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Alone in the Dark (video game)
Encyclopedia
Alone in the Dark is a 1992 survival horror video game developed by Infogrames
. The game has spawned several sequel
s as part of the Alone in the Dark
series (as well as a film loosely based on the series), and was one of the first survival horror games, after the 1989 Capcom
game, Sweet Home
. Alone in the Dark is widely considered to be a forefather of the survival horror game genre, setting the standard for later rival popular survival horror games such as Resident Evil
and Silent Hill
.
mansion Derceto
, has committed suicide by hanging himself. His death appears suspicious yet seems to surprise no-one, for Derceto is widely reputed to be haunted
by an evil power. The case is quickly dealt with by the police and soon forgotten by the public. 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 a secret drawer in it has a note in which Jeremy explains his suicide. The player, either as Carnby or Hartwood, goes to the mansion to investigate. As the player enters the house, the doors mysteriously slam shut behind him or her. Reluctantly, he or she continues up to the attic. In that room, the action begins.
Seconds after the game allows the player to take control of their character, monsters will make their first attack. The player must then progress back down through the house, fighting off various creatures and other hazards in the house, including a whole staff of staggering zombie
s and various monsters (not all of which can be killed), booby-traps and arcane books, in order to solve the mystery of Derceto and find a way out.
It is eventually explained through documents found throughout the game that the house was built by an occultist pirate named Ezechiel Pregzt, and beneath the house are caverns that were used for dark rituals and other occult doings. The overall goal of these rituals was to increase his fortunes and unnaturally extend his life. Pregzt's original body was incapacitated after he was shot and Derceto was burned down by encamped Union soldiers during the American Civil War
. However, Pregzt's spirit lived on within his dried-up corpse, and had been placed by his servants in an old tree in the caverns underneath Derceto (which is, as Pregzt explains in one of many books lying around the house, an alternate name for Astarte or Shub-Niggurath
). It would be possible for him to regenerate himself, though that requires a living body. Jeremy Hartwood committed suicide to prevent being used for this purpose; so Pregzt now focuses his energies on the player.
The story is revealed to the player through an extensive series of books and notes found throughout the game, and is heavily influenced by the works of Edgar Allan Poe
and H. P. Lovecraft
. The setting for the story is inspired by Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher
". Grimoire
s found in the mansion's library include the Necronomicon
and De Vermis Mysteriis
, both taken from Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
. Other Mythos references include books that feature the narrated history of Lord Boleskine, a direct reference to another Infogrames
Cthulhu Mythos-based game, Shadow of the Comet
, and the last name of player character Edward Carnby, a reference to John Carnby, a character in the mythos tale Return of the Sorcerer by Clark Ashton Smith
. Several of the supernatural opponents are recognizable creatures from the Mythos, including Deep One
s, Nightgaunt
s and a Chthonian
.
Players are given the option of choosing between a male or female protagonist (Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood respectively), and are then trapped inside the haunted mansion of Derceto after dark. The player character starts in the attic (the place of Jeremy's suicide by hanging), having ascended to the top of the mansion without incident, and is then tasked with exploring the mansion in order to find a way out while avoiding, outsmarting or defeating various supernatural
enemies including slave zombie
s, giant bipedal rat-like creatures, and other even more bizarre foes. Though starting with no weapons except fists and feet, the player character can find and utilise weapons.
However, combat only plays a partial role in the gameplay. For example, the total number of slave zombies throughout the entire game is only about a dozen, and many opponents can be beaten by solving a particular puzzle rather than a straight fight - indeed, a significant number of opponents cannot be killed. Much of the game involves exploration and puzzle-solving, and searching the house for clues to advance the story and learn more about what happened before the player's arrival.
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.
Infogrames
Infogrames Entertainment SA was an international French holding company headquartered in Paris, France. It was the owner of Atari, Inc., headquartered in New York City, U.S. and Atari Europe. It was founded in 1983 by Bruno Bonnell and Christophe Sapet using the proceeds from an introductory...
