Illuminatus (computer game)

"Illuminatus" was a fictional computer game for the Atari ST computer platform, invented by the Finnish computer magazine "MikroBitti" as an April Fool's joke in 1989.

"Illuminatus" was claimed to be a 3D space trading and combat simulator very similar to "Elite" and "Federation of Free Traders". It was, however, described as much larger, more detailed, better to play and more fun than either of them.

The game was said to have been developed by two German developers, Jürgen Sternreise (programming) and Erik Dorf (graphics), who were new to the computer game industry and were actively seeking a publisher for their game.

The game sparked a huge amount of interest, both in Finland and other countries in Europe. "MikroBitti" readers were asking when the game would be available on the market and publishers wanted to strike a publishing deal with Sternreise and Dorf. In September 1989, the magazine had to admit that neither the game nor either of its developers had ever existed.

The article had been completely fabricated by the magazine staff, with Niko Nirvi having initially come up with the idea and writing the actual text. The surprisingly realistic-looking screenshots were done with Deluxe Paint II by Petri Teittinen. The magazine expressed surprise about how easy it had people fooled, as the developers' names should have been a giveaway. "Jürgen Sternreise" is approximate German for "John Star Trek", and Erik Dorf was a fictional Nazi officer in the 1978 miniseries "Holocaust" previously shown on Finnish TV.

One of the big points of the hoax article, as admitted by the creators later, was that the game was theoretically possible to make. There are many current games that fulfill, at least partially, the predictions. One of the supposed features was a modem-based 4-player multiplayer mode, an idea which has since come to fruition in form of server-based Internet games and MMOGs—"EVE Online" is described as "multiplayer "Elite", and might thus resemble "Illuminatus" a lot. The description of higher-level strategic sections of the game resemble the "Master of Orion" series.

In the 1990s, the Finnish demo group Future Crew, inspired by the original April Fool's joke, started to work on a PC-based space game called "Illuminatus". The project was never finished, but the tracker song "New Beginning" by Purple Motion was allegedly made for the end scene of the game.

References

*
*

External links

* [http://kaunis.to/archive/txt/illuminatus.txt Full transcript of Illuminatus review and later explanation] (in Finnish)