Alone in the Dark

aka: AITD, Call of Cthulhu: Doom of Derceto, In the Dark, Screams in the Dark
Moby ID: 325
DOS Specs
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Description official descriptions

Jeremy Hartwood has committed suicide in his Louisiana mansion, Derceto. You take the role of either Edward Carnby, a private investigator, or Emily Hartwood, Jeremy's niece, and investigate the suspicious death. The three-floor mansion is reputed to be haunted by its eccentric past owner. Very quickly, you realise that it is. Warped rats, zombies, and giant worms are among the foes who are after you, and you must somehow escape.

Alone in the Dark is an action-adventure survival horror game. The action is displayed from a number of fixed viewpoints. The backgrounds are 2D painted images, while the player character, all items, and monsters are rendered as 3D models.

To escape the mansion, you'll have to solve a number of puzzles. They usually involve finding an item and using it in a proper place. Apart from items necessary for the puzzles, you can also find books and documents that can be read, healing items which can be consumed to restore hit points, and weapons.

Weapons come in handy since Derceto is full of various monsters. Some monsters can be killed with weapons, but others are either impossible to kill or require a bit of thinking to take down. Note also that you have limited amounts of ammunition, so you have to use firearms carefully.

Spellings

  • アローン・イン・ザ・ダーク - Japanese spelling
  • 鬼屋魔影 - Chinese spelling (simplified)

Groups +

Screenshots

Promos

Credits (DOS version)

39 People (35 developers, 4 thanks) · View all

Producer
Realized & Directed by
First Assistant
Programming
Production Designer (2D Graphics)
3D Modeling & Animation
Original Music & Sound FX
Mixed by
  • Sequence Coda
Screenplay
Product Manager (US)
Product Manager (EU)
Translation
Best Boys
Special Thanks To
JACK IN THE DARK and the CD-ROM conversions
[ full credits ]

Reviews

Critics

Average score: 76% (based on 50 ratings)

Players

Average score: 3.9 out of 5 (based on 201 ratings with 14 reviews)

Great game that spawned a genre

The Good
Very creepy for its time. Lovecraftian theme! And of course the gameplay was so original when it first came out.

The Bad
The controls were pretty awkward, especially running. Also the fact that you can trap yourself in a certain situation with no way out especially if you didn't save the game first was very frustrating.

The Bottom Line
An adventure game that paved the way to games like Resident Evil and other "Survival Horror" type games. You control an investigator on a mission to discover the weird happenings in a mansion sometime in the 1920's or 30's. The graphics are a bit dated but they were pretty good at the time. This game was very fun to play with complex puzzles and a spooky atmosphere.

DOS · by cimerians (49) · 2001

The grand-daddy of survival horror - it's just not very scary.

The Good
It's all there; obscure camera angles, claustrophobic environments, monsters that pop out behind you. Alone in the Dark has them all in a primitive form. Plus it tries to be an adventure game on top.

The story is an exaggeration of the haunted house idea, adding a touch of Lovecraft too. You play as either the niece of an eccentric reclusive come to investigate his suicide, or the more famous Edward Carnaby, detective for hire. Your task is to recover something from Hartwood's (the uncle's) attic. As soon as you enter you're trapped and prey to the monstrous hordes as you must solve the mansions many puzzles and defeat the evil spirit within to escape.

The details of Hartwood and the secret of the mansion unfolds in the game through various note pads, books and journals left lying around the mansion, which range from Jeremy hartwood's own raving scribblings to mysterious books on the occult. These books also give you clues on how to defeat some of the horrors lurking, but some you'll have to solve on your own. Throughout the mansion there are various special ghouls who can only be beaten by a specific action. This gives the game it's puzzle edge like an adventure game. I did find it frustrating trying to work out exactly what I should do, allowing the game to suffer from the classic adventure flaw of trying everything on everyone.

The game-play is good and solid, you must spend time searching and manipulating items, which the engine handles very well. The controls are slow to respond, but that adds to the creepy effect of the game and I never felt frustrated. The music is sparse and helps to notify you of any dangers which is handy even if not very original. The graphics are fairly poor though, the 3D characters are all blocky whilst the pre-rendered backgrounds aren't very detailed, though they never leave you confused.

The Bad
For a horror game, it's just not that scary. The clean and simple graphics and lumbering beasts mean you can always see the danger, and frankly the monsters just don't look scary.

The puzzles can also be mystifying and often unclear as to what you should do to overcome an obstacle. As in any game illogical puzzles become it's undoing as they destroy the atmosphere.

The Bottom Line
Alone in the Dark has gone on to become a highly successful franchise and this game set the tone for survival horror games to come. It's still approachable and easy to play today, though hardly a game to leave you on the edge of your seat as perhaps it was intended. Especially after you've died for the fifteenth time attempting puzzle.

DOS · by RussS (807) · 2010

The House the Lovecraft Built

The Good
What could you not like about a game that takes place within the ancient house of a fallen family? This game is the precursor to the survival horror genre and one of the first to animate a polygonal character against a pre-rendered background.

From the moment you take over the playing you must barricade yourself or get attacked by monsters. Also, this game makes great use of camera angles. There is nothing creepier than entering a room and seeing a hint of a monster just behind you.