. The game has spawned several sequel
Sequel
A sequel is a narrative, documental, or other work of literature, film, theatre, or music that continues the story of or expands upon issues presented in some previous work...
s as part of the Alone in the Dark
Alone in the Dark (series)
Alone in the Dark is a series of survival horror computer games from Infogrames. In most of the series, the gamer plays as private investigator Edward Carnby, who usually goes to investigate a haunted mansion or town that is full of undead creatures. The story is based on the writings of H. P...
series (as well as a film loosely based on the series), and was one of the first survival horror games, after the 1989 Capcom
Capcom
is a Japanese developer and publisher of video games, known for creating multi-million-selling franchises such as Devil May Cry, Chaos Legion, Street Fighter, Mega Man and Resident Evil. Capcom developed and published Bionic Commando, Lost Planet and Dark Void too, but they are less known. Its...
game, Sweet Home
Sweet Home (video game)
is a survival horror role-playing video game that was released for the Famicom in 1989. It features several elements of console role-playing games. Sweet Home was developed and published by Capcom and the game was never released outside Japan...
. Alone in the Dark is widely considered to be a forefather of the survival horror game genre, setting the standard for later rival popular survival horror games such as Resident Evil
Resident Evil (video game)
Resident Evil, known as in Japan, is a survival horror video game by Capcom. The first installment in the Resident Evil series, it was originally released in 1996 for the PlayStation and was subsequently ported to the Sega Saturn and PC. In 2002, a remake of the game was released for the Nintendo...
and Silent Hill
Silent Hill (video game)
Silent Hill is a survival horror video game for the PlayStation and the first installment in the Silent Hill series. Published by Konami and developed by Team Silent, a Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo group, the game was released in North America in January 1999, and in Japan and Europe later...
.
Story
In 1924, Jeremy Hartwood, a noted artist and the owner of the LouisianaLouisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
mansion Derceto
Atargatis
Atargatis, in Aramaic ‘Atar‘atah, was a Syrian deity, " great goddess of northern Syria" ,"the great mistress of the North Syrian lands" Rostovtseff called her, commonly known to the ancient Greeks by a shortened form of the name, Aphrodite Derceto or Derketo and as Dea Syria, "Goddess of Syria"...
, has committed suicide by hanging himself. His death appears suspicious yet seems to surprise no-one, for Derceto is widely reputed to be haunted
Haunted house
A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property...
by an evil power. The case is quickly dealt with by the police and soon forgotten by the public. The player assumes the role of either Edward Carnby - a private investigator
Private investigator
A private investigator , private detective or inquiry agent, is a person who can be hired by individuals or groups to undertake investigatory law services. Private detectives/investigators often work for attorneys in civil cases. Many work for insurance companies to investigate suspicious claims...
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 a secret drawer in it has a note in which Jeremy explains his suicide. The player, either as Carnby or Hartwood, goes to the mansion to investigate. As the player enters the house, the doors mysteriously slam shut behind him or her. Reluctantly, he or she continues up to the attic. In that room, the action begins.
Seconds after the game allows the player to take control of their character, monsters will make their first attack. The player must then progress back down through the house, fighting off various creatures and other hazards in the house, including a whole staff of staggering zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
s and various monsters (not all of which can be killed), booby-traps and arcane books, in order to solve the mystery of Derceto and find a way out.
It is eventually explained through documents found throughout the game that the house was built by an occultist pirate named Ezechiel Pregzt, and beneath the house are caverns that were used for dark rituals and other occult doings. The overall goal of these rituals was to increase his fortunes and unnaturally extend his life. Pregzt's original body was incapacitated after he was shot and Derceto was burned down by encamped Union soldiers during the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. However, Pregzt's spirit lived on within his dried-up corpse, and had been placed by his servants in an old tree in the caverns underneath Derceto (which is, as Pregzt explains in one of many books lying around the house, an alternate name for Astarte or Shub-Niggurath
Shub-Niggurath
Shub-Niggurath, often associated with the phrase “The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young”, is a deity in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft...
