Alone in the Dark (1992 video game)

The player can select a male or female character (Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood, respectively), and are then trapped inside the haunted mansion of Derceto. The player character starts in the attic, having ascended to the top of the mansion without incident, and is tasked with finding a way out of the mansion while avoiding, outsmarting, or defeating various supernatural enemies. Although most enemies can be killed with fists and feet, the player can also find and utilize various weapons. Alone in the Dark has a partially non-linear level design. The player character is initially restricted to the attic and third floor, whose rooms are arranged in a way where they must be traversed in a linear order. Completing the puzzle at the end of the third floor grants the player character access to the first and second floors. The player can explore the rooms in this area in any order and revisit the attic and third floor if desired. Upon completing a specific puzzle, the player gains access to the caverns beneath the mansion. The caverns are entirely linear, and each puzzle must be overcome as it is encountered. ==Plot==

In 1924, Jeremy Hartwood, a noted artist and owner of the Louisiana mansion Derceto, has died by suicide. His death appears suspicious yet seems to surprise nobody, for Derceto is reputed to be haunted by an evil power. The player assumes the role of either Edward Carnby (a private investigator who is sent to find a piano in the loft for an antique dealer) or Emily Hartwood (Jeremy's niece, who is also interested in finding the piano because she believes it contains a secret note that explains Jeremy's suicide). Depending on whether the player chooses to play as Carnby or Hartwood, the game begins with that character going to the mansion to investigate. Upon entering the house, the doors mysteriously slam shut behind the player character, and once they make it to the attic, they are attacked by monsters. The player character progresses down through the house, fighting off various creatures and hazards. Pregzt was shot, and Derceto was burned down by encamped Union soldiers during the American Civil War. In another ending, the player character finds a passage into the caverns in Hartwood's study and makes their way to the tree where Pregzt resides. The player character throws a lantern at the tree, then flees the collapsing cavern. The flames consume Pregzt, and the house is purged of supernatural creatures and other effects caused by his influence. The player can finally open the front doors and leave the house (which, now empty of monsters, is mostly safe to explore). Grimoires found in the mansion's library include the Necronomicon and De Vermis Mysteriis, both taken from Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Finally, several supernatural opponents are recognizable creatures from the Mythos (e.g., Deep Ones, Nightgaunts, Chthonians), and Pregzt even mentions Cthulhu. ==Development==

Background (pictured in 2007). In 1991, the French video game developer Infogrames acquired the rights to adapt Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role-playing game (based on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos) into a series of video games. When brainstorming ideas for what an adaptation would entail, Infogrames CEO Bruno Bonnell proposed a game where players would use matches to gain snapshot views of a completely dark environment. Frédérick Raynal, a programmer at Infogrames, was struck by the concept. As a fan of horror film directors like Dario Argento and George A. Romero, Raynal had long wanted to create a horror-based game, and so he approached Bonnell, asking if he could lead the project. Raynal also proposed that the game be rendered using 3D animation. However, Bonnell felt that such a game was not possible, given the technical limitations of the time, and so he assigned Raynal to work on a French port of Maxis's city-building simulator SimCity (1989). Despite this setback, Raynal was determined to realize his horror game concept, and to convince Bonnell that such a project was feasible, hewith the help of fellow Infogrames employee Didier Chanfrayspent his evenings working on a 3D animation engine to power the game. Chanfray played a significant role in developing the nascent game's tone and visual style during this stage of production. Using white chalk and black Canson paper, he created a concept sketch of an individual standing in a dark, eerie hallway, illuminating the environment with a lanterna sketch that Raynal later called "iconic". The name Alone in the Dark was eventually settled upon, with the word "Alone" being added to "reinforce the tragic nature" of the game. Writing and animation To help develop the story, Infogrames hired Hubert Chardot, a screenwriter who had worked for 20th Century Fox. Chardot outlined the plot in only three afternoons, and he also wrote most of the dialogue. While Alone in the Dark would go on to be advertised as a game "inspired by the work of H. P. Lovecraft", Raynal has admitted the works of Argento and Romero were stronger influences on the game and that Lovecraft was used to provide "ambiance, to give roots to the mystery and to add a few creatures to the bestiary". This decision to allude to the author's creations rather than directly adapt one of his works led Chaosium to contend that the game was "too far removed from the spirit of H. P. Lovecraft", and so they subsequently revoked Infogrames' Call of Cthulhu license. Other sources claim that Chaosium revoked their license because they believed Raynal's game to be too simple to do justice to the complex rules of their pen-and-paper game. Due to his belief that computer graphics at the time were not sufficiently frightening on their own, Raynal decided to integrate key texts into the game which could convey necessary backstory details: "A few polygons", he noted in an interview with GamaSutra, "[is] not very frightening, so I knew that I needed the text to put the situation into a very heavy background story for the game." The soundtrack to Alone in the Dark was created by Infogrames' in-house composer Philippe Vachey with the use of Ad Lib, Inc. sound cards. Raynal complied, but felt as if he was being denied full recognition for his work (a snub he later called "the trauma of [his] life"). The game was released in the United States in 1993 by I•Motion and Interplay Entertainment. That same year, it was released in Japan by Arrow Micro-Techs Corp. for the PC-98 and FM Towns computers. In 1994, the game was ported to Mac OS by MacPlay and to the 3DO by Krisalis, Ports for the Atari Jaguar CD and the 32X were also in development by Infogrames, but were never released. In 2014, Atari released an official port for iOS that had been co-developed by Kung Fu Factory. Before the release of Alone In The Dark (2008), Eden Games attempted to remake the original game, but after the 2008 installment was met with mediocre reviews, parent company Atari laid off most of Eden's employees and ultimately canceled the game. In August 2022, an announcement was made that a reboot of the original was in development at Pieces Interactive. THQ Nordic, the new owner of the Alone In The Dark franchise, published the game for PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S on 20 March 2024. This remake features the same setting and protagonists as the original, but it has a completely new story written by Mikael Hedberg, a former Frictional Games writer who had worked on Penumbra: Black Plague (2008), Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010), and SOMA (2015). ==Reception==

