Contents:
The Intro
Title: Alone in the Dark
Release year: 1992
Developed by: Infogrames
Genre: Survival horror
Platform replayed on: PC
I’m probably not alone in thinking of the Resident Evil and Silent Hill series when I hear the term “survival horror”. These are two powerhouse names in the genre, and have been that way for quite a while now.
Image by Blood via MobyGames
But when I think of survival horror, my mind also stretches back a little further than the 1996 release of Resident Evil on Playstation.
Image by B. L. Stryker via MobyGames
Before there was Resident Evil, there was Alone in the Dark.
I can’t recall exactly when I first experienced Alone in the Dark. I can only recall that it was another game I hired out from one of the PC-game hiring services available at the time in the 90s. I’ve described these before in previous blogs on Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure and SimCity 2000. It would have been the original release too, and not the re-released CD-ROM version I will be playing here.
Another recollection I have is that Alone in the Dark was hard.
I was nervous to commit to this blog. I give myself a month to get through a playthrough and write up a blog. But what if I got helplessly stuck?
I feared clunky controls, illogical and obscure puzzles, and unwinnable situations. If I started running out of time, and found my frustration levels rising to rage-quit levels, would I resort to a walkthrough, an option I loathe to consider?
I’ll just come out and say it: I finished the game.
But these blogs are about the journey, so let’s take a look at what Alone in the Dark is, and how I got through the horrors…
The Game
Survival horror described in a sentence? A lone protagonist trying to escape some form of unspeakable evil, against all odds and with limited resources. As a player, stealth, ingenuity, and knowing when to run are good traits to apply.
Alone in the Dark presents a simple premise, but one with a surprisingly deep backstory. I say surprisingly now, as during my replay I was impressed with the contextual depth in a game of this vintage. I’ll go into more detail a little later.
First and foremost, you find yourself trapped in a haunted Louisiana mansion, named Derceto, in 1924. What to do? Why escape, of course. That’s the simple premise.
But before you even find yourself trapped on the uppermost level of the mansion, you need to choose who “you” are in Alone in the Dark. Yes, you have a choice of protagonist (which will immediately be familiar to early Resident Evil fans).
While ultimately not having any great impact on gameplay, it does provide a nice backstory to how you ended up trapped in Derceto Mansion.
With that choice made, it’s time to tackle the challenges within.
You navigate the mansion using the now infamous tank controls. This means pushing up or down means going forward or backward in the direction you’re facing. Pushing left or right changes your orientation, meaning you can move in another direction (again familiar to classic Resident Evil fans).
Interacting with the environment can be achieved using one of four (and later five) modes. The modes are: Fight, Open/Search, Close, and Push. In a certain section of the game you get access to another mode allowing you to jump. You need to select the correct mode, and then use the action button to achieve the desired result.
Inventory and resource management in Alone in the Dark is required for solving puzzles, reading books or diaries, and using weapons, a lantern, and health pickups.
Apart from manipulating items to solve puzzles in the mansion, there are some situations where you must fight or flee. Fighting involves using the Fight mode and punching or kicking at whichever monster is stalking you.
There are some firearms and melee weapons you can find through your exploration.
But survival horror is not about gearing up and blowing all manners of evil back to hell or wherever it is they came from. You must carefully manage your resources if you intend to make it out alive. Alone in the Dark is no different.
Let’s see how I survived…
The Replay
The choice of protagonist in Alone in the Dark is between Edward Carnby, a private detective, and Emily Hartwood, niece of the former owner of Derceto Mansion. Though their reasons for deciding to set foot in the mysterious mansion are different, their goal is the same: locate a piano in the loft.
I chose Edward Carnby, as he features in subsequent games in the series. Should I continue to explore this series, I’d like some continuity with Carnby. The story will play out the same, so there’s not much replay value here (unlike similar choices in Resident Evil).
