Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is an action game developed and published by Atari Games for arcades in 1985. Based on the 1984 film of the same name, it places the player in the role of archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones during his battle against the Thuggee cult. The game was later converted to numerous home computers, including the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, Amiga, Atari ST and MS-DOS, while Tengen produced a version for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Indy must infiltrate the cult’s underground stronghold, rescue children enslaved in its mines, recover the stolen Sankara Stones and ultimately defeat the high priest Mola Ram. He is armed with his famous whip, which can be used to attack or stun guards, destroy some creatures, open the children’s cages and swing across gaps. Contact with enemies and hazards generally costs one life, making careful movement as important as fast reactions.

The adventure is divided into three recurring sections. In the mines, Indy explores a network of platforms and passages while freeing captive children and avoiding guards, snakes, bats and floor spikes. This is followed by a fast mine-cart escape in which the player must choose the correct tracks, avoid broken rails and prevent the cart from crashing. The third section takes place in the temple, where Indy attempts to recover a Sankara Stone from the sacrificial altar.

These three sequences are repeated with increasingly dangerous layouts and additional hazards. During the final cycle, the altar section is replaced by a confrontation with Mola Ram on the rope bridge seen near the end of the film. Defeating him completes the main adventure and opens a bonus stage in which the player collects golden statues for additional points. Three selectable starting difficulties allow experienced players to begin with more demanding versions of the stages.

The arcade game was notable for its colourful isometric graphics, John Williams’s music and digitised speech, including sampled voices of Harrison Ford and Amrish Puri. Contemporary reviews generally praised the atmosphere and variety of its three gameplay styles, although the high difficulty attracted criticism. The home conversions differed considerably in visual and technical quality, with the Atari ST version receiving particular praise, while more limited editions suffered from awkward controls and reduced presentation. Despite these inconsistencies, the original remains a distinctive early attempt to transform the major action scenes of an Indiana Jones film into an arcade game.