Heart of Darkness

Moby ID: 262
Windows Specs
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Description official descriptions

Andy is a child who likes playing with his dog Whiskey, doesn't particularly enjoy going to school, and has a knack for inventing complicated gadgets. One day Andy and Whiskey are strolling through the park, when suddenly a solar eclipse darkens the sky, and after a moment Andy realizes that his dog has been taken away. But science can solve everything, and Andy heads to his treehouse, which is home to his outstanding inventions, including a spaceship! If you thought it was just a toy, you thought wrong, because Andy boards the ship and pilots it into the heart of the Darklands, a world controlled by the evil Master of Darkness. Andy takes out his gun (another splendid invention of his) and prepares to fight the evil sorcerer's minions. Nothing will stop the boy from rescuing his beloved dog!

Heart of Darkness is a cinematic 2D platformer designed by Eric Chahi, the creator of one of the genre's progenitors, Another World. Though the game has many fast and furious action sequences, including shooting hordes of dark creatures, it is built like a series of tasks, each requiring different approaches, from arcade-style shooting or jumping to interacting with the environment and solving puzzles. Like its spiritual predecessor, the game is linear; completing a section usually takes Andy to a different location, where another task awaits him.

Andy has several guns at his disposal, though in certain locations he will lose his weapons and will rely on the player's wit or quick reaction to survive. Andy will also gain magical energy, which can be used to grow or destroy trees. Similarly to Another World, many hazards are placed on the hero's path; despite the child-oriented premise, the game contains graphically explicit death scenes, which occur if the player is not careful or quick enough to save Andy from a gruesome demise.

Heart of Darkness features orchestral music and pre-rendered animated cutscenes. It comes with a pair of 3D glasses, which allow the player to view certain scenes in the game in 3D.

Spellings

  • ハート・オブ・ダークネス - Japanese spelling

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Credits (Windows version)

188 People (163 developers, 25 thanks) · View all

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 77% (based on 38 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 90 ratings with 8 reviews)

A great game cast from a mold long long lost.

The Good
Okay, okay the opening story isn't that belevable, but one thing you better believe is that this game is great. A classic in my book and surely my favorate game of 1998. On the surface, Heart of Darkness may appear as a simple platform game, but don't be fooled because it is much much more. This game has character and is fun to play -- from the silly shadows creeping around to the flame-throwing skeletons burning you to your bones. Once you start, you won't put it down until you are finished, and once you are finished you will curse that people have to sleep because you will want to play it again.

The different levels, each with their own strengths and required skills to complete will make sure you don't get bored from repetitive uninteresting gameplay. The balance between action and puzzle solving is nearly perfect. In addition to the changing gameplay, the atmosphere changes from level to level in a fluid way that complements the story (and games as a whole) rather nicely.

Andy, the boy you control, has many movements, all of which get used throughout the game. Even though this is a platform game, he is often required to do things in places you just don't expect in a genre like this. Additionally, small in-game movies are well-placed to help give the illusion that Heart of Darkness isn't a dated platform game. All of these things have convinced me that there is much more life left in this genre. I just hope other developers follow suit.

The Bad
The main complaint I have with this game has nothing to do with gameplay, graphics or any of the other important characters of the game. My beef is that there appears to be NO way to skip past a cutscene the first time it is played. Some of the cutscenes are quite long and I'm sick of seeing them. Every time I start Heart of Darkness from a clean install, I have to sit through the cuttscenes over and over again. To add salt to an open wound, the end credits are almost 10 minutes -- let me skip them so I can start the game again! I've pounded on the keyboard, kicked the machine and cursed something horrible. If anyone knows the magic touch please let me know and I'll eat my words.

Apart from that tirade, I only have two minor gripes:

First off, the graphics or pretty low resolution and the palette rarely uses over 200 colors. Considering that this game came out in 1998 and still runs on a 486/66 I'm not going to gripe too much. But the fact that this game does run so well on low end hardware pisses me off because I could have been playing this games for the last six years with no problem -- geeze.

