First and foremost, we would like to thank our play testers Stephan Lyon and Joe Gervais. Both Stephan and Joe spent a long time playing Jewel of Arabia and provided us with so much valuable feedback, that it's impossible to enumerate it all. Almost all of their suggestions were incorporated into the game, and it is better and more playable because of them.
Before writing the first line of code, we spent months researching the history of the vast region known romantically as "Arabia". This was probably the single most rewarding aspect of writing Jewel of Arabia. We learned about civilizations and cultures, that prior to this game, were just a vague blur to all of us. We incorporated into the game the rich legends, history and mythology from many of the ancient world's greatest civilizations, including Persian, Arabian, Indian, and Greek.
The following authors provided tons of inspiration for the game. If you enjoy the stories and the mythology of the ancient Near East in Jewel of Arabia, seek out any one of these authors and their work for more great reading.
Joseph Campbell. More than any other work, "The Hero with a Thousand Faces", by Joseph Campbell, served as a constant reference book and source of inspiration.
Sir Richard Francis Burton. Sir Burton is well known as the preeminent translator of "The Arabian Nights Entertainments". We referred often to the "Nights" for inspiration while writing Jewel of Arabia, but also to many of Burton's books which recount his fascinating adventures in the East.
Colleen McCullough. The book that got me turned on to history and to this area of the world was Colleen McCullough's historical novel, "The First Man in Rome". Though this series of books chronicles the fall of the Roman Republic, much of my interest in history and the Mediterranean region is a result of reading her well-researched and engrossing books.
Robert Graves. Robert Graves's "I, Claudius" picks up where McCullough's series ends and explores the Roman Empire through the eyes of the Emperor Claudius.
Helen Loveday. Helen Loveday's "Historic and Cultural Persia" provided a great deal of useful information about the Near East, and also much of the important background information on Zarathustra.
John "Lofty" Wiseman. Wiseman's book "The SAS Survival Handbook: How to survive in the wild, in any climate, on land or at sea" was where we picked up most of our knowledge of desert survival.
Najib Mahfouz. This Nobel prize winning author wrote the very modern, but historically inspired "Arabian Nights and Days". Much of our inspiration for the character of the Djinn came from his novel.
Firdausi. The 10th century epic poem "Shah Nameh" or "The King of Kings", by the Persian poet Firdausi, provided inspiration for several ideas and adventures in the game, and also the Equine and Shahna races.
Michael Wood. Michael Wood trekked over mountains and deserts, and passed through modern-day war zones in order to retrace the legendary journey of Alexander the Great as he conquered the lands to the East. His book and documentary film "In the Footsteps of Alexander the Great" provided a first-hand look at this region, and inspired several actual adventures in Jewel of Arabia.
Zafar Malik. All of the names in Jewel of Arabia were taken from Zafar Malik's book "Muslim Names and Their Meanings". I don't know what I would have done without this extremely useful little book.
C.S. Lewis. I fell in love with reading because of C.S. Lewis and the fondest memory of my childhood is reading his wonderful collection of stories, "The Chronicles of Narnia". The gentle and unforgettable faun, Mr. Tumnus, served as the inspiration for the peaceful Satyr race.
Frank Herbert. We couldn't write an Arabian-inspired story without making a few references to Frank Herbert's own Arabian-inspired novel "Dune".
Neil Gaiman. Gaiman's very popular graphic novel series lent its name to the entire Sandman race. And his story "Ramadan" was an early source of inspiration.
Alan Moore. Moore's treatment of power and immortality in "The Miracle Man", "The Swamp Thing", and "The Watchmen" helped shape the Djinn race.
Peter O'Donnell. Modesty Blaise is my hero, and a number of stories in Jewel of Arabia were inspired by Peter O'Donnell's great comic strip. In particular, his story "The Iron God" provided the inspiration for the Trog religion.
Walter Schumann. Walter Schumann's classic work "Gemstones of the World" was our reference book for information on the gemstones of this region.
Scott Cunningham. We referred often to Scott Cunningham's enjoyable book "Crystal, Gem and Metal Magic" when creating the magical system for Jewel of Arabia. All of the mythology surrounding gemstones was drawn from his pages.
Cally and Cathy Hall. Another very useful book was Cally and Cathy Hall's "Gemstones".
David Lean. We watched David Lean's amazing film "Lawrence of Arabia" for inspiration. And scenes from this film inspired the look and character of the Great Barren Desert.
George Pal. Director George Pal brought H.G. Wells's classic science fiction story "The Time Machine" to the silver screen. His vision of the mysterious and creepy cave-dwelling Morlocks provided the inspiration for the Trog race.
Various musicians. The exotic and beautiful music in Jewel of Arabia is a collection of classical Arabic and Persian songs that we found on the Web. We would like to thank all of the talented musicians who created these MIDI files and made them available to everyone via the Internet.
Dave Nalle. The Castiglione font used in Jewel of Arabia was drawn by Dave Nalle. He has designed many unusual and creative fonts, and if you're interested in seeing more of them, visit his web page: http://www.ragnarokpress.com/scriptorium.
Gary Gygax.All RPGs owe at least a tip of the hat to Gary Gygax, the founder of TSR and the creator of the role-playing game as we know it.
Steve Jackson. We referred many times to Steve Jackson's "GURPS Basic Set" in designing the game rules for Jewel of Arabia.
Phil Masters. Phil Masters wrote the "Arabian Nights" supplement for GURPS, which was also a very valuable reference.
James Cambias. We picked up a lot of useful information on desert terrains from James Cambias's "Arabian Nights" genre book for the Rolemaster gaming system.
Richard Garriot, "Lord British". Richard Garriot, creator of the immensely popular Ultima series of games, first turned us on to the entire computer role-playing genre.
Tim Phillips. Tim Phillips wrote the very popular Mac RPG Realmz. Before designing Jewel of Arabia, we evaluated many RPGs and a lot of our user interface was inspired by Tim's attractive and intuitive game.
Jeff Vogel. Jeff Vogel created the successful shareware RPG series Exile. Exile reminded a lot of people, including us, that an engaging story is still the most important element of any RPG.
Jewel of Arabia was written on a Macintosh Power PC 7200/90 and Power Computing Power Center 150 using Metrowerks Codewarrior. The 68040 version was tested on a Quadra 650.