's out on DVD. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is about as good an adventure film as they come. That was my only inspiration while working on Atlantis. I ignored that the others even existed. And I'm told the latest film is equally, if not more, ignorable (is that a word?). Remember how funny, yet suspenseful, Raiders was? They've tried to copy that in other films, like Sahara, but it never works quite the same way (with the possible exception of the first "Romancing the Stone" movie) because it looks like they're TRYING too hard.

In Raiders, Indy rises to the occasion to deal with trouble he's innocently pulled into, that he'd really rather avoid. There was magic with that first Indiana Jones movie, mostly because they were paying tribute to the old cliff-hangers they loved as kids. Everything since is just paying tribute to Raiders. Bad formula. But the kind that happens in Hollywood all too often (and in games). I give Hal credit that he loved those old cliff-hangers too, and I think he was bring a lot of that into Atlantis. And maybe with a little bit of Lawrence of Arabia.

Any anecdote or production story you'd care to share?

Let's see... You know, we had a terrible time coming up with the name. "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" now seems okay, but we thought it was awkward and spent hours in brainstorming meetings trying to think of something else. It just didn't quite work. I've had people ask me, "So, what was the fate of Atlantis?" "Well, it sank." The story wasn't exactly about the fate of Atlantis... not really. So there just HAD to be something better, but we could never find it. I think for a while some of us leaned toward "Indiana Jones and the Secret of Atlantis," but that doesn't satisfy, either. All our weekly project meetings would end with trying to come up with something else, and it always degenerated into silliness like, "Indiana Jones Does Atlantis," and "Indiana Jones and the Game With No Name."

I saw an interview with Jack Black where he said they had trouble deciding on the title for "School of Rock." They couldn't make up there minds if it should be "THE School of Rock," or just "School of Rock." I thought that was funny after having gone through it with Fate of Atlantis. The truth is, it probably doesn't matter. But when you're trying to make the decision you can get so close to the problem that you lose perspective. And all that's left is a collapse into goofiness. See if you can't come up with something better than "Fate of Atlantis." Send it to Hal. And trust me, he's heard them all. I wonder if anyone kept all those stupid titles we came up with. In the end, it's probably perfect as it is. So I still laugh to think we struggled so much with it.