Carnby has been hired by an antique dealer to locate the piano. There’s not much motive provided, only that the piano is old and has secret drawers.
That somewhat piqued my curiosity. Whether or not Carnby was curious didn’t matter, as he’d just been handed $150 to pursue this piano extraction. An exorbitant sum in 1924!
Performing his due diligence, Carnby discovers that Derceto Mansion was owned by a Jeremy Hartwood. I say “was owned”, because Hartwood has committed suicide. The investigation into his death concluded there was nothing suspicious, though Carnby is starting to suspect there is more to it having read up on the history of the mansion.
Carnby seems to be fearless though, as he describes this opportunity as a “paid vacation”.
With the introduction done, Carnby is driven up to the mansion.
As he makes his approach up to the front doors, there’s a glimpse of what’s to come.
And as he enters the mansion, the doors close behind him.
Perhaps slightly alarmed, Carnby makes his way up the levels on his way to the loft.
If you’d like to see the intro in full, check out the video below:
Once Carnby reaches the loft, it’s time to take control.
Prominently placed in the foreground of the starting position, is the oil lamp. As I would learn along the way, this is very much a key item in Alone in the Dark, so I’m guessing it was made very visible for a reason!
Any suspicions that the mansion is haunted go completely out the window, or perhaps “in” the window, as a zombie chicken smashes through a loft window.
So it didn’t take long before Carnby was in combat, requiring use of the “Fight” mode. (I find it interesting at this point that Carnby had mentioned carrying a .38 in the introduction, but that he had decided not to bring it with him on this mission, of all missions. But I digress…)
I had just managed to put the zombie chicken down once and for all, when suddenly a trap door in the floor opened up and a ghoul rose up.
Surviving this encounter as well, I realised after that both battles could have been avoided if I used better survival instincts. Not immediately obvious, but survival horror sometimes requires repeating encounters to make best use of your environment and/or items.
I’d had enough of the loft for now, so I proceeded downstairs.
Being familiar with adventure games, as well as survival horror games, I started searching everywhere for items. It soon became apparent that in Alone in the Dark, inventory management was going to play a big part in the game; there are items everywhere.
Reaching the third floor hallway, Alone in the Dark opened up into an almost non-linear experience. I say almost, as you are restricted to certain areas within the mansion at certain stages in the game. However, you are free to explore the areas as you choose. Being a mansion, this usually means you get to decide the order in which to explore the rooms.
It wasn’t long until another ghoulish encounter, as I started searching the bedrooms.
It was after this fight, and after being pecked and scratched by another zombie chicken, that I started to resort to a strategy I recall utilising in Resident Evil. If I wasn’t happy with the way an enemy encounter went, either through losing too much health or using too much ammo, I would reload and try again. It was early days in Alone in the Dark, and I didn’t know how challenging preserving Carnby’s health was going to be. Time to hit that reload button.
I also soon discovered that if the undead didn’t kill Carnby, Derceto Mansion was certainly trying as well.
Derceto definitely has a mind of its own.
And Alone in the Dark made good use of the jump scare technique, now prevalent in survival horror games.
It had been a frantic opening thirty minutes or so. And I was still on the third floor.
I managed to reach the staircase. The only problem was, it was guarded by a pair of Nightgaunts, one at the top of each staircase.
Nightgaunts, you might ask? That is, if you’re familiar with the works of H. P. Lovecraft. I know I wasn’t at the time. So looking back, Alone in the Dark was my first experience with Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. I’ve never read Lovecraft, but over the past ten years or so I’ve played a few board games set in the Cthulhu Mythos. Arkham Horror (2005) was the first I tried.
It was an interesting reflection, discovering that Alone in the Dark has references from Lovecraft’s works throughout. I realised it wasn’t the first time I’d encountered Cthulhu without knowing it in the 90s. Upon discovering the music of Metallica as a teenager in the late 90s, one of my favourite tracks was the classic instrumental, The Call of Ktulu.
