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Alone in the Dark, also referred to as Alone in the Dark 1 to differentiate between the original game and the other homonymous titles in the series, is a 1992 survival horror video game designed by Frédérick Raynal and developed and published by Infogrames for the PC. Alone in the Dark was released for MS-DOS in 1992, ported for the 3DO by Krisalis in 1994, and ported for iOS by Atari in 2014.

Set in 1920s Louisiana, the game follows the two playable protagonists for the player to choose, Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood, to uncover the mystery surrounding the suicide of Jeremy Hartwood in Derceto Manor, a mansion deep inside the swamps rumored to be haunted.

Alone in the Dark is one of the first Survival Horror games and the first to utilize 3D models superimposed on pre-rendered backgrounds, which would become a key inspiration for upcoming horror games at the time, like the Resident Evil franchise. The game was awarded the title of 'First 3D survival-horror videogame' by Guinness World Records.[1]

Gameplay

The player can use various weapons, such as pistol, rifle, swords and knives, though it is possible to kill most enemies with melee attacks. Some opponents can be beaten by solving a particular puzzle, while a significant number of opponents cannot be killed at all, or can be killed only with certain weapons.

The player interacts mostly with the environment and enemies through the Actions Menu, where they choose to Fight, Search, Open, Close, Push and Jump (only in certain areas). With this menu, the player can engage in physical fights with enemies, search any area, open and close doors, push certain objects. Items are picked up by walking over them, which can be used, opened, read, thrown, or put down, though not all of these options are offered for every item. Inventory is limited, and the player must manage it, being able to discard items to make room, including ones that are needed to complete the game, but discarded items remain in the location it was dropped and can be retrieved later. Available space in the inventory is determined by weight.

Plot

Backstory and setting

In 1924, Jeremy Hartwood, a noted artist and owner of Derceto Manor, a big property in Louisiana, has committed suicide by hanging himself in the attic. His death appears very suspicious amid rumors that Derceto was haunted by an evil power. The case is quickly dealt with by the police and forgotten.

The player can choose between two characters, Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood, and is tasked with finding a way out by fighting off creatures and other hazards in the house, while solving puzzles and searching for clues to what happened in the manor. Depending on which character is chosen, a small backstory is provided before the introduction. Except for the opening and a small text in the living room, gameplay is the same for both characters.

Playable characters

Edward Carnby - On my door, a dull brass plate says "Private detective". The few friends I have call me Carnby; the others call me the Reptile. I don't care to think what my banker calls me. These days, I leave my letters unopened; bills and threats to send in the receivers just ruin my day. When an antique dealer called Gloria Allen contacted me, I slipped into my best shirt, holstered my .38, and got to her shop as fast as I could. I was expecting something sordid: blackmail probably. Boy, was I wrong! What I was asked to do was visit a property called Derceto and find a piano in the loft. It was an old piano, with secret drawers; the kind people who buy stuff in antique stores go crazy over. The Derceto house is supposed to be piled high with classy junk: furniture, books, paintings. It looked like whoever owned Derceto was about to get cleaned out. I was going to bring up the subject of money when Gloria Allen handed me $150 and a key. I kept myself from grinning at the thought of my banker's surprise. He doesn't like his victims getting away. I looked over a copy of the police report. The former owner of Derceto, a guy called J. Hartwood, had hanged himself in the loft. The coroner concluded it was a clear-cut case of suicide. I promised Gloria Allen I'd give the place a look-over. My report will be ready in a couple of days. I've been reading up on the history of the old house; it's the kind of place ghosts run away from in terror. Grisly murders, curses, lunacy... Luckily, devil-worship makes me smile, so this is my idea of a paid vacation.

Emily Hartwood - The attorney's letter came as a deep shock to me. My uncle Jeremy had died by his own hand! The coroner's report was unequivocal: he hanged himself in the loft. My initial surprise and distress past, I considered the news; it seemed clear that Derceto had exercised a thoroughly morbid influence on my uncle's mind. That creaking old mansion, with its unusual tales, its secret library door, the ancient upstairs clock, all those occult books that my uncle could not resist reading, in spite of his fragile nerves... Fate had pointed its finger. Derceto had trapped its prey. Mr. MacCarfey, the family lawyer, suggested selling the old house; I immediately opposed the idea. My duty is clear: I must go to Derceto. I tremble at the thought of those dark corridors, those brooding portraits. Yet I am convinced that uncle Jeremy left a note, a letter of some kind, explaining his fateful decision. I remember his voice saying, "Look at the piano, Emily... Look harder." Maybe the secret drawer will yield up an explanation. I have the feeling things will not be so simple. Life is a mystery, containing more mysteries. Jeremy taught me that much. Now is the time to confront the mysteries. Derceto is waiting for me. I pray that my fear is nothing more that the fruit of my imagination. Nothing will ever persuade me that my uncle was insane. But why did he, according to the police report, block the loft window with the old wardrobe?

