it was the year 1992seems like a century ago. At that historic moment when the Maastrith deal was signed, Oscar went to “Silence of the Innocents”, Wimbledon went to Steffi Graf and Serie A’s top scorer was Marco Van Basten. In the atmosphere of a post-80s hangover, there were many new video game productions trying to try, innovate and invent something that had never been seen before, thanks to new technologies emerging on the market and the disproportionate imagination of the developers.
Born Alone in the Dark 30 years ago, the survival horror series.
Origins of the legend
we were running at full speed became 16 bit The Sega Saturn and the first PlayStation would arrive just a few years later. In the PC world, Windows 95 was still a long way off and played on X86, MS-DOS and floppy disks. Alone in the Dark was also born in this context.
Behind the game was a fiery mind Frederick RaynalIn 2006, he is a world-class French artist who, along with Michael Ancel (author of Rayman) and Shigeru Miyamoto, had the honor of receiving the French high honor of Knight of Labor and the Arts. His contribution to the development of software and video games was actually so profound that he foresaw time and invented new methods to make this media even more appealing through new programming formats and imagery, as well as visualization of the game itself. The essence and nature of any video game.
Alone in the Dark, originally referred to simply as “In the Dark”, is the game’s first clear example. survival horrorA genre made universally famous in modern times by such epics as Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Raynal came from the Alpha Waves experience, one of the first examples of 3D platforming for home systems. With the graphics that we can describe today as rough and very simple, the game served the programmers of the time to gain enough experience and try something more advanced and complex two years later. In such a short time, the breakthrough of desktop systems of the time allowed to create very detailed environments and certainly more complex and engaging animations.
In fact, the first person to come up with the idea of the horror game was the founder of Infogrames. Bruno BonnellThe great personality of the time, who also served as the CEO of Atari and is today a successful politician very close to Prime Minister Macron.
Early stages of development
Fredrick Raynal’s father ran a video store in his hometown of Brive-la-Gaillarde in the New Aquitaine region. The son then spent most of his youth and adolescence watching. film and very soon becomes passionate about their production Dario Argento, Romero and Bava. Of course, inspired by these films, there was the idea to create a hood, in which the protagonist would have to escape and survive the zombie enemies, for example, in a claustrophobic and closed environment, as seen in the movie. demons. To do this, a system was needed that created a system. bitmap According to Raynal, the best way to develop a sense of stability, pressure, and anxiety in which a three-dimensional character will be moved is also to use a graphics engine that is as realistic as possible (for the time, of course).
Links to the works of Lovecraft
Infogrames wanted to make the most of the license granted by the publisher of inspiring RPGs Call of Cthulhu from Howard Phillips Lovecraftturned to a pro for this hubert chardot He comes from the world of cinema (he had worked for 20th Century Fox until 1992) and has an atypical background: journalist, writer, distributor. Raynal actually did not fully exploit the possibility of being inextricably linked with the world of Lovecraft, instead relegating the stories of the American author to just a narrative background in Alone in The Dark.
Thanks to the author’s contract with those who own the rights to his works (The Chaos of the Americans), Infogrames developed two more games, which were later named. Shadow of the Comet And Ice Captive, first aired in 1993 and 2015, respectively. As such, Alone in the Dark represents the first title in a trilogy originally conceived as a unique and integral work. Its huge success was made possible by a perfect blend of successful elements such as graphics, gameplay and music. Philippe Vachey Having just finished working on Will Wright’s SimCity a few years ago.
What’s new in the game
Alone in the Dark, as we understand it, represents one of the earliest examples of the survival horror genre in video game media. Although there were previously titles such as Haunted house from arcade, Ghost House from SAW For Main System e forbidden forest on commodoreDesigned by Raynal, the game offered many innovative features and has never been seen together before. First of all, plot development with many details shaped by readings within the adventure that are not only “played” but also interweave the plot and gameplay in an original and compelling way. In fact, the texts found in the game contain many references to the story, the monsters we encounter, and the way to continue the adventure, proving that it can create a deeply detailed and engaging atmosphere.
The two main characters of Alone in the Dark are private detectives. Edward Carnby and Emily Hartwood, the nephew of artist Jeremy Hartwood, found a body inside the Villa Derceto, which was the scene of the whole adventure. Although both can be selected in the game, the story does not change according to their preferences and goes completely through the game. Gameplay, setting and events. Although today it is almost seen as a vulgarity, something obvious and obvious, at that time Alone in the Dark had an unprecedented depth thanks to the modifiable inventory, many usable items, actions available in the menu, traps, dozens of creatures. and the variety of weapons available. The gameplay was definitely layered and deep, thanks entirely to moments full of action sessions, other survival, finally the inventory elements and puzzles to be solved through the surrounding environment.
Testament of Solitude in the Dark
Thirty years after its first appearance, the game Frederick Raynal still leaves a very heavy legacy to all modern productions. Alone in the Dark has managed to intimidate a lot for many other factors, not just for its graphics. Limitation of portable objects, feeling of insecurity. The sudden appearance of monsters and creatures made you jump out of your chair, just as we do common movements like walking. “Eighty percent of the time you’re walking is on an adventure. At such a mundane moment that puts the player under pressure, it really scares the player,” Raynal said at a session at GDC in 2012 devoted to imagination and ways to do it. to instill fear in the public. A lesson this will probably still be very useful for many developers today.
Happy 30th Birthday Alone in the Dark!
Source: Multiplayer
