Interview with Secrets of the Luxor Designers

By Orb

Secrets of the Luxor is a perennial favorite to find and play amongst adventure gamers in the know. It was published in 1997 by Mojave. Mojave, despite publishing two well-made and very playable titles (the other being Sinkha), dropped out of sight, as did their creations, and Secrets as well as Mojave have both taken on a Eddie and the Cruisers kind of mystique, as gamers search for this lush, playable game.

Orb spoke to five creative minds behind Secrets of the Luxor, Mark Ahlin (3D graphics, video footage), Tanya Rizzuti (special effects), Adrian Ropp (special effects, additional 3D graphics), Del Ahlin (original score, sound effects), and Jared Atkin (programming, 3D graphics). The end result is a fascinating glimpse into the factors that drive the development of an adventure game.

How did Secrets of the Luxor as a project come about?

Tanya: I'm not exactly sure.

Jared: Well, the short story is, the CEO of Strata saw the success of Myst and, since Myst was done with Strata product, he thought that he could do that. So he formed Strata Interactive to develop a Myst-style game. I'm not quite sure why they decided to go with a story based on the Luxor Casino.

Adrian: To the best of my knowledge, Strata Inc., our parent company, sought out an alliance with the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, in the hopes of creating an adventure game in the style of the (then very new and popular) Myst. Strata planned to use footage and plotlines from the Luxor Hotel's theme movies for the game. It was to be the first of many titles from Strata's gaming division, Mojave.

Mark: After Myst was released, many of the smaller game companies in the industry were struggling to duplicate its formula. Myst was created with a little modeling package called StrataVision3d (known later as StudioPro), which was made by a company in Utah called Strata. The owners of Strata, having witnessed the phenomenal success of Myst, decided they too would hop on the bandwagon. They formed small game department in the basement, which would eventually called itself Mojave. Our objective was to create a Myst-like game with an Egyptian motif in as little time as possible. The original nine-month development plan for Secrets of the Luxor ended up taking three years.

How did the idea for the story come about?

Jared: Since I came in rather late into the project, I never really knew why they decided to go with the Secrets of the Luxor Pyramid theme from the Luxor Casino.

Mark: The story for Secrets was based loosely on the Luxor attraction "In Search of the Obelisk." I can't stress the term "loosely" enough. There were certain similarities—a magical obelisk, some time travel, and a bad guy named Osiris—but that's where the parallels ended. The Luxor story simply did not work for an interactive title.

The original story was nearly unsalvageable. We were convinced that the author conjured it while under the influence of some illegal substance. Picture this—A magical obelisk, brought from the stars by some space-faring, pseudo-Egyptian civilization and buried under the Las Vegas desert for safekeeping. Only they left numerous clues carved into rock (they had spaceships capable of interstellar travel but apparently still preferred rock as their primary data-storage medium). Having collected these clues, the humans would learn of the obelisk's true nature and, depending on their inclination towards good or evil, use it to make the world a Garden of Eden or a Hell on Earth.

We were forced to take liberties, such as placing the Luxor back in Egypt where it belonged ... sort of. (We found, much to our horror, that there is no pyramid in Luxor. There is a ruined temple, but no pyramid.) This and many other discrepancies were dealt with in an exhaustive backstory in the form of a journal that was perhaps a trifle too long (70 pages isn't that long, is it?) All in all, I think our version, as absurd as it was, turned out to be a much more solid and intriguing tale than the original.

Adrian: Because we were limited by the plot-lines and footage we received from Luxor for use in the game, we were not able to vary greatly from the theme movies at the hotel. However, we did consider which footage and story points worked for a game, and edited the footage accordingly. One place in which this is most evident in the game is the Colonel who appears on the monitor toward the start of the game. His role was cut considerably from the original. The original hero of the movie and his female psychic sidekick (groan) didn't even make it into the game.

Since we cut the hero of the story completely out of the game, we had to be very creative to get the amount of tension and audience participation needed to make the game work. We were very interested in making a game with a little more mystery to it. We tried, anywhere that we could, to flesh out the story and make it more rounded.

Tanya: The story was derived/modified from the theme rides at the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. I believe the Luxor hotel has changed its rides since the time we developed Secrets, but back then there were three rides that told the story of a man named Osiris and the discovery/effects of Egyptian time travel.

The first ride was a motion ride that took you through the Luxor pyramid on a flying contraption called a maglev, a cross between a speeder bike and a go-cart. (You can find a small version of this ship in Level Two.) Throughout this ride you were chased by Osiris, shot at with laser beams, and talked to by a giant Time Guardian.