Finally, loved the library. There are some books that aren't meant to be read.

The Bad
Graphically this game doesn't hold up well. Audio is a little shaky. The biggest problem is the controls, sluggish would be a kind way to describe it.

The Bottom Line
While still a fun game, if you didn't play this game in its time, then you might wonder what the big deal is. One of the better Lovecraft games though.

DOS · by Terrence Bosky (5397) · 2001

[ View all 14 player reviews ]

Discussion

Subject By Date
Crime doesn't pay chirinea (47504) Nov 8, 2011

Trivia

1001 Video Games

Alone in the Dark appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.

Backgrounds

All backgrounds were rendered in 3D via multiple camera angles, then converted to 2D.

Budget

Alone in the Dark was made with a budget of US $400,000.

Christmas CD re-release

There was a Christmas CD re-release with all the patches and Jack in the Dark.

Development

According to the French book La saga des Jeux Videos, by Daniel Ichbiah, the original title would have been In the Dark. The idea came from the Infogrames' PDG, Bruno Bonnell, and one of his collaborators, Eric Motet. The player would have been constantly in the dark, having only 3 matches he could use to progress.

Frederic Raynal, an Infogrames coder who was working on a 3D engine in his free time, tried to integrate the project very soon, but he didn't succeeded in convincing Eric Motet. He then finished his 3D engine and made a demo with an Infogrames artist Didier Chanfray. The result was shown to the managers in 1991 and it was judged so good Raynal became the project leader.

After a first attempt by the team itself, the scenario was written by Hubert Chardot, an independent writer who had worked for the 20th Century Fox and was a real Lovecraft fan. The definitive version was finished in only 3 afternoons, the whole team participating. Chaosium, judging it was unfaithful to Lovecraft's work, refused to validate it, thus losing any right to perceive royalties on it. It's also at this moment that the definitive title was chosen.

Last but not least.. when the project was in its early stage, Frederic Raynal met Yael Barroz, an Infogrames artist which integrated the team. They married very soon.

More details can be found in the book already mentioned; this is just a partial summary.

Inspiration to other games

Besides the obvious sequels, this game also "inspired" two other Infogrames Cthulu games, Shadow of the Comet and Prisoner of Ice. Two books in the game refer to Lord Boleskine and his ill-fated expedition to Illsmouth, which was later used as the basis for Shadow of the Comet's plot. Another book refers to the Prisoners of Ice who are featured in the Infogrames game of the same name.

This game is widely reported as being the inspiration for the Resident Evil series for both its graphical innovation and "survival horror" plot. But in terms of the graphic engine, a similar approach was used in Cruise for a Corpse.

Inspiration

The story was inspired by a supposedly true event. 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."

Virtual Dreams

Before its release, Infogrames announced that Alone in the Dark would be the first in a new series of games; The "Virtual Dreams" series. Each game would have a totally different plot and setting, but they would all use the same engine. The original Alone in the Dark box (at least, in Europe) had different cover art, and featured the "Virtual Dreams" title. The game was later re-issued in its current box design, and there was no further mention, from Infogrames, of the "Virtual Dreams" series.

Awards

  • Computer Gaming World
    • February 1996 (Issue #139) – Introduced into the Hall of Fame
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) - #88 on the 150 Best Games of All Time list
    • November 1996 (15th anniversary issue) – #14 Best Way To Die In Computer Gaming (being dragged into the underworld and sacrificed after)
  • GameFan
    • Vol.3, Iss. 1 - Best 3DO Action/Adventure Game of the Year in 1994
  • Game Informer
    • October 2005 (issue #136) - one of the Top 25 Most Influential Games of All Time
  • GameStar (Germany)
    • Issue 12/1999 - #34 in the "100 Most Important PC Games of the Nineties" ranking
  • ECTS Awards 1993
    • Most original game
    • Game of the year France
    • Best graphics

Information also contributed by Alan Chan, Andrew Grasmeder, Big John WV, hydra9, Joshua Dove, Karthik KANE, Sycada and Yeba

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Related Sites +

  • Postmortem Video - How the game was crafted
    A video featuring Alone in the Dark designer Frédérick Raynal discussing in depth the creation of Alone in the Dark on it's twentieth anniversary. Video is about an hour long, taken on March 9, 2012 at GDC 2012. Content starts at time index 13:32 in the video.
  • Walkthrough on GameFAQs

Identifiers +

  • MobyGames ID: 325
  • [ Please login / register to view all identifiers ]

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Are you familiar with this game? Help document and preserve this entry in video game history! If your contribution is approved, you will earn points and be credited as a contributor.

Contributors to this Entry

Game added by Brian Hirt.

FM Towns added by Sciere. iPhone, Acorn 32-bit, iPad added by Kabushi. PC-98 added by Terok Nor. Macintosh added by Scaryfun. 3DO added by Indra was here.

Additional contributors: Matthew Bailey, Xantheous, Brolin Empey, Unicorn Lynx, Sciere, Pirou Julien, Patrick Bregger, Rik Hideto, li zhen, FatherJack, BlaringCoder, Johny Barreau.

Game added October 25, 1999. Last modified March 4, 2024.