Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings for Nintendo DS is a 2009 action adventure starring the fedora-wearing archaeologist in an original, handheld-sized quest. Developed by Artificial Mind & Movement and published by LucasArts, the game reached North America on June 9, 2009. Its story takes place in 1939, after the original Indiana Jones film trilogy, and frames the Nintendo DS adventure around familiar serial-movie ingredients: ancient secrets, far-flung ruins, rival treasure hunters, and a Nazi threat.

Indiana's search begins after Charles Kingston, an old mentor and friend, is taken captive. His adversary is Magnus Voller, a former schoolmate who now works with the Nazis. Both men are drawn toward the Staff of Moses, the legendary object said to have parted the Red Sea. The pursuit carries Indiana from San Francisco's Chinatown into Panama and onward through the catacombs beneath Paris, a temple in Nepal, and the zeppelin Odin. These locations give the story a succession of compact chapters built around a new clue, obstacle, or confrontation.

This Nintendo DS edition is its own version of Staff of Kings rather than a direct copy of the PlayStation 2 or Wii game. It uses a top-down viewpoint for most exploration and makes the lower touchscreen central to movement and interaction. Players tap where they want Indy to go, then use the stylus for tasks such as climbing ladders, grabbing ledges, shifting objects, and examining the route ahead. The platform's two screens keep the action and touch-driven input close together while the adventure moves between indoor hideouts, jungle spaces, underground passages, and the later airship setting.

Brawling is the main source of action. Stylus strokes in different directions produce high, middle, and low punches, while Indy can also use his whip and occasionally find a firearm with limited ammunition. Successful fighting charges an Indy Move meter; when it is ready, tapping it unleashes a more elaborate finishing attack that can dispatch several opponents. Encounters also include highlighted weapons of opportunity, allowing items such as chairs, tables, bottles, shovels, and pipes to be turned against enemies. That mixture of touchscreen gestures, close combat, and improvised environmental tools gives the DS game a hands-on interpretation of Indiana Jones action.

Puzzles provide a second strand to the progression. The DS-exclusive Cipher Mode presents timed labyrinth challenges in which a bead of water must be guided to an exit. The player steers it with the stylus, breaks stone barriers by tapping them, and can use the Nintendo DS microphone to clear sand or briefly put out burning obstacles. Cipher challenges recur as the journey advances and use the handheld's touch and microphone features in ways that differ from the console releases.

Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings belongs to the broader 2009 Staff of Kings project, which appeared on several systems but was adapted around each machine's controls and content. On Nintendo DS, the result focuses on a single-player expedition shaped by stylus navigation, gesture-based fights, environmental weapons, and touchscreen puzzle play. Its original story places the game alongside LucasArts' other Indiana Jones adventures while telling a separate race for a new artifact instead of directly adapting one of the films.