The second ride was a like attending a Vegas talk show. (Picture Letterman with Vegas glitz.) You sat in an audience with a stage in front of you while the two main characters, a guy and girl, were talking to a host about how important their archaeological discoveries were. During the show, there was an eclipse of the sun—I never really did know why that was significant—it powers something or other—I can't remember this show very well. The only thing I really remember is that Osiris jumps into the future and takes the girl with him.

The third ride was a large Imax-like movie that showed the world how Osiris creates it in the future: A dark, dreary place with lots of destruction, etc., but cool flying ships nonetheless. In that world, Osiris kept the girl comatose in a futuristic mummy-like see-through coffin. She was the key to Osiris's power, I believe. Needless to say, she hadn't aged any, but Osiris had become so old his skin was starting to fall off. The girl's boyfriend (the maglev driver in the first movie) rescues her and together they ask for the audience to help them defeat Osiris by thinking happy thoughts or something along that line.

Well, with that summary, you can see a couple of items that we kept in the game. We kept the idea of time travel (Level Two) and the future that Osiris creates (Level Three). We also kept the maglev and Time God references. Other than that, we took liberties with the story—and the design. The levels we created had the same feel of each of the rides, but the look was of our own making. For instance, the first ride dealt with going to an underground dig, but none of the elaborate rooms we created were in the ride at all. That was all designed by Mojave artists. Same goes for the other levels. Osiris's future in the movie was completely different than what we came up with.

How was the music developed?

Tanya: Del Ahlin created the music. He was incredible. I would go in and say, hey, can you make the music in this room have a Danny Elfman feel? "Sure," he'd reply, and the next day he had a song completed. He was absolutely the best to work with. Incredibly talented.

Adrian: At first, we considered the option of using royalty-free music. However, the addition of Del Ahlin to our staff proved a much better solution. I highly doubt Secrets would have been so involving without his haunting music and sounds.

Mark: I'll let my bro handle this one.

Del: I believe Adrian Ropp was in charge of the original music and sound. Adrian, not being a musician, used free "demoware" music. Then, the company decided to merge with another software company (Morpheus) with a musician of their own (the other guys can probably tell you more about this period). The merger did not do well and broke up within, I think, about a month or so. The opening cinematic music was written by Morpheus's musician. After the break-up, it was back to "demoware." I guess it was decided that an entire game couldn't be constructed around demo music ... that's when I was hired on.

I wanted the game to have a "timeless" feel. For instance, if I had used music "styles of the times," it would not have the same effect a year later (not to mention five years later!). I tried to keep the first level to the ancient Egyptian genre as much as possible. The second level was more puzzle-oriented, and so I tried to stay out of the way as much as possible. By the third level, however, everything reminded me of a Timothy Burton movie. So that's the direction the music took.

I had the worst musical studio you've probably ever seen. In fact, it was limited to just a keyboard (Roland E-386) and some cheap sound designing software. It was expected that I create some beautiful musical score from nothing more than a cheap home keyboard. I would have liked to have purchased some nice equipment and make the soundtrack a little less cheesy, but unfortunately it wasn't in the budget.

(By the way, my daughter is an "Easter egg" in the hotel room at the beginning of the game. Go stand in front of the window and while holding down the keys "ctrl-B-A-Y" click the window. I think it's the Ctrl button ... I'm sure it's "B", "A", "Y" with either ctrl or alt or both. On a Mac, it's the same, only using the "option" button. Anyway, give it a try. There are quite a few Easter eggs in the game that I will let the others tell you about).

Overall, the game was a lot of fun. We all had fun in the making of the game. I'm not sure if the book written by Tanya and Adrian is still available, but if it is, you should probably read it. It pretty much sums up the making of Secrets of the Luxor.

How did you get involved in the making of an adventure game?

Adrian: I was originally contracted to Strata to work on a combination 2D/3D animated game in the vein of Dragon's Lair, but that project was cancelled and I was put on the staff of Secrets. Because of my love for hand-drawn animation, I was put in charge of all of the 2D effects of the game. (My favorite assignment was animated the death scenes in the first level. My biggest assignment was designing the mind-numbing puzzles of the second level.) I also edited and helped film most of the live-action footage you see in the game.

