Ports of Call

This painting was based on the intro screen of the classic Amiga computer game Ports of Call, released in the late 1980’s. Offering a sense of adventure through it’s exotic port locations and worldwide journeys, the game offered a way to experience what it might have been like to be a shipping magnate. Starting with just enough funds to buy a second-hand rust bucket, your mission was to build your empire, cargo load by cargo load, all while exploring the many different ports around the world and the cargo options offered at each.

The reason I wanted to paint this scene was simple: I’ve always been fascinated by the original. Where is the ship? What are the mountains in the back? Where did the ship come from originally? What’s in the cargo crate being lowered in the foreground? So many questions!

Although the painting doesn’t exactly answer any of these questions (they still remain), I’ve added a few more of my own by making a few changes. There are a couple of easter eggs included in my version of this scene that have nothing to do with the scene itself.

Can you find them?

Regardless of whether you have the same nostalgic connection to the original that I do, I think you can appreciate the mystery in the scene itself and ask some of the same questions I have for the last twenty years.