It Came from the Desert

About It Came from the Desert

It Came from the Desert (1989) is Cinemaware's 1950s monster movie game in which a geologist has 15 days to convince a desert town that radiation has created giant ants, and stop them.

It Came from the Desert in Depth

On 1 June 1951 geologist Dr. Greg Bradley arrives in remote Lizard Breath, California, to study a meteor crash site in the desert south-west of town. He soon learns that the meteor's radiation has grown the local ants to enormous size, but few believe him. Racing the clock to stop the ants multiplying and spreading, he must visit mines, farms, a pub, an airfield, the local radio station and more to find evidence, convince townsfolk and authorities of the danger and contain the infestation, eventually calling on everything from workers to the National Guard's tanks and fighter jets.

Inspired by dozens of 1950s monster films, above all the giant-ant classic Them!, and titled after It Came from Outer Space, it mixes point-and-click dialogue with first-person and overhead action scenes in a non-linear structure typical of Cinemaware. It is mostly detective work, with time as the key resource: waiting, sleeping at home or in hospital and driving all use it, and Bradley has until 15 June. If he fails, the ants spread and the game ends gloomily; the good ending requires finding the colony and killing the queen. Games International praised its replay value, noting "there is no way that you will be able to discover all the subplots in one game", and called its sound "the best I've ever come across in any game".

Making It Came from the Desert

Cinemaware released it for the Amiga in 1989, followed by an almost identical MS-DOS version in early 1991. A very different Genesis version by Black Pearl Software, an overhead shooter with craftable power-ups, was cancelled, and a TurboGrafx-CD version designed by David Riordan used full-motion video of live actors. Games International's John Scott rated both gameplay and graphics nine out of ten, saying "right from the opening sequence you know that this is something special", though he found the Antheads expansion too similar to the original. The game and its expansion were later released on Steam in a Cinemaware Anthology.