Good evening. You are listening to Three Moves Ahead, and I'm your host, Rob Zakeney.

Joining me tonight, we have Three Moose Head founder, Troy Goodfellow.

Troy, welcome to the show.

Hello, hello, hello.

And we also welcome back to the show, our friend Chris Remo of Idle Thumbs and Campa Santo. Hey there. Good to be back. It's been a while, actually, since I've been on Thurme's Head. It has, but, you know, your life is so rich with cast as it is. It's true. I have plenty of cast in my life. So this month, we're going to be looking at how World War I has been presented in games,

and a part of that discussion is undoubtedly going to be how rarely that war is ever chosen as the subject of a game.

Part of that's doubtless due to the static nature of fighting on the Western Front,

but I think another part of the issue is the way World War I is remembered, or maybe more accurately, how it isn't remembered.

I think part of the issue with the First World War is that the world that it changed

remains a profoundly alien one.

Max Hastings in Catastrophe 1914, which is a really interesting history of the first year of the war.

In it, he writes about how that entire pre-war period seems almost divorced from any sense of reality that we know it.

He says, sepia-tinted photographs exercise a fascination for modern generations, enhanced by the

serenity which long-plate exposures imposed on their subjects. We cherish images of old Europe

during the last years before the war, aristocrats attire in coronets and ballgowns, white tie and

tails, Balkan peasants and pantaloons and fezzes, haughty, doomed, royal family groups.

So that's kind of why I want to talk about Jordan Mechner's 1997 adventure game, The Last Express.

Adventure games aren't something we talk about very often on the show, but we do talk about how games communicate complex ideas

and themes. And the last express remains, I think, one of the most interesting and perhaps

insightful works about the outbreak of World War I and the world that ended in 1914.

So to start out, Chris, I wanted you to lead off because you wrote one of the most comprehensive looks at this game for Gamasutra some years ago.

I was wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the development background behind The Last Express and what makes it different for most of its adventure game peers?

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