Tanya: I fell into this project, and I'm glad I did. I had never thought of making a computer game previously. In fact, the whole 3D thing hadn't ever crossed my mind. I had gone to college intent on being a watercolorist when I got out. However, after graduating with a B.A. (fine art emphasis), I decided it would be wise to obtain some computer skills to make my artwork more marketable. So I moved back to my hometown of St. George, Utah, and enrolled at Dixie College. I took every computer class I could jam into that summer: Illustrator, Photoshop, Director, StudioPro, as well as a noncomputer class called Television Production (which is the best way to learn about lighting and cameras, if anyone is interested). I had the same great instructor for three of those classes: Brett Marshall. He informed me that Strata (located in St. George at that time) might be hiring 3D artists for making games. I applied, interviewed, and got a job working in 3D and Director on a different project. When that project fell through, my teammate, Adrian Ropp, and I were assigned to work on Secrets ...

Jared: Well, I really enjoyed Myst. And I was facinated with the making of movies and I thought that would be fun. But I hadn't given much thought until, while going to community college, I got approached to join Strata Interactive. I didn't hesitate a bit, and I accepted the bucket of peanuts as pay and went to work.

Mark: I lived in a very small town. By chance, there happened to be a game company there. I sent them my work and they hired me.

How did the idea to use Apple's Quicktime VR Technology as a VR headset in the game come about?

Mark: The VR headset was not our idea. It was one of the few times the management at Strata shoved their noses into our business and demanded creative control. This injustice occurred relatively late in the game's development, and I think they were worried about it being technologically backward even then. As I remember, we all fought them tooth and nail, but it turned out to be one of the coolest parts of the game. It's a gimmicky little device and severely dates the game (most people seem to gaze away in amused nostalgia when you mention QTVR), but I think it was a charming addition.

Adrian: Frankly, the technology had just been developed and our producers told us to work it in somehow. While we know that it doesn't make any sense to wear a VR helmet to look around a real environment, we hope people will forgive us this slight tinkering with reality. I know that many people would still be lost in the first level without the VR headset and the camera.

Jared: Basically the upper management didn't have confidence in a bunch of kids being able to produce a good game. So there were always coming up with gimmicks to make the game better. Quicktime VR was one of those gimmicks. But it worked out fairly well. It could have been better, but it didn't come about until the end of the project.

What happened to Mojave?

Mark: Ultimately, Mojave fell prey to the same lack of professionalism that killed off most of the small game companies of the early 90s, due to the following:

We planned nothing—opting instead for a more organic, "spontaneous" approach (I imagine those who have played the game have arrived at this conclusion on their own).

We had owners who did not understand or even care about the game business. Months would go by without so much as a phone call from the owners up the street at Strata. It was an ultimately self-destructive relationship to be sure—and only a matter of time before they remembered our existence, but damn that was a fun time!

We cared about the game. More than we had any right to, really. I think any other group of people would have recognized their inevitable doom and given up. (In fact, most of the original team did abandon ship early in the project—their replacements were more steadfast, God bless 'em.) We wanted Secrets to be a high-quality product, and quality takes time. We sacrificed much of our young lives for that game.

Adrian: This is really the $40,000 question, isn't it. The fate of Mojave was heartbreaking to those of us who had put so much time into Secrets. We had all become very close and had found a synergy among us that worked. Because of a financial strain the company was currently under, the marketing strategy for Secrets was "word of mouth." You can imagine how many copies that sold. Unfortunately, I don't think the powers that be had enough faith that we had created something special and worthwhile, and the whole thing fizzled. Several more ideas were kicked around for games, but none were ever produced, and Mojave eventually ceased to be.

Jared: Well, Mojave, formally Morpheus Intercative, aka Strata Interactive, was put to sleep about a year after Secrets. But the death began before Secrets even shipped, with disgruntled employees leaving. Also financial problems with Strata caused many products to be neglected. Secrets was one of those products. I left Mojave about ten months after Secrets and went back to school. I made this decision because Mojave had become static and I could tell the end was near. Two months later it was.

Tanya: We were dissolved into an ad agency for a while and then became beta-testers for StudioPro 2.0. Eventually, we disappeared.

Are you aware of the continuing popularity of Secrets? There have been quite a few people that still look for it ...

Adrian: I was not aware of the immense popularity that the game has enjoyed in the fan community. I'm very pleased to hear this. (Hopefully some of you got the hintbook, too. We put a lot of funny stuff in there.) I did know that Secrets does very well in Germany and Japan, since Strata sold the rights for international sales to people who knew how to market a game. My advice to anyone who is still interested in Secrets and doesn't own a copy, call Strata and demand a new print run! Their number is (435) 628-5218.

