Dark Side

Development

Driller - a prequel to Dark Side - was basically a technical demo showcasing the Freescape system but offering very little in the way of gameplay. Dark Side gained more depth and was enhanced with new features. Developers were also focused on engine optimisations - they created new procedures on 16-bit machines that were ported back to 8-bit versions what resulted in small speed increase (around 5%).

References

• The deadly laser gun "Zephyr One" was named after Incentive's Berkshire office address.
• Sphinx figure that could be stumbled into during the terrain exploration served no real purpose but was just a case of the developers saying "look at some of the cool stuff we can do

Awards

• ACE
  • October 1988 (issue #13) - Included in the Top-100 list of 1987/1988 (editorial staff selection)
• ST Format
  • January 1990 (issue #06) - Included in the list 50 Games of the Year