Plot summary

Upon entering the house, the doors mysteriously slam shut behind them. Continuing up to the attic, they're attacked by monsters. The character progresses back down through the house, fighting off various creatures and hazards. The character finds documents throughout the house indicating that Derceto was built by an occultist pirate named Ezechiel Pregzt, and that beneath the house are caverns that were used for dark rituals meant to increase Pregzt's fortunes and unnaturally extend his life. Pregzt was shot and Derceto was burned down by encamped Union soldiers during the American Civil War. However, Pregzt's spirit lived on, and his corpse was placed by his servants in an old tree in the caverns underneath Derceto. Jeremy Hartwood committed suicide to prevent his body being used as a host for Pregzt.

They find a passage into the caverns in Hartwood's study, and makes their way to the tree where Pregzt resides. The character hurls a lighted lantern at the tree, then flees the collapsing cavern. Pregzt is consumed by the flames, and the house is purged of all supernatural creatures and effects caused by his influence. They can finally open the front doors and leave the house, the driver shows up to take the character home, but is revealed to be a zombie. The zombie drives the car back to civilization.

Development and release

In 1989, Frédérick Raynal, a staff programmer at Infogrames, was assigned to port the early 3D game Alpha Waves. Working on the game inspired him to begin programming a tool for the creation and animation of 3D characters, with help from Franck De Girolami. In 1991, Infogrames CEO Bruno Bonnell proposed a game in which the player would use matches to gain snapshot views of an otherwise completely dark environment. An aficionado of horror films such as Dawn of the Dead, Raynal saw in this proposal the opportunity to create a horror-based game, and was given permission to lead the project.

The game's working titles included "In the Dark" and "Scream in the Dark" (or Screams in the Dark). Following Raynal's basic vision for the game, Infogrames artistic director Didier Chanfray rendered a series of concept sketches using white chalk on black Canson paper. These sketches were used for an internal contest to pick the game's graphic artist, Yaël Barroz. By this time Raynal already had decided that the game would make use of text to convey the backstory, as he felt computer graphics at the time were not advanced enough to be frightening on their own. He had also determined the game's setting:

"A 1920s manor. I wanted a big enough house, where you would start in the attic so that you could completely explore it before finding the way out. The turn of the century allowed for weapons while avoiding the modern commodities that were too difficult to properly handle: electricity, for instance, would have caused atmosphere and consistency problems."

Initially he planned to create the game's backgrounds using scanned photos of an actual mansion built in the 1920s, but this idea proved too ambitious for the 3D rendering tools available, and the team had to use hand-drawn bitmaps instead. Items and characters in Alone in the Dark are three-dimensional, rendered upon a two-dimensional fixed background. Mixing polygons and 2D prerendered background images required a fixed camera angle, which designers used to their advantage to create dramatic scene setups appropriate for a horror-themed game. In September 1991, the team of Raynal, Chanfray, and Barroz presented an early playable version of Alone in the Dark - containing only a couple rooms - to Infogrames, who then green-lighted production of the game. The development team was expanded to include Franck De Girolami (programmer), Philippe Vachey (composer), Hubert Chardot (writer), and Franck Manzetti (designer).

The game briefly acquired the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game license, but was ultimately denied it when Chaosium determined that the game was too simple to do justice to the rules of the pen-and-paper game. The character Emily Hartwood was added because the conventional wisdom of the time was that a game would appeal to more female gamers if it had a female playable character. To maximize the player's anxiety and fear, the game was designed so that even such mundane actions as walking down a hall, opening a door, and reading a book could cause the player character to die. Though such deaths would only occur in select places, they would make the player feel unnerved whenever taking such actions.

During the game's production, Raynal and Barroz became romantically involved and conceived a child. Most of the production was marked with a spirit of optimism and creative enthusiasm, but the bug-testing phase wore out the team, especially Raynal. By the time it was released, he felt dissatisfied with almost every aspect of Alone in the Dark and felt certain that all of its flaws would be noticed by players.

Alternate versions, ports and remakes

Outside of Europe, Alone in the Dark was distributed in North America by Interplay Entertainment and in Japan by Arrow Micro-Techs Corp, which developed and published Japanese-exclusive versions for the PC-98 and FM Towns computers. The game was also ported to the 3DO by Krisalis in 1994. This version is largely identical to the original, but uses the orchestrated version of the original soundtrack and the voice acting to the character intros and documents that had already been introduced to the PC CD-ROM re-release of the game. This version was also published in Japan by Pony Canyon. An Atari Jaguar CD port was also in development by Infogrames but it was never released. A 32X version was also planned but never released.

