Fountain of Dreams

Fountain of Dreams is a 1990 role-playing video game developed and published by Electronic Arts for MS-DOS as a successor to 1988's Wasteland.

This article is about the 1990 MS-DOS game. For the NES game with the subtitle "The Story of the Fountain of Dreams" in Japan, see Kirby's Adventure.
Fountain of Dreams
Developer(s)Electronic Arts[1]
Publisher(s)Electronic Arts
Designer(s)Dave Albert
Banjo Bob Hardy
Platform(s)MS-DOS
Release1990
Genre(s)Role-playing video game
Mode(s)Single-player

Gameplay
The starting location of the game.

The gameplay is very similar to that of Wasteland since Fountain of Dreams was originally intended to be a sequel to this game. It is noted as being "very unforgiving" near the beginning, making it hard to start the game without dying.[2]

Plot

The game is set in post-nuclear war Florida, physically separated from the continental United States by intensive bombing during World War III that sparked an enormous earthquake. Central Florida itself was hit heavily with neutron and chemical weapons, in order to destroy the life there and preserve the technology.[3] 50 years later after "The Change", life on the island of Florida is constantly threatened by mutations due to residual ionizing radiation. Adding to the threat are the deranged Killer Clowns, as well as three organized crime factions: the DeSoto Family, the Obeah Orders, and the Bahia Mafia. The player controls a small band of adventurers who set out to find the purifying waters of the legendary "Fountain of Dreams" to stop the spread of mutation.

Development

The game was originally intended as a follow-up to Wasteland, but neither Interplay nor any of the creative team that created Wasteland worked on it. In effect, the game engine is similar but was actually created from scratch, and in 2003 Electronic Arts dropped all claims that the game had any connection to Wasteland.[4] Fountain of Dreams was part of the beginning of a trend at EA to produce in-house sequels to its previous titles.[5]

Reception

Fountain of Dreams disappointed Wasteland fans, as it was a much shorter and smaller game. They and the press preferred to ignore its existence and hope for a "real" Wasteland sequel.[6][7] Computer Gaming World in 1991 described it as inferior to the predecessor, stating that it "incorporat[ed] all the worst features of that game, and not much of the good." The magazine noted that the game had no copy protection, "but then, a product like this probably doesn't need any."[8] In 1993 the magazine called the game "a horrible post-nuke loser" with an "inane plot, ridiculous combat, and terrible ending".[9] In 1996, Computer Gaming World ranked it as the 41st worst game of all time, stating "Wasteland got stupid as killer clowns, a silly plot, and fear of Disney ruined the sequel."[10]

References
  1. "Fountain of Dreams for PC Information, Fountain of Dreams Specs". GameSpot.com. 1969-12-31. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
  2. "The History of Fallout - Page 2". Gamebanshee.com. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
  3. "Fountain of Dreams manual". Retrieved 2013-10-06.
  4. "IGN Presents the History of Fallout". Uk.ign.com. 2010-07-21. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
  5. "The Artful Gamer · Electronic Arts, the Destroyer of Worlds, sets its eye on BioWare". Artfulgamer.com. Archived from the original on 2014-02-02. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
  6. "Induction Ceremony!". Computer Gaming World. February 1993. p. 157. Retrieved 6 July 2014.
  7. "The Wasteland Ranger HQ-Grid / Fountain of Dreams". Wasteland.rockdud.net. 2004-06-17. Retrieved 2012-07-26.
  8. Scorpia (January 1991). "Scorpion's View / Scorpia Empties the Fountain of Dreams". Computer Gaming World. p. 11. Retrieved 17 November 2013.
  9. Scorpia (October 1993). "Scorpia's Magic Scroll Of Games". Computer Gaming World. pp. 34–50. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  10. CGW 148: 50 Worst Games of All Time.
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