Al Emmo and the Lost Dutchman's Mine is an adventure game created by Himalaya Studios for the PC. It utilizes hand-painted backgrounds and pre-rendered 3D character animation frames. The game is designed to be a homage to the classic Sierra and Lucasarts style point and click classic adventure games of the 1980s and 1990s.
This game is the first original and commercial game created by Himalaya Studios, although the same team is also responsible for designing the King's Quest 1 and 2 remakes at AGD Interactive, and drew upon this experience to create Al Emmo. The game runs on the popular Adventure Game Studio engine, and shows off some of the engine's more versatile features such as fully lipsynched dialogue portraits and its ability to handle complex animations. The plot is based loosely around a well-known legend in Arizona, the Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine.
The story finds our protagonist, Al Emmo (a feeble 40-something year old) stranded in the barren desert land of Anozira after being stood up by a mail-order bride whom he intended to bring home to impress his parents. After things fail to run smoothly, Al misses his train back to New York and is stuck in the wild west for a whole week—without money, lodging, nor any clue about what to do next.
As the plot progresses, another woman, Rita Peralto, catches Al's attention. She is the local singer at the saloon and also the most beautiful woman in town. Al believes he may just stand a chance, until a dashing Spaniard by the name of Antonio Bandanna breezes into town and begins upstaging him at every turn. Al soon discovers the legend of a lost gold mine somewhere out in the desert and sets out to find it, believing that if he can obtain the money that Rita needs to cure her financial troubles, then he can prove himself and his sincerity to her once and for all. The only thing Al didn't count on, was the mine being haunted!
