Fountain of Dreams

• Title — Fountain of Dreams • Developer — Electronic Arts • Publisher — Electronic Arts • Designer — Dave Albert Banjo Bob Hardy • Released — 1990 • Genre — Role-playing • Modes — Single-player • Platforms — MS-DOS

• Illustration — Starting location The gameplay is similar to that of Wasteland since Fountain of Dreams was originally intended to be a sequel. It is considered to be "very unforgiving" near the beginning, making it hard to get started in the game without dying.

The game is set in post-nuclear war Florida, physically separated from the continental United States by intensive bombing during World War III that sparked an enormous earthquake. Central Florida itself was hit heavily with neutron and chemical weapons, in order to destroy the life there and preserve the technology. 50 years later after "The Change", life on the island of Florida is threatened by mutations due to residual ionizing radiation. Adding to the threat are the deranged Killer Clowns, as well as three organized crime factions: the DeSoto Family, the Obeah Orders, and the Bahia Mafia. The player controls a small band of adventurers who set out to find the purifying waters of the legendary "Fountain of Dreams" to stop the spread of mutation.

The game was originally intended as a follow-up to Wasteland, but neither Interplay nor any of the creative team that created Wasteland worked on it. In effect, the game engine is similar, but was created from scratch, and in 2003, Electronic Arts dropped all claims that the game had any connection to Wasteland. Fountain of Dreams was part of the beginning of a trend at EA to produce in-house sequels to its previous titles.