). It would be possible for him to regenerate himself, though that requires a living body. Jeremy Hartwood committed suicide to prevent being used for this purpose; so Pregzt now focuses his energies on the player.
The story is revealed to the player through an extensive series of books and notes found throughout the game, and is heavily influenced by the works of Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was an American author, poet, editor and literary critic, considered part of the American Romantic Movement. Best known for his tales of mystery and the macabre, Poe was one of the earliest American practitioners of the short story and is considered the inventor of the detective...
and H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
. The setting for the story is inspired by Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher
The Fall of the House of Usher
"The Fall of the House of Usher" is a short story by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in September 1839 in Burton's Gentleman's Magazine. It was slightly revised in 1840 for the collection Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque...
". Grimoire
Grimoire
A grimoire is a textbook of magic. Such books typically include instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination and also how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, and demons...
s found in the mansion's library include the Necronomicon
Necronomicon
The Necronomicon is a fictional grimoire appearing in the stories by horror writer H. P. Lovecraft and his followers. It was first mentioned in Lovecraft's 1924 short story "The Hound", written in 1922, though its purported author, the "Mad Arab" Abdul Alhazred, had been quoted a year earlier in...
and De Vermis Mysteriis
De Vermis Mysteriis
De Vermis Mysteriis, or Mysteries of the Worm, is a fictional grimoire created by Robert Bloch and incorporated by H. P. Lovecraft into the lore of the Cthulhu Mythos.-Creation:...
, both taken from Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos
Cthulhu Mythos
The Cthulhu Mythos is a shared fictional universe, based on the work of American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.The term was first coined by August Derleth, a contemporary correspondent of Lovecraft, who used the name of the creature Cthulhu - a central figure in Lovecraft literature and the focus...
. Other Mythos references include books that feature the narrated history of Lord Boleskine, a direct reference to another Infogrames
Infogrames
Infogrames Entertainment SA was an international French holding company headquartered in Paris, France. It was the owner of Atari, Inc., headquartered in New York City, U.S. and Atari Europe. It was founded in 1983 by Bruno Bonnell and Christophe Sapet using the proceeds from an introductory...
Cthulhu Mythos-based game, Shadow of the Comet
Shadow of the Comet
Shadow of the Comet is a computer game in the adventure game genre. The game is based around H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos...
, and the last name of player character Edward Carnby, a reference to John Carnby, a character in the mythos tale Return of the Sorcerer by Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...
. Several of the supernatural opponents are recognizable creatures from the Mythos, including Deep One
Deep One
The Deep Ones are creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft. The beings first appeared in Lovecraft's novella "The Shadow Over Innsmouth"...
s, Nightgaunt
Nightgaunt
Nightgaunts are a fictional race in the Cthulhu Mythos and is also part of H. P. Lovecraft's Dream Cycle. The creatures appear in the poem "Night-Gaunts" and the novella The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, both by Lovecraft...
s and a Chthonian
Chthonian (Cthulhu Mythos)
Chthonians are fictional creatures in the Cthulhu Mythos. The species is the creation of Brian Lumley and was first featured in his short story "Cement Surroundings" —though the creature never made a direct appearance...
.
Characters
- Edward Carnby - A down-on-his-luck but respectable private investigator (to be reinvented as a paranormal investigator later in the Alone in the Dark series) who is sent to a Louisiana mansion to find an antique Piano. As soon as Edward enters the house, the doors slam shut but the persistent Edward continues his search and battles several paranormal apparitions in the process.
- Emily Hartwood - A niece of Derceto's last owner. Alternative protagonist to Carnby, she goes on to become an actress and appears in the third game.
- Jeremy Hartwood - Last owner of Derceto mansion and professional artist. Horrified by nightmares, which were in fact Pregzt's attempts to possess him, he hanged himself in the loft. Jeremy's father, Howard Hartwood, bought Derceto's ruins in 1875, rebuilt it as it had been before fire, and later unearthed and explored its underground tunnels.