But back to those Nightgaunts.
It was here that I discovered that the item I needed to get past the Nightgaunts had actually been damaged in an earlier fistfight with a ghoul. What did this mean? That’s right, Alone in the Dark has unwinnable situations I had feared in my introduction. It was easy enough to reload and progress, as I was still early enough in the game not for it to cost me too much time. However, I was now on my guard, and I would have to manage my saved games in case I ever needed to return to an earlier section of the game.
With the Nightgaunts defeated, Carnby descended the stairs and entered the second floor.
But not only did Carnby have access to the second floor, he also had the first floor open to him as well.
These two floors would make up a large portion of Alone in the Dark. There was a lot of ground to cover, and the freedom to explore.
As I started to explore Derceto Mansion, the visual presentation of the rooms came to the forefront of the game. As you can tell from the images so far, characters like Carnby and the enemies he faces are made up of polygons to give that 3D appearance. But the rooms in the mansion are 2D pre-rendered backgrounds with fixed camera angles. This was very reminiscent of Resident Evil, and was used for dramatic effect to enhance the suspense and horror of certain scenes.
Lighting was also used to create tension, but not as effectively as it would when lighting effects and shading became more prevalent in video games. In Alone in the Dark, it was either light or no light.
But why is Carnby continuing to explore an obviously dangerous dwelling? After all, he’d already located the piano in the loft.
As it turns out, Derceto Mansion won’t let him leave…
All hope is not lost though, as the more you seek, the more you find. One question that becomes more pertinent is why did Hartwood commit suicide?
His diary offers some clues.
Despite his impending madness, he remained lucid enough to realise and document that the key to understanding Derceto Mansion (and ultimately how to escape it) lies in the library.
Just one problem for now. The library is locked.
Well, at least I had a goal now.
After searching the rooms on the first and second floors, managing the ever-increasing inventory was becoming an issue. Carnby can carry a lot, but it’s based on weight, not number of items. And there are a few heavy items around.
This was only a minor annoyance, as it is easy to drop items and pick them up later as you need them. Of course, you do need to ensure you have the right item at the right time (again, managing the saved games is important).
I was feeling pretty good at this stage, and though I could recall very little from playing this in the 90s, I was making good progress through Alone in the Dark. I never got stuck for too long.
Though not in the library yet, I did discover an underground tunnel. However, this was guarded by a Cthonian, another creature drawn from Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.
Almost every room you explore in Alone in the Dark presents a puzzle to solve. There is variety too, where in some rooms it’s an environmental obstacle to overcome, while in others it’s a combat challenge.
The texts you find around the mansion in the form of books and diaries provide some clues as to how to get past certain puzzles. Which is just as well, as even though I was making good progress, Alone in the Dark is a difficult game. The game does not hold your hand, and once you have access to the first and second floors, there is no obvious way to go. I’m fairly certain my progress was due to the adventure and point-and-click gaming experience I have now compared with when I first played this.
After some trial and error and reading of in-game texts, I managed to locate and access the library. There had to be answers for Carnby in here, right?
The library did provide answers, just not the answers I was looking for.
It turns out, even some of the books are deadly. This one another Cthulhu reference.
I knew this library had secrets, and with a little persistence, they revealed themselves.
It turns out that Derceto Mansion belonged to a former pirate, Eliah Pickford. Jeremy Hartford’s father Howard, had bought the plantation on which the mansion had stood, more than a decade after it had burned to the ground. Howard Hartford meticulously restored the mansion to its former state, having an interest in the history of Pickford (whose real name was Ezechiel Pregzt).
Without going too much further into spoiler territory for those who haven’t played it, Howard’s death was mysterious, just like his son Jeremy’s.
As it also turns out, that underground tunnel I had discovered was hiding a lot more. Reaching the study, there was another entrance.
Though the Cthonian was still a problem.
