Qin

TOMB OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM

CD-ROM Thinking Game Reveals One of the World's Greatest Unexplored Archaeological Sites

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Located in Lishan, in western China, the burial tomb was constructed to immortalize a man -- who by the age of 39 -- had managed to unite China and put an end to centuries of warfare. He built great cities and monumental public works, including the Great Wall, but the price of his leadership was his ruthless suppression of all dissent. The reward for the thousands of laborers and artisans who built his tomb was death.

This was the only way the Emperor felt he could guarantee the security of the mass of the treasures buried with him and his eternal slumber. Archaeologists have long claimed the official reason that the tomb has never been excavated is a lack of funding. However, those familiar with the history and the lore of Qin conjecture another reason: mortal fear of what lies inside.

Now through the magic of QIN: TOMB OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM, players can enter the tomb as an amateur archaeologist and unlock Qin's mysteries through solving a series of puzzles and surviving a series of pitfalls. A labor of love for LTI President Luyen Chou, QIN is a personal as well as a professional landmark for the 28-year-old New York native. Chou's father, who was born in China, took his son to the burial mound on a family trip which sparked Luyen's curiosity about the treasures buried below. The senior Chou, a professional composer, worked with his music students to write an original score which has become the soundtrack for the CD-ROM. He also provided a plethora of text, photographic and encyclopedic references that went into the structure of QIN.

In the Soho, New York multimedia suites of LTI and the San Francisco studios of View-by-View, a battery of laborers, graphic artists, creative directors, architects, Chinese historians, computer engineers, and illustrators spent untold hours fine-tuning their masterpiece. Somewhat like the laborers of Qin's ancient tomb, the CD-ROM's developers sweated through fourteen months, four and one-half seasons, including a sweltering summer and the distraction of the Simpson trial. The only difference between them and their predecessors: Luyen, their merciful emperor, let them live.

The many unique accomplishments by the QIN: TOMB OF THE MIDDLE KINGDOM development team include:

• Over 1,300 images were generated for QIN, all of which were rendered in 3D by View-by-View and photo re-touched in-house at LTI
  
• 300 storyboards were hand-sketched and collaged by the Art Director
  
• The core 3D architecture of the game was modeled by one person, in less than eight months
  
• Most images in the game were rendered by one woman, who was simultaneously breastfeeding and caring for her one-year old daughter
  
• Production for QIN spawned LTI offices in New York City, Dallas, San Francisco, Bulgaria and Columbus, Ohio
  
• Actual liquid mercury was filmed for the Memory Chamber in the Crypt Realm
  
• An entire authoring language called LILT was developed for QIN
  
• The ambient wind effects in the sound track were modulated by playing the recordings in reverse

Learn Technologies Interactive develops cutting edge educational and informational multimedia products. From reference works to educational games to curriculum products, LTI sets the standard for a new class of learning software.

Time Warner Electronic Publishing is an arrangement of Time Warner Trade Publishing, comprised of Warner Books, Inc. and Little, Brown and Company, with interests in on-line commercial services, the Internet, original CD-ROM development, a books on floppy disk publishing program called Time Warner Quick Reads and the creation of the on-line mystery games, S.P.Q.R. and Modus Operandi (available on America Online, Prodigy and GEnie).

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