Heart of Darkness (computer game)
| Heart of Darkness | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 | |||
| Studio | Amazing studio | ||
| Publisher |
Infogrames (Win) Ocean Software (PS) |
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| Senior Developer | Éric Chahi , Frédéric Savoir, Fabrice Visserot, Christian Robert, Daniel Morais | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
1998 | ||
| platform | PlayStation , Windows | ||
| genre | Jump 'n' run , action adventure | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Gamepad , keyboard | ||
| medium | CD-ROM | ||
| language | English German | ||
| Age rating |
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Heart of Darkness is a two-dimensional platform game that was released for PlayStation and Microsoft Windows . The game had a computer-animated opening sequence that was about five minutes long for the time . Another special feature was that the game came with 3D glasses (color filter glasses ), with the help of which you could see the end sequence in 3D .
The development team was largely made up of people who were involved in the similarly designed games Another World and Flashback , including Eric Chahi .
action
Young Andy is a typical boy, he hates school, has his own tree house and would like to spend his free time with his dog whiskey. But during a solar eclipse, shadowy beings steal his dog and kidnap him into the realm of shadows. Of course, young Andy cannot tolerate this. As he is inventive and highly intelligent, he follows the shadow creatures with a self-made machine. After his arrival, however, he crashed and crashed. He finds himself in another world where evil rules over good and darkness rules over light.
In the course of his adventure Andy loses his self-made ray cannon, which is eaten by a monster, but he finds a magical stone deep in a lake, which gives him superpowers and thus gives him another opportunity to defeat the shadowy creatures. He befriends the primitive native friend , whose people are oppressed by the shadow creatures there. When finally the dwelling of the people is attacked by the shadowy beings, the last survivors mobilize and help Andy to defeat the lord of darkness and to save whiskey. Before that, Andy also gives them his superpowers by leading the last survivors to the magic stone. Andy has to hurry, however, as buddies flying people are slowly but surely getting tired and they turn into one of the shadow creatures as soon as they touch the ground. Andy manages to penetrate the fortress of shadows and he penetrates to the ruler of darkness. While his friends provide distraction with their new powers, Andy infiltrates the fortress. He ensures that this very stone with the forces falls into the Heart of Darkness , a huge dark vortex, and that the fortress is finally destroyed by an explosion. Buddy believes that he has lost Andy, but Andy - like his dog Whiskey before - fell into the vortex and found himself in a dark room with sinister figures. In the end, however, he finds his dog again and his mother opens the door to his tree house. In the last scene, you see buddies playing with parts of Andy's crashed machine.
Gameplay
Heart of Darkness is a 2D platformer in which the character fights his way through different levels with the help of his plasma cannon (mostly levels in the underworld). On the way there, various monsters (shadow beings) stand in his way. Furthermore, the game contains a few puzzles to provide variety. For example, Andy has to trigger a chain reaction by destroying an object in order to clear the path, or transport exploding biomass in such a way that the path can be blasted free. In some places the character can die, for example if the player comes too close to an opponent and reacts too late. In these cases, a short in-game scene shows how the character blesses the temporal. It can be crushed or eaten, for example, or it falls down a deep abyss. These death sequences vary depending on the opponent. Despite these sometimes quite brutal representations, the game was rated in the USA by the Entertainment Software Rating Board in the category E ("for everyone").
development
The game took a very long development time of six years, as it took a long time to create the music (by Bruce Broughton , played by a symphony orchestra) and the video sequences (30 minutes in total). As a result, the game had a graphic that was already outdated for that time when it was released.
Web links
- Heart of Darkness at MobyGames (English)