In 2012, when asked for a possible high-definition remake of Alone in the Dark, Raynal said he loved the idea but no attempts have been made yet as he no longer holds the rights to the franchise. There was an attempt to remake the game by Eden Games but after the release of the 2008 Alone In The Dark, which received lukewarm reception, parent company Atari laid off most of the employees and ultimately cancelled the game. Screenshots and gameplay footage of the prototype came out soon afterward.

In 2014, Atari released an official port for iOS, co-developed by Kung Fu Factory. It received mixed to poor reviews as it was a direct port with no proper enhancements to make it playable with touch screen controls. Since 2022, the port has not been updated, making it unplayable for modern operating systems.

In August 2022, an announcement was made that a reboot of 1992 original was in development. THQ Nordic, the new owner of the Alone In The Dark franchise, will publish and develop the game for the PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, featuring the same 2 protagonists in the same setting but with a completely new story written by Mikael Hedberg, former Frictional Games writer who had worked on Penumbra: Black Plague, Amnesia: The Dark Descent, and SOMA.

Reception and legacy

Alone in the Dark received critical acclaim upon its release, and is considered a breakthrough and influential title, as it was the first 3D survival horror game. In the years since its release, many commentators have dropped the 3D qualifier and asserted that Alone in the Dark was the first survival horror game regardless of graphical perspective. Among the accolades that followed its release, Alone in the Dark received the European Computer Trade Show awards for Best Graphics and Most Original Game in 1993. In 2009, Empire included Alone in the Dark on their list of 100 greatest video games of all time.

By February 1997, Alone in the Dark had sold 600,000 copies. According to the French newspaper Libération, it sold 2.5 million units by January 2000.

Computer Gaming World's Charles Ardai praised the game, citing its multiple viewpoints and stating that no previous game had caused him to "jump in fright at the slightest sound .. I feel that I have been inside a real house". He described the game as "truly a diabolical simulation, rich in evil imaginings and unexpected twists". In the same issue Scorpia was more critical, citing issues such as books that killed without warning when read. She stated that "Alone in the Dark is one of those neat games with some irritating flaws. It sets a good atmosphere ... Using Lovecraftian overtones adds a lot ... The view shifts are a novel and effective addition", and concluded that it "is a nice change of pace from the usual run of adventure games". In 1994 the magazine said that "The floppy-based version was simply the best horror game for the computer in years", and that the CD version "offers better animation and more eerie sounds".

Reviewing the 3DO version, GamePro described it as "a clunky, semirealistic game", citing restrictively linear game design, an overly slow-moving player character, and "silly-looking, quirky-moving monsters", though they did praise the moody sound effects and 3D camera angles. In contrast, Electronic Gaming Monthly commented "A faithful translation of the PC title, this game has excellent graphics and sound ... for fans of more deliberate game play, this is the one to get." Next Generation reviewed the 3DO version of the game, and stated that "Alone's subtle mix of eerie music, grim animation sequences, and suspense-filled storyline create an atmosphere of tense horror that adds an interesting new twist to the standard graphic adventure."

A review for the Macintosh version in Next Generation stated that "Eerie, flowing movement and less-is-more polygonal simplicity make this Lovecraft-inspired game all the more creepy." Praising the game's sound effects, balance of action with more cerebral gameplay, and mood-setting camera angles, the reviewer dubbed it "A breakthrough game".

Alone in the Dark won many prestigious gaming industry awards, including the European Computer Trade Show 1993 awards for Best Graphics, Most Original Game and Best French Game of the year, and the Consumer Electronics Show 1993 award for Best Foreign Game. In 1994, PC Gamer US named Alone in the Dark the 10th best computer game ever. The editors called it "without a doubt, one of the most unique and exciting games ever." That same year, PC Gamer UK named it the 31st best computer game of all time, calling it "a classic title." In 1996, Computer Gaming World ranked Alone in the Dark as the 88th best video game of all time, adding that it "showed that 3D action needn't get in the way of a tense, exciting story", also listing the game's Game Over cutscene among the 15 "best ways to die in computer gaming". In 1998, PC Gamer declared it the 22nd-best computer game ever released, and the editors called it "the high-point of the series thanks to its spine-tingling storyline and creepy monsters". In 2005, Game Informer put it on their list of top 25 most influential video games of all time. In 2009, Empire included Alone in the Dark on their list of 100 greatest video games of all time for its "ingenious approach coming closer than any game had before to photo-realism, and inspiring other developers to experiment with fresh approaches to presentation."

