When last we spoke—waaaaay back in the coda to my Adventure Architect series—I wrote, "The next time you hear from me—maybe a month from now, maybe next year, maybe five years from now—it'll be because the first act of the game is done and ready to download."

Sorry, gang. I lied.

I know, I know. Annoying, right? Episode one still isn’t done, yet here I am again anyway. One thing I didn't lie about, though, was the fact that I'd continue working on Rise of the Hidden Sun. Working quite diligently, actually. Which brings me to the reason why I've decided to claw my way back to the light of day: I wanted to reward those of you who've been following this crazy little project since day one with an exclusive new two-minute animated prologue.

Think of it as a trailer for what's to come.

See, as I said way back in one of the earliest installments of Adventure Architect, I've always believed that adventure games have to start with the story and characters above all else. In the case of Rise of the Hidden Sun, that story begins with the game's hero, 'Rattlesnake' Jake Dawson, coming into possession of a treasure map and running afoul of the mysterious Brotherhood of the Hidden Sun.

I'd always known that the game's action would begin with Jake arriving at a crossroads, map in hand, to begin his search for the fabled Lost City of Cibola. But I also wanted to give the players some context as to how Jake got the map and what the larger story would be about. This prologue, which will play at the start of the game before handing control of Jake over to the player, tries to dole out that background information as deftly as possible while also being an entertaining little scene in and of itself.

The animation work was done by Wyatt Miles of Oregon-based Flash Potatoes, who's also doing some character sprite work on the game as well. It's based on a script I wrote way back in 2003.

So, without further ado, here it is: The official prologue to Rise of the Hidden Sun: A 'Rattlesnake' Jake Dawson Adventure!



To save for posterity, you can also download the video directly (right-click to save link/target).

It's been great to have the opportunity to share this animated short as a sort of post-script to my Adventure Architect articles here at Adventure Gamers. Now that my column is really and truly over (for real this time!), anyone wanting to keep tabs on the game's development can do so by bookmarking the design threads on the Adventure Game Studio and Adventure Gamers forums, both of which I update now and then with new artwork and progress reports. I'm also planning to overhaul the game's official website, Rattlesnakejake.com, with more exclusive new content before the end of the year.