Critical reception Alone in the Dark received positive reviews upon release, with many hailing it as a trailblazing piece of media. Dany Boolauck of the French gaming magazine Tilt called Alone in the Dark "a real revolution in the field of gaming" and compared it positively to other groundbreaking titles like Dungeon Master (1987), Prince of Persia (1989), and Another World. Next Generation called Alone in the Dark "a breakthrough game", and AllGame wrote that, among the games released in the early 1990s, Alone in the Dark "stands out as a graphical gem". Charles Ardai, in his review for Computer Gaming World, applauded the frightening ambiance, which he claimed caused him to "jump in fright at the slightest sound [as if he had] been inside a real house". In the same issue of Computer Gaming World, Scorpia commended the designers for "establishing mood" through key interactables and for utilizing sound "to good effect". Similarly, GamePro's Lawrence Neves lauded the sound design, noting that "weird moaning, zombie laughter, and occasional hands-around-the-throat screams instill the right mood". Similarly, a review in Computer Gaming World noted that the "clever use of camera angles" added a "startlingly cinematic touch" to the overall experience. In her review, Scorpia called the camera system a "unique feature". "Years of watching horror movies", she wrote, "have taught us that when the viewing perspective changes, it usually means that something is up"''. Conversely, criticism was aimed at the compatibility of the game's fixed camera angle system with some of its more action-heavy set pieces. Sales According to PC Research, Alone in the Dark was the second best-selling MS-DOS game of March 1993. In February 1997, it was reported that Alone in the Dark had sold 600,000 copies, and by January 2000, that number had grown to 2.5 million. Accolades Alone in the Dark won numerous gaming and industry awards, including the European Computer Trade Show awards for "Best Graphics", "Most Original Game", and "Best French Game of the Year" (1993), and the Consumer Electronics Show award for "Best Foreign Game" (1993). Alone in the Dark has been included on lists of the best video games ever made by Computer Gaming World, Empire, Game Informer, GamesMaster, GameSpot, Gameswelt, IGN, PC Gamer, Polygon, and Stuff magazine. The game was also included in Cassell Illustrated's reference book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die (2010). ==Legacy==

Alone in the Dark was followed by seven more games in the series: Jack in the Dark (1993), Alone in the Dark 2 (1993), Alone in the Dark 3 (1995), Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare (2001),'' Alone in the Dark (2008), Alone in the Dark: Illumination (2015), and Alone in the Dark'' (2024). Alone in the Dark is often heralded as the first 3D survival horror game, and some commentators have asserted that it was the first survival horror game regardless of graphical perspective. Critics have also credited Alone in the Dark with setting the standard for subsequent survival horror games by popularizing limited player inventory, a heavy focus on puzzle-solving, an emphasis on survival rather than direct combat, During the production of Capcom's 1996 horror game Resident Evil, the game's director Shinji Mikami discovered Alone in the Dark. Mikami believed that the cinematic fixed-view camera system enabled "greater expressiveness" and a higher level of detail than what was currently possible in fully 3D games, and so he decided to adopt a fixed-view camera system for his project. In several interviews, Mikami has stated that, if it were not for Alone in the Dark, the inaugural Resident Evil would have likely become a first-person shooter. ==Notes==