Jared: I stumbled across a new review one day on the web. And I told a couple of other people about it and this set off a chain reaction of interaction and I was made aware of (it). It was great to see people enjoying Secrets. I was also able to help some people get Secrets up and running on their computers so they could play it.

Mark: I had no idea. I'd always assumed the only people who were aware of the game, besides the ones who made it, were a few loyal fans in Europe. That was the only place we ever got any marketing. "We were huge in the Netherlands," I often say. (A quick shout out to our peculiar little orange German friend, George—he was our overseas marketing manager. Thanks, George, you crafty little bastard! Keep the Swiss chocolate coming!)

Tanya: I had no idea that people were playing the game. I didn't think it was being sold anywhere. The game wasn't widely distributed because the money was focused instead on StudioPro's release. At least that is how I understood the situation to be: We had no money to advertise or get Secrets into stores. Instead, it was sold by phone and at the computer shows.

I'm extremely glad to find out that people are interested in Secrets. Along with the rest of the team, I put two years of my life into that game. We worked practically 'round the clock and on weekends and holidays for very little money. (We all had ideas about Secrets being our big break into the game industry ...) The money doesn't matter now, what matters to me is that people are actually getting to see the game and enjoy what we accomplished. I have learned, however, that marketing is everything.

Have you been involved in the production of any other games?

Tanya: No.

Adrian: I've worked on a couple of independent games, but nothing that has been published yet.

Jared: I'm currently working at a company named Saffire. We are currently working on their first original title, which is currently called Young Olympians, but this name will be changing.

Mark: I worked on Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus, painting 2D backgrounds. It was sort of a backwards move in terms of the industry, going from my previous experience in 3D to working on traditional 2D paintings. But I got the chance to work under the artistic mastery of people like Lorne Lanning and Farzad Varahramyan.

What's the Las Vegas Luxor Hotel connection to the game?

Adrian: I've probably answered that best on the first question.

Tanya: Again, we roughly based our story on their rides. We also used some of their movie footage.

Mark: As I have explained above, the connection was trifling. The owner of Mojave was determined to land a licensing deal with the hotel. I don't even pretend to understand why he thought that was a good idea. It ended up hurting the game more than helping it. On the other hand, if it hadn't been for those long, wearisome negotiations, and if the boss hadn't developed a mad obsession with the signing of that contract, Secrets might never have been allowed to be finished. His insanity kept the project alive.

Jared: Basically their job was to be a thorn in our side. If it was up to the individuals making the game, they wouldn't have had any connection at all. It was another one of those gimmick things. But this one was a huge failure.

Are you one of the guys in the developer's video in the hidden room?

Jared: Yep.

Adrian: Yes. I'm the guy whose face is made out of putty. I'm also one of the animal head voices in the trophy room in level 3, and, if you read the journal or the user's manual, you'll see that my name was actually given to the game's villain, Dr. Osiris.

Mark: Yes. But I think they replaced my photo with a human skull or a chimp or something at the last minute. Ingrates.

Tanya: I don't think I'm in there. My claim to fame is that I'm the computer voice countdown in the third level.

Any current projects?

Adrian: I'm currently working at Swan Animation on a series of classically drawn animated projects. Our first feature film, The Princess and the Pea, will be release shortly after more than four years of incredibly hard work. You can view my website for the movie here. I've just started production on a television series based on the movie, and there are several other projects buzzing around here right now.

Tanya: Yes. I'm currently working as a color key artist for The Princess and the Pea. I'm also using StudioMax for animation/3D environment work for the same company, Swan Animation. That's what I enjoy doing the most, so I'm quite content.

Jared: There is the one I mentioned in the above question. Also possibly something involving some of the Secrets team that would be worked on our free time.

Mark: I'm back in 3D now, my first love, and working on Oddworld's next epic, Munch's Oddysee for the Playstation 2.

What game are you playing now?

Mark: I don't spend a lot of my time playing games, just enough to study some of them and steal an idea here and there.

Jared: Half-Life, Motocross Madness 2, Soul Calibur, Super Mario 64, NFL Y2K, numerous other titles.

Adrian: I'm an old fuddy-duddy when it comes to games. I like the Oddworld games (that fellow Mojavian Mark Ahlin is working on right now), and I think N64's Mario Party is a lot of fun. I unfortunately don't get a lot of time to play games with my current job.