Secondly, the final sequence in the game is brutally hard. I think I'm pretty good at these types of games and I was pounding my head quite a bit. Every time I finish the last scene, I get the feeling that I won it by chance, not skill.

The Bottom Line
If you are an oldskool gamer and you haven't got this game run... don't walk to you nearest dealer. Get your fix while you still can becaue this is the good stuff.

Windows · by Brian Hirt (10409) · 1999

Out of This World at the Heart of Darkness...

The Good
Phew! Almost 6 years in the making and at last it's RELEASED! You can't get yourself asking, "why it took so long?" I don't have the answer, neither believe it's so important: If you like the game, there is no problem!

In general, I liked the game. Especially being able to find yourself again in a world similar to Another World and Flashback after all those years is a great enjoyment --just like playing the Curse of Monkey Island! So as expected Heart of Darkness improves the known quality to a incredibly lifelike experience.

The opening intro of the game is a perfect example for this thought. This stunning animated cutscene is just like watching a movie, like watching an earlier work of Steven Spielberg. It's not difficult to understand the interest of him in making a computer generated movie with the story of Heart of Darkness. Maybe, it'll be a second Toy Story affair, eh? Who knows? Amazing Studios (the developer of the game) is currently working on setting up a new company to handle CG movies.

The Bad
Although I like the gameplay, it's definitely frustrating to play. You didn't manage to cross the section you were in? The game immediately sends you back to the action and waits you perform your required skill. Unfortunately there is no alternative way to find in Heart of Darkness!!

For a 1998 game the low-resolution graphics could also be a problem. But you can't blame the developers for this because it's in the making for a long long time. So you had better amuse yourself with the 3D dimension they had filmed for the end sequence :)

The Bottom Line
One state-of-the-ART! 'Nuff said...:)

Windows · by Accatone (5191) · 2000

If at first you don't succeed: try, try again

The Good
Heart of Darkness is a platform game similar in style to Another World. Andy is a teenage who likes to study for someone else and gets in all kinds of trouble. One day while attending class, he gets in so much trouble for bringing his dog Whiskey to school, that he is doomed to spend time in the closet, which he somehow escapes. Later, both Andy and Whiskey study on a lush, green meadow when things start to happen: a) the moon covers the sun, b) Whiskey is taken away, and c) Andy gets transported to a strange dimension where every living creature is his enemy. As Andy, you must find your beloved dog and escape this dimension.

HOD is created by the same people who did AW. The same enemies that you face – shadows, flying beasts, and monsters – are similar to what gamers faced in AW. The controls are the same: jump, run, and shoot, and most enemies can use a secondary attack to take your out. The only difference here is that Andy can use his special attack to deal with the most difficult obstacles. Andy's special attack can also be used on enemies to knock them out in one shot. The only problem with this is that special attacks have to be recharged before they can be used, and that takes about five seconds, during which time you could be killed before you have the chance to use it on something. Andy can also somersault in the air and perform long jumps.

The game consists of eight short levels, and most of them take a bit of patience to get through. More often than not, you are more likely to get killed by an enemy or some object because you may either get your timing way out of line or do things that you are not supposed to. You have unlimited lives, meaning that you can try each scene again and again until you get it right. In each level, there are a series of restart points which can save you a lot of time if you do have trouble with such scenes. It is interesting to watch how you die. Most enemies gobble you up in some way or throw fireballs at you. The enemies have excellent AI. Once they see you and follow you, you can't retreat to the previous scene because they usually follow you off-screen.

Throughout HOD, there are a number of cut-scenes which made me think that I am actually watching a 3D children's movie. The graphics in the cut-scenes are right there with the movies, and the script is well thought-out, and it was exciting for me to know that at least one creature is Andy's friend, the Amigos that you meet in Level Two, and in almost every cut-scene, you can be sure that something always bad happens.

I was impressed with the metaphor that the game uses. When selecting the options, you are not treated with the usual boring choices, but with a first-person view of the gadgets in Andy's workshop. You cycle between options (New Game, Continue Game, Options, etc.) by using the left or right arrow keys, and except New Game, selecting one will cause a monitor to show something that is relevant to what you are doing. My personal favorite of these would be Options, where a clean, green GUI shows up on the monitor above the selection.

