Alone in the Dark (computer game 1992)

Alone in the Dark is an action adventure released in 1992 for DOS , which is considered to be the founder of the sub-genre survival horror . The computer game developed by the French company Infogrames was based on the Cthulhu myth conceived by HP Lovecraft . The story about the private detective Edward Carnby was continued and filmed by Infogrames (later Atari SA) in several games.

action

In 1923, the famous artist Jeremy Hartwood hanged himself in his Derceto mansion in Louisiana , but this does not surprise any of the locals, as it is said that the house has a curse and that it is ruled by an evil force. The case is soon filed by the police and is quickly forgotten. Edward Carnby, a private detective, is supposed to look for an old piano for a client, an antique dealer, in Derceto. Jeremy's niece, Emily Hartwood, is also looking for the piano because she suspects it is a secret compartment that she believes contains clues to the cause of Jeremy's death.

The player slips into the role of either Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood and starts in the attic, the place of Jeremy's suicide, with the exploration of the property in which he is trapped after the doors of the house mysteriously opened after entering had locked.

Gameplay

In search of an escape route from the property, the player soon encounters supernatural beings such as zombies and giant rats, against whom he has to defend himself with various weapons such as pistols, rifles and swords, which he can find in the building during the game. In addition, it is always important to solve various combination, thinking and search puzzles. There are also regular records such as books and manuscripts that reveal more to the player about the background of the property and the supernatural processes in it. The player always sees the protagonist from fixed camera perspectives, where the cameras z. B. are positioned in the corner of a room and capture the current scene. If the player walks out of the picture, the game changes back to another fixed camera position.

Unlike later genre representatives, the game's focus is not on combat. The player finds little ammunition and has few opportunities to regenerate. Instead, he is encouraged to evade monsters.

development

The concept of the game goes back to Infogrames programmer Frédérick Raynal, who after a few technical experiments with 3D polygon graphics wanted to develop a terrifying zombie horror game in the tradition of George Romero's horror film Dawn of the Dead . The working title at this point was In the Dark . The project was finally approved by the management and after some preliminary work, the production phase began at the end of 1991. Since the integration of contemporary technology such as electricity would have led to atmospheric and consistency problems, an old mansion in the 1920s was chosen as the scenario. So you could also present the player with a larger, coherent play area and provide appropriate weapons. In the meantime, Infogrames licensed the role-playing game rules Call of Cthulhu from Chaosium in order to market its title as an official licensed product. Most of the zombie opponents have been replaced by creatures from HP Lovecraft . However, Chaosium stopped working during the development phase because the game seemed too simple to implement the rules.

The development work was burdened by the pregnancy of Raynal's partner Yaël Barroz, who was also involved in the project as a graphic designer. The birth fell in the final phase of development, when Raynal's team was busy correcting errors, and thus created a double burden for the project manager. In addition, there was dissatisfaction with his employer. Raynal was asked, among other things, to refrain from mentioning his name under the entry “Game created by” in the game's credits and to use the company name instead. In addition, Infogrames gave instructions to develop a quick successor with a new plot based on the existing technology. Raynal's requests for further technical development were not taken into account. The lack of formal and financial recognition through Infogrames ultimately led to the termination of Raynal and the rest of the development team after the work was completed. Instead, Raynal founded the Adeline Software development studio .

technology

The type of graphic presentation was technically completely new in 1992. In contrast to what was usual for the genre at the time - but not for the first time - the game-relevant moving objects (such as players, opponents or isolated objects) were designed entirely as 3D objects (without textures and with only a few polygons ). This was made possible by the permanently positioned virtual camera ( third-person perspective ). This enabled the image backgrounds to be displayed as drawn flat images that simulated the impression of a spatial environment through perspective coordination with the 3D objects. If the player leaves the field of vision in the current background image, there is a camera change and thus a new background image with a suitable realignment of the 3D objects.

reception

The game received good reviews and sold around 2.5 million times.

Alone in the Dark is considered to be the founder of the computer game genre Survival Horror , the term of which, however, was first coined by a loading screen of the game Resident Evil (“Welcome to the world of survival horror”). It thus laid the foundation for later success series such as Resident Evil , Parasite Eve and Silent Hill . Infogrames also produced several successors, but already with the second part shifted the focus more strongly to combat and increasingly deviated from the Cthulhu background. In 2005, a film was first released, also under the name Alone in the Dark , but without reference to the content of the game. In 2006, Frederick Raynal, together with Michel Ancel and Shigeru Miyamoto, was the first game designer to be named Knight des Ordre des Arts et des Lettres , the highest cultural award in France for special merits in the artistic and literary fields.

Web links

Alone in the Dark at MobyGames (English)
Edge editorial team: The Making Of: Alone In The Dark ( English ) In: Edge (magazine) . Future plc . May 11, 2010. Archived from the original on July 18, 2012. Retrieved on May 3, 2012.

Individual evidence

↑ ^a ^b PC Retroview: Alone in the Dark
↑ ^a ^b ^c Edge editorial team: The Making Of: Alone In The Dark ( English ) In: Edge (magazine) . Future plc . May 11, 2010. Archived from the original on July 18, 2012. Retrieved on May 3, 2012.
↑ Classic review: Alone in the Dark (3DO) ( Memento from January 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
↑ Test: Alone in the Dark
↑ Alone in the Dark
↑ Alone in the Dark
↑ Hüttenzauber: Alone in the Dark
↑ France awards medals to game designers

[ign-1] PC Retroview: Alone in the Dark

[edge-2] Edge editorial team: The Making Of: Alone In The Dark ( English ) In: Edge (magazine) . Future plc . May 11, 2010. Archived from the original on July 18, 2012. Retrieved on May 3, 2012.

[3] Classic review: Alone in the Dark (3DO) ( Memento from January 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive )

[4] Test: Alone in the Dark

[5] Alone in the Dark

[6] Alone in the Dark

[7] Hüttenzauber: Alone in the Dark

[8] France awards medals to game designers


Computer games	Alone in the Dark (1992) • 2 ( Jack in the Dark ) (1993) • 3 (1994) • The New Nightmare (2001) • Alone in the Dark (2008) • Illumination (2015)
Film adaptations	Alone in the Dark (2006) • Alone in the Dark II (2008)