Article:
In RETROspect #1: It Came From The Desert

In 1989 I was trying to tackle the difficult logistics of my first steps. There is literally no way I could have been more unaware of Cinemaware’s release of its ninth title ‘It Came From the Desert’.

I can’t say when exactly it was bought for the family Amiga 500, but it was definitely before I had the ability to form any real sort of cognitive thought, thus this game has the privilege of being one of my earliest memories.

Between 1985 and 1991 Cinemaware were well known for creating visually stunning, immersive games based on the genre movies of the 50s and 60s. Titles such as ‘Defender of the Crown’ and ‘The King of Chicago’ took on the concepts of Swashbuckling and mob movies respectively, and they also tackled such genres as sci-fi serials, Samurai and WWI flying ace films.

In 1989 they released their take on the B-Movie, a series of films which were a close approximation to what would have been created had everyone in America’s paranoia and anti-red xenophobia all bled out and taken the form of celluloid. ‘It came from the Desert’ was the result.

Paving the way for future non-linear and free roaming games, after showing a suitably foreboding and bleak intro cut scene, the game gives you pretty much free reign of ‘Lizard Breath, USA’.

The concept is loosely based on the 1954 Warner Brothers movie, ‘Them!’, in that a meteor carrying intense amounts of space radiation lands in a sparse expanse of desert, transforming the local ant population into truck sized, cattle mutilating leviathans. You play the town’s geologist, who through multiple choice dialogue must interview the town’s inhabitants and collate information regarding the ants. This will enable you to collect enough evidence to convince the town’s mayor that it probably isn’t coyotes leaving half chewed cars on the side of roads, so he can call in the National Guard to hold them off while you infiltrate the nest and destroy the queen.