The environments in which you travel to are detailed than those from AW. You will try to fight off enemies as you travel though a canyon, swamp, jungle, caves, lava areas, and more. You can even swim underwater. The enemies are drawn nicely while looking nasty at the same time. There are puzzles in each of these environments. The puzzles range from growing a seed in the right place to take you up to a higher platform, to figuring out a way to get a certain object in the one place, which may be a difficult task.

The music is performed by the Sinfonia of London and conducted and composed by Bruce Broughton. Most of the music can be heard in the cut-scenes. I rarely noticed it while I was playing the game. The sounds coming from each enemy in the game is interesting to listen to, especially the shadows and the winged beasts. As long as there aren't any enemies in the scene you're in, you can hear the sounds of other creatures in the next scene, so you always know what to expect in that scene.

The Bad
The screen has a black border around it. Why this is the case, I don't know. Maybe the software that the game was programmed in didn't allow for full-screen graphics.

The game is a bit difficult, especially when you get to the last chapter of the game. You are faced with too many enemies at once while you have to repeatedly jump or duck just to avoid their attacks. It is so easy to mistime your jumps or perform the wrong action when you get into situations like these. In the last level, you have to press either [Alt] key twice to somersault, to avoid attacks, but sometimes the double key-press just did not register, and I had to suffer dealing with the same enemies that I just killed.

The Bottom Line
Heart of Darkness is a great platform game, similar to Another World, expect that you have more moves. The game consists of eight levels, which require a bit of timing and practice before you can complete its scenes. The moves you master will be put to the test in the final level as you battle with so many enemies at once. The music and sound effects are excellent, and the environments are beautiful. The cut-scenes within the game are what you expect from a children's movie.

If you are looking for a decent platform game, one that really bites, it's hard not to miss HOD. Before that, Another World was all the rage. If Delphine Software had made this game like they did to AW, and not just a few people from that company, then it would be totally different.

Windows · by Katakis | カタキス (43092) · 2006

[ View all 8 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
european publisher pierre martin (5) Feb 19, 2021
Willy Beamish? John Peterson Oct 1, 2009

Trivia

Aliens

The friendly aliens Andy runs into in his adventure are called "Amigos", this is Spanish for "friends". In fact they all speak in Spanish in the English version, although they do so in loose, unconnected words.

Copy protection

This game is one of the early users of CD-based copy protection.

Development

Eric Chahi (main creator of Heart of Darkness) worked on the game from September 1992 to June 1998 (5 and 3/4 years). The game is based very loosely on the Joseph Conrad novel of the same name.

DirectX

Although the installation program insists that you need DirectX 6.0, the manual says HOD will run on NT 4.0 with SP3.

Extras

  • The game comes with a small pair of 3D-glasses with which you can check the after-final animation which is black and white until you put those glasses and see the depth and get a feeling of what you see as real 3D picture.
  • Some releases of this game on CD-ROM contained a Making of Heart of Darkness video documentary, which had interviews with the development team.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack for this game is performed by The London Symphony, and composed by Bruce Broughton. Release date is 1999. The CD also contains a Demo of the game.

Tracklist: 1. Main Title 2. Andy's Mission 3. Big Mistake 4. Andy's Friend 5. Space Island 6. Vicious Servant 7. Back to the Lair 8. Meteor Destroyed 9. The Plot 10. Andy's Victory 11. End Credits

This soundtrack was available on the Intrada label (www.intrada.com).

Story

Though the game is not a sequel, add-on pack, nor spin-off, the game has a striking similarity of story to 1990-1992's Commander Keen series.

Information also contributed by B.L. Stryker, Garcia, MAT, Narushima, Swordmaster, Yeah No and Zovni

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Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brian Hirt.

PlayStation added by Grant McLellan.

Additional contributors: MAT, DreinIX, Zeikman, Patrick Bregger, Bart Smith, finsterhund.

Game added September 5, 1999. Last modified February 24, 2024.