Laserschwert

Enjoy the sunny weather and the sound of the Atlantic shore, in The Azores and Mr. Costa: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (fan soundtrack) by Clint Bajakian, Peter McConnell, Michael Z. Land

I've added several versions of Steve Purcell's cover artwork for "Pipe Dream" to the opening post.

It's been a while, but there is still stuff in the works. Like these:

I've updated another track, The Coldest Year of My Life, which always felt a bit too loud to me, while it's actually a rather intimate moment when Indy talks about Sophia. Getting more familiar with the soundtrack, I've noticed several themes get used in multiple tracks, like what I call the Sunset Theme, as it's most prominently heard before the end credits while Indy and Sophia watch the sun set (but also during their balloon ride from Thera). Well, it's also used in the Coldest Year track, but I think it doesn't need to be there. There are notes present that suggest it was only inserted there after the fact. So I removed it here, to not have it be a repeat later on the album (once I get to the sunset track). So, apart from this edit, I've updated the instrumentation, and stripped down the opening part for a bit for more intimacy, at least until the track erupts into a sweeping romantic statement of the Coldest Year theme, as well as the Love Theme at the end. I'd say it sounds much better this way. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (fan soundtrack) by Clint Bajakian, Peter McConnell, Michael Z. Land

I think this is just for the new crowd, so that they don't think it's an action adventure. Sounds like a classic adventure game to me.

I've reworked Sophia's Atlantis Presentation quite a bit, replacing everything with my latest instruments, completely overhauling the balancing of the track, and now it's pretty much as perfect as I can get it. For me, a definitive highlight on the album. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (fan soundtrack) by Clint Bajakian, Peter McConnell, Michael Z. Land

Feel the gravitas and importance of academia in my latest track, Barnett College, which I imagine being the university's hymn, played as a chorale for brass and strings during official ceremonies. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (fan soundtrack) by Clint Bajakian, Peter McConnell, Michael Z. Land

Finally, some bad guy music (and cracking the album's 30 minute mark), with Ransacked Apartment, which is a track that combines the apartment cue with Kerner's theme and the "German Wizard Splits Atom" newspaper cue. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (fan soundtrack) by Clint Bajakian, Peter McConnell, Michael Z. Land

I've added yet another track, The Kiss, heard when Indy frees Sophia from the prison cell in Atlantis and the two get smoochie: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (fan soundtrack) by Clint Bajakian, Peter McConnell, Michael Z. Land

One part of my contribution to the box design was cleaning up the USA map that's seen on the back of the box. The idea was for me to upscale the original game's background, while Steve would just provide a few little icons to represent the different locations in the game, as he wouldn't have time in his schedule to re-paint the whole map. Right away it was clear, that those pesky longitude/latitude lines would never upscale cleanly, so my first step was to paint those out: Easy enough, right? Let's get to upscaling (correcting the non-square-pixel aspect ratio while we're at it)! Eww... well, clearly this wouldn't work, neither with the text overlay nor Sam & Max themselves. Luckily, Steve offered to repaint those overlays as well, so back to the original background, to give Steve some space to work his magic. Recreating the game's ugly banding was actually harder than I expected, but after all it turned out fine. Back to upscaling! Ah, much better. Using a combination of different ESRGAN models allowed me to not only get nice outlines, but also reign in the banding, which I so faithfully re-created. Ah, well. But this was still looking a bit too clean, so it just made sense to add a bit of a brush texture overlay. Yes, that'll do. For the coordinate grid, I just recreated the lines at high resolution. Now comes the real magic, once Steve adds his overlays. It still boggles my mind that so many years later, we are getting brand-new HTR art from Steve Purcell! Steve also added the brushy lines and scribbles along the route... ... and Jake then wrangled it all into a beat-up, folded map, tying it all together for the back of the box. The end.

I think the game requires quite a beefy PC, so if you don't have that, it's probably the most expensive option, followed by getting an Xbox. Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is a game streaming service that costs something between 10 to 30 bucks a month, and only needs a fast and stable internet connection to stream Xbox games to your PC/tablet/phone/VR headset/smart TV. I think a few games don't even need a paid subscription (like Fortnite), so those might be a good way to check if streaming works for you. I've never tried it myself, but according to different reviews, the experience might vary. It seems to be the cheapest option though. I don't know if renting consoles and games is still a thing? I know in the 90s and 00s it was possible, and a cheap way as well. But ever since consoles required actual online accounts that tie a console to a player, it's probably become a bit more complicated.

There's always Xbox gamepass to stream the game to any hardware (even a lot of smart TVs). You just need a good internet connection.

Even though I somehow don't manage to get much traction for this soundtrack, I've added yet another track: Crete Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis (fan soundtrack) by Clint Bajakian, Peter McConnell, Michael Z. Land

Same. And in no way will I be able to wait until spring to play this on my PS5. Luckily my WFH machine is quite a beast, and I just successfully set up Steam Remote Play to stream the game to my laptop downstairs, hooked up to my 82'' TV. This will be glorious!

Gordy Haab's soundtrack album releases tomorrow, with samples already up at Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/nz/album/indiana-jones-and-the-great-circle-original-video/1783178826