The Indian in the Cupboard

The Indian in the Cupboard
Developer: Viacom New Media Publisher: Viacom New Media Platforms: Windows, Mac OS Classic Released in US: December 1995 This game has a hidden developer message. This game has hidden development-related text. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused music. This game has unused sounds. This game has unused text.

I have a secret: there is magic in my room ...

Yes, it's just what you always wanted: the edutainment game based on the 1995 box office bomb based on the moderately successful children's book series. Some British American kid named Omri discovers a magic cupboard key that allows him to bring his plastic figurines to life to cause wacky hijinks teach him all about life in an Iroquois village! Except when he has to go to school, in which case they get lost in his labyrinthine prerendered 3D room and get eaten by a rat or something.

All written by the author of Dark Seed II and scored by the composer for Invader Zim. Here, Omri, this will explain everything!

Sub-Pages

Unused Audio

Unused Text

Easter Eggs

Several odd Easter eggs have their graphics and sound data buried at the very end of the main resource file.

The Clan with No Name

Long ago, there was an ancient clan called the Clan ... with ... the Clan with No Name. They all lived in a strange longhouse of many colors, where the ground would make even the strongest of warriors weak. One day, they all died, but now the designers and artists live in the sky. They ... and the producers ... and programmers ... but, but the artists rule them as the gods rule, because they are the ones that have the true vision! They are the ones who are creative! They are the true ... we ... we're artists, you know! We can do it all! We are the ones who make ...

The transcript really doesn't do this one justice; give that sound file a whirl!

This is the first of two hidden "legends" in He Knows the Sky's stargazing minigame, complete with graphics for their own made-up constellations. If this one is any indication, one of the game's artists was responsible for them. The most likely suspects are Kurt Mitchell and Terry Schmidbauer, the only male artists listed in the credits.

To do: Presumably this is triggered by a typed-in code like the other Easter egg -- what is it?

Hatman

Long ago, a funny little brother with a strange gustoweh came to live in our land. He went away, but now he lives in the sky.

The second constellation in the set, voiced by the same person as the first, features an appearance by Hatman, an in-joke who appeared in many other games developed by Viacom New Media. (A gustoweh is a type of Iroquois headdress, as the game mentions many, many times.)

To trigger this, type hatman during the stargazing minigame, then scroll to the far left screen and click on the new outline (note that this won't show up until the screen is reloaded, so it won't appear immediately if the code is typed while already on that screen). This access method is shared with several other Viacom New Media–related games, such as the Windows port of Earthworm Jim.

Pleasant Musical Interlude

This odd music track doesn't seem to have any associated graphics or any obvious purpose, so it's probably yet another in-joke. Note that the first song that plays is the popular 1947 rendition of "Peg o' My Heart" by the Harmonicats.

To do: Any way to activate this in-game?

Graphics

Cupboard

These graphics appear to be placeholders for the plastic figurines on the toy shelf, using stills of the regular character animations in place of the unique sprites. This is pointed to by the facts that they're stored as static images instead of animations, they appear early on in the game's resource file, and duplicates of the regular figurine graphics for Boone and Swift Hunter appear mixed in with these.

From left to right, these are Little Bear, Blooming Flower, Spalding, Shares the Songs, Runs with the Wind, Gentle Breeze, and He Knows the Sky. The pink line at the bottom of He Knows the Sky's graphic appears to be an error in the original file.

Note that Keeper of the Words doesn't have any placeholder graphics. That, combined with his extremely limited animation, suggests he may have been a late addition.

Boone

Animations of Little Bear sitting down and standing back up. A separate render of the last frame of the sitting animation is used at the end of the short version of the credits, but the rest doesn't seem to be used in any form. Their position in the resource file indicates they were meant for Boone's minigame.

Early	Final

Located among the other resources for Boone's minigame is an early render of the view from the bottom of the ramp leading up to the cupboard. It's very different from the final version: the lighting suggests the scene takes place at night instead of day, the "FASTCARS" parody logo was removed from the track, the modeling is noticeably different and less detailed, etc.

Placeholder	Final

There are several placeholder backgrounds located alongside the used ones, presumably used for testing the game before the final renders were ready. They're helpfully labelled with their location and what seems to be a code that would probably have been used to label them on design documents. This one shows the shelf to the left of the starting point.

Placeholder	Final

Looking down into the box fort to the right of the starting point. This reveals an interesting detail: from the player character's starting orientation facing the cupboard straight-on, right is "south", forward is "east", left is "north", and backward is "west". The last letter or two letters of the codes in the top-right of the placeholder images correspond to this orientation; for views looking up or down, there is an additional "U" or "D" indicating that direction.

Placeholder	Final

Looking down into the dresser to the left of the starting point.

Placeholder	Final

Looking down the hole in the top drawer of the dresser.

Placeholder	Final

Looking out of the bottom drawer of the dresser. For the final, this seems to have been changed from a hole leading to the floor to a separate screen allowing the player character to jump out of the top of the drawer.

Placeholder	Final

Looking down into the drawer of the nightstand on the right side of the bed (considered from a westward orientation). The books on top of the stand wound up blocking the view in the final.

Placeholder	Final

Looking up at the crane from the floor.

Placeholder	Final

Placeholder	Final

Placeholder	Final

Placeholder	Final

Omnidirectional views from inside the longhouse in the southwest corner of the room. Though it may appear that a door was added to the east wall in the final, it's nonfunctional.

Blooming Flower

A coloring outline for the Underwater Panther, as explained by some unused dialogue.

Runs with the Wind

	An animation of the green seed (or possibly bean) spinning. Oddly, its frames are stored as individual static images instead of as regular animations. The other animations below are stored in the same fashion.
	An animation of the white seed (or possibly bean) sprouting.
	An animation of ... popcorn? Sure, why not?

Keeper of the Words

An animation of a branch turning into a snake and slithering offscreen. This would have been another hidden creature activated by clicking on an apparently innocuous background element, like the leaves that turn into bugs. This one is simply never used anywhere.

He Knows the Sky

The first and last frames of the animation of the old woman in the moon's cat unraveling her net are skipped over in-game.

Miscellaneous

A file named ZZZZZZZZ.ZZZ is located in the main game directory. While some other Viacom New Media games contain hidden videos or other exciting content in a file by this name, in this case it's nothing more than a slightly modified version of the INDIAN.GNC file containing the game's code. The sole difference is that the last 0x0B5F bytes of ZZZZZZZZ.ZZZ are blanked with null characters, apparently overwriting some key section of the file such that the game crashes with an error if it is used to replace INDIAN.GNC.