Alone in the Dark was supposed to be the first part of Infogrames' Call of Cthulhu series, and later of the Virtual Dreams series (the original French cover included the Virtual Dreams logo), but ended up starting its own franchise. The game was followed by six more games in the series, and inspired two live-action films. It is widely considered a forefather, and often the originator, of the survival horror genre and it strongly influenced Shinji Mikami's direction of the original Resident Evil game, as well as the franchise as a whole.

Characters

Enemies

Items

Items in Alone in the Dark 1

Locations

Derceto Manor

Underground Caverns

Trivia

  • A remake for Alone in the Dark was in development with the intent of bringing the game to the then new generation, however it was cancelled, until it was revived in an upcoming game that will completely reboot the game's story with characters and themes from the entire 90's trilogy.
  • Alone in the Dark is listed in the Tony Mott book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die.
  • Initially the game was to feature two characters little more than teenagers, but because the graphics engine made the movements slow and cumbersome creators decided to make actors a man and a woman of advanced age.
  • In some game books are references to Shadow of the Comet, and the follow Prisoner of Ice, both of Infogrames games inspired by the pantheon of H.P. Lovecraft and part of the same universe of Alone in the Dark. The references to the first game are present in the books Memories and Diary of a Journey by Lord Boleskine, while the second is in the Terra Incognita of Jacob Van Ostadte.
    • The character Alistair Boleskine quoted in several papers in the game also makes reference to Aleister Crowley (British esoteric) and his villa in Scotland Boleskine House.
  • Almost all the names mentioned in documents during the game are based on the developers' names or misspellings thereof.
  • A characteristic feature of Alone in the Dark is that some camera angles are through a window, from an enemy's point-of-view. The most common being when a zombie chicken watches the player before come crashing through the window. There is also a shot in the intro, when the player is walking towards the house and someone (probably a ghoul) is watching the player through a window on one of the upper floors. This camera technique was used up until the fourth game and honored by many other video games of the same kind.
  • In the strategy guide for the game, in addition to the Deep Ones (arising from the story of Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Insmouth), the Chthonian and Nightgaunts (arising from the story The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath) there are references to other Lovecraftian creatures that don't appear in the game, such as Dimensional Shamblers and Hunting Horrors.
  • Some sources on the internet incorrectly suggest that the story of the game was inspired by an urban legend: a man by the name of Edward Carnby spent a night in an old house by the name of Decerto to prove that it wasn't haunted. The following morning it is reported that Carnby used a pay phone to call someone called Gloria Allen and according to a witness he looked like "he'd been fighting 'gators all night."[2].
  • Prior to release, Infogrames announced that Alone in the Dark would be the first title in a new series of games called Virtual Dreams. Each game would have completely different storylines and settings. Although the project was ultimately cancelled, the Virtual Dreams version of the cover was left on early versions of the European box of Alone in the Dark.[3][4]
  • Following the release of Alone in the Dark Frédérick Raynal, the lead game designer, married with the game's 2D programmer Yael Barroz.
  • As Carnby's personal file points him as the one to have solved the case of Jeremy Hartwood's suicide case in Alone in the Dark (2008), he is the canon protagonist of the game.


Differences between the versions

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The first edition was published for MS-DOS floppy disk, in 1993 was released on a CD-ROM which included a dubbing of dialogues and a digitized version of the soundtrack; other conversions are available for Macintosh, for 3DO and FM-Towns. In Italy, the first version of Alone in the Dark was published allegedly by CTO in 1992 and distributed on four 3.5-inch floppy disk, the entire game has been subtitled in Italian. Along with the game it was also an envelope containing a copy of the fictional newspaper The Mystery Examiner, fully translated and a book of codes for anti-piracy protection to be inserted at the beginning of the game. The second Italian edition of floppy disk possessed a completely new packaging than the first edition, also was including a floppy disk bonus containing the spin-off Jack in the Dark, but was removed the copy of Mystery Examiner, as the exclusive preserve the first edition floppy. A third version, this time in CD-ROM was always published in 1993 by CTO, the edition available to the English dubbing and subtitles in various languages, including Italian.

Credits

Realized & Directed by

Frédérick Raynal

First Assistant

Franck De Girolami

Production designer

Yaël Barroz
Jean-Mare Toroella

Modeling 3D & Animation

Didier Chanfray

Screen Play

Hubert Chardot
Franck Manzetti

Product Manager

Oliver Robin

Original Music & SFx

Philippe Vachey
Mixed by Sequence Coda

Best Boys

Frédérique Bourgin
Lionel Frappé
Serge Plagnol

Special Thanks To:

Bruno Bonnell
Bernard Montibert
Eric Mottot
Veronique Salmeron
H.P. Lovecraft
Chaosium

Box art Gallery

Gallery

References

Alone in the Dark
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