Game 154: Inca II: Nations of Immortality (1993) – Introduction

By Ilmari

I see there’s a World War I pilot ace in this game. I wonder whether he will fly a Sopwith Camel

Among the usual marketing puffery (“truly interactive movie”, “a great variety of breathtaking landscapes” etc.) I see an interesting detail: the Inca series is supposedly an ethnofiction saga. Ethnofiction, a subgenre of docufiction, should lie somewhere between pure ethnographic documentary and outright fiction, picturing real native people, but introducing fictional elements not really grounded in reality. For instance, in an early example of the genre, Moana (1926), the director persuaded young Polynesian girls to change their Western-style clothing to traditional grass skirts (they were filmed topless, of course, because nothing makes a documentary more interesting than an ethnographic study of female nudity) and bribed a young man to go through an outdated and gruesome tattooing ritual (whatever it takes to make your ratings go up).

Getting back to the Inca series, this means that although the games contain fictional elements, they should also have a strong documentary foundation. Cocktel Vision must have used the latest technology to contact the well-known Incan space empire and to take some breathtaking shots of their spaceships and especially of the space galleons of their enemies, the Spanish space conquistadores. Impressive, indeed, and no wonder then that there was a demand for a sequel.

Speaking of Sopwith Camel, Snoopy’s doghouse is not just able to fly (even in space!), but it is also bigger on the inside than on the outside, leading me to conclude that we are essentially dealing with a TARDIS, which makes Snoopy the world’s second most famous Timelord (the most famous being, obviously, James Bond)

Reading the story in the manual, we learn that the hero of the first game, Eldorado, became Grand Inca, ruling over Four Quarters of the Empire, known as the Tawantinsuyu, which extends across galaxies. Only the Old Lands (the Spanish conquistadors) refuse to join the federation. Recently, with the arrival of a strange and menacing asteroid, interplanetary communications have become increasingly hazardous. Eldorado has called a Council of Sages, made up of representatives from all over the Empire to discuss this new threat.

Unlike in the first game, we are not playing Eldorado, but his son, Atahualpa (named after the last Inca emperor?). At the beginning of the game, he is meant to take an initiation test, to show his worth to be received in the Council.

What, you can’t believe Snoopy is a Timelord, because he is a beagle? I dare to challenge you. Snoopy doesn’t look like a regular dog and several characters have just assumed he is a funny looking kid with a big nose. Furthermore, Snoopy can on occasion communicate with human children through thought balloons, making him clearly a telepathic alien

In fact, I have two tests to choose from: physical test, behind the gate of force, and mental test, behind the gate of wisdom. Not being very wise, I choose the gate of force and am instantly reminded of why I didn’t particularly enjoy the first game. Yes, there are still spaceship simulator phases in the game. This one is supposed to be easy, with simple target practice, where I have to shoot all the statues – lose one and you are out. As you might have guessed, it didn’t go very well.

This space left intentionally blank for you favourite Snoopy factoid (3 CAPs for each you can come up with)

Thus, I was forced to restart and choose the gate of wisdom. We’ll see in the next post what I found there. In the meantime, feel free to place your bets for this masterful piece of ethnofiction.

Session time: 15 minutes
Total time: 15 minutes