- Ezechiel Pregzt - Given the nickname "Bloody Ezech", he was reportedly the bloodiest pirate in all the seven seas. Pregzt anchored his ship Astarte near New Orleans, Louisiana, and made a hideout in a swamp, but ultimately was hanged in 1620. Now, his spirit lives underneath the Derceto Mansion, waiting to live again by possessing a living, human host and unleash darkness upon the world.
Gameplay
Supernatural
The supernatural or is that which is not subject to the laws of nature, or more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature...
enemies including slave zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
s, giant bipedal rat-like creatures, and other even more bizarre foes. Though starting with no weapons except fists and feet, the player character can find and utilise weapons.
However, combat only plays a partial role in the gameplay. For example, the total number of slave zombies throughout the entire game is only about a dozen, and many opponents can be beaten by solving a particular puzzle rather than a straight fight - indeed, a significant number of opponents cannot be killed. Much of the game involves exploration and puzzle-solving, and searching the house for clues to advance the story and learn more about what happened before the player's arrival.
Development
Items and characters in Alone in the Dark are three-dimensional
3D computer graphics
3D computer graphics are graphics that use a three-dimensional representation of geometric data that is stored in the computer for the purposes of performing calculations and rendering 2D images...
, rendered
Rendering (computer graphics)
Rendering is the process of generating an image from a model , by means of computer programs. A scene file contains objects in a strictly defined language or data structure; it would contain geometry, viewpoint, texture, lighting, and shading information as a description of the virtual scene...
upon a two-dimensional
2D
2D or II-D may refer to:* 2-d, two-dimensional space* 2D geometric model* Bi-dimensional space* 2D computer graphics* 2D , a member of the virtual band Gorillaz* Oflag II-D* Stalag II-D* Transcription factor II D...
fixed background. Mixing polygons
Polygon (computer graphics)
Polygons are used in computer graphics to compose images that are three-dimensional in appearance. Usually triangular, polygons arise when an object's surface is modeled, vertices are selected, and the object is rendered in a wire frame model. This is quicker to display than a shaded model; thus...
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.
Sequels
The game was followed by several sequels:- Alone in the Dark 2Alone in the Dark 2Alone in the Dark 2 is the 1993 sequel to 1992's survival horror video game Alone in the Dark created by Infogrames. The game is the second installment in the series...
(1993) - Alone in the Dark 3Alone in the Dark 3Alone in the Dark 3 is the third installment of the Alone in the Dark survival horror video game series created by Infogrames. The video game was released in 1994. A Windows 95 version of the game was also released in 1996, under the name of Alone in the Dark: Ghosts in Town...
(1994) - Alone in the Dark: The New NightmareAlone in the Dark: The New NightmareAlone in the Dark: The New Nightmare, alternatively known as Alone in the Dark 4, is the fourth installment of the survival horror video game series Alone in the Dark, developed by Darkworks and published by Infogrames. The game was released in 2001 in North America and Europe on several platforms...
(2001) - Alone in the Dark (2008)
See also
- Prisoner of IcePrisoner of IcePrisoner of Ice is a 1995 computer game based on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, particularly At the Mountains of Madness...
- Resident EvilResident Evil (video game)Resident Evil, known as in Japan, is a survival horror video game by Capcom. The first installment in the Resident Evil series, it was originally released in 1996 for the PlayStation and was subsequently ported to the Sega Saturn and PC. In 2002, a remake of the game was released for the Nintendo...
- Silent HillSilent Hill (video game)Silent Hill is a survival horror video game for the PlayStation and the first installment in the Silent Hill series. Published by Konami and developed by Team Silent, a Konami Computer Entertainment Tokyo group, the game was released in North America in January 1999, and in Japan and Europe later...
- Dead SpaceDead Space (video game)Dead Space is a survival horror third-person shooter video game, developed by EA Redwood Shores for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The game was made available on Steam on October 20, 2008...