Entering this labyrinth beneath Derceto Mansion is the final section in Alone in the Dark. And it brings with it a sudden change in gameplay. Gone is the slow and explorative mansion section, and somewhat strangely in comes a platform parkour section. This is where you also have the new ability to jump.
I found this quite abrupt, as I now had to change up my approach. Instead of trying to solve puzzles, I had to become very adept with Carnby’s movement to ensure he didn’t miss a jump or fall off a ledge. I can’t say I enjoyed the change, but I knew I was getting close to the end. I’d come this far…
There was also an annoying (though not difficult) overhead maze section.
After making a few mistakes with inventory management, I managed to make my way to the heart of the underground complex.
That altar at the base of the tree is where Carnby ends up whenever he’s killed in the mansion, as a sacrifice.
A sacrifice to whom, you might ask? Well, let’s just leave this here:
It’s an interesting story, one I don’t wish to spoil for anyone considering playing Alone in the Dark for the first time. It’s a bit tricky to piece the story all together, as it all depends on which texts you pick up and read throughout the game. I think it’s worth the effort to make sense of the story, which I’ll go into in more detail below.
If you manage to solve the final mystery, it’s a frantic dash to escape the caverns…
…and finally lead Carnby out those front doors and back to reality.
Well, almost reality.
The Verdict
I think I can appreciate Alone in the Dark more now than I could back when I first played it. It was a product of its time, and I recognised features such as the overhead maze section that had already seen implementation in games such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: The Graphic Adventure (1989) (and again in Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, released in the same year as Alone in Dark).
But ideas seen in Alone in the Dark would also see future implementation in games I played through the 90s, and not limited to survival horror titles. I’m talking about multiple player characters, inventory management/limits, tank controls, non-linear exploration, action modes (fight, jump, search etc), fixed camera angles, and creepy lighting and sound effects.
As I played through Alone in the Dark, and particularly as I entered the platform parkour section, I was very much reminded of one of my most memorable early gaming experiences, that with Little Big Adventure (1994).
This game has the tank controls and makes use of action modes, so jumping around underneath Derceto Mansion felt a lot like jumping around with Twinsen from Little Big Adventure. But I shouldn’t be surprised. Doing a little research, I discovered both games were directed by Frédérick Raynal, a French video game designer and programmer.
I can also appreciate Alone in the Dark more now, as I’m more familiar with the Cthulhu Mythos that it so often references. And the stories Derceto Mansion tells are important, as I realised during my playthrough that I was reminded of another of my favourite gaming experiences, one where the house in that story plays a prominent role. In What Remains of Edith Finch (2017), I discovered when I wrote about my replay that the house is its own entity, almost a character of its own.
It’s the same with Derceto Mansion in Alone in the Dark. There’s barely any backstory provided for Carnby, you don’t learn any more as the game goes on, and he doesn’t develop as a character. The main character in Alone in the Dark is Derceto; this game is about the mansion. Only through exploring it and uncovering its mysteries, like in What Remains of Edith Finch, will the story reveal itself. In gameplay terms, finding the books and diaries is critical for the story in Alone in the Dark to make sense.
Having gone into Alone in the Dark hesitantly, I was unsure whether I would be able to finish it, let alone enjoy it.
With most, if not all, games I’ve featured here on Present Perfect Gaming, I’ve gone in knowing how I felt at the time I first played the game, and how I feel about it now. Throughout a replay, I usually reflect on my observations, and might change my impression by the end. But with Alone in the Dark, while I can clearly remember playing it, I can’t really recall how much I enjoyed it. As such, it’s not a game I ranked highly, or have any sense of nostalgia for.
That’s changed now.
The controls are clunky, the polygon graphics haven’t aged well, and it’s not that scary compared to modern horror games.
But underneath the hood, I found Alone in Dark to be surprisingly accessible. Maybe that’s because I have more personal connections to it now, allowing me to appreciate it more than back in the 90s.
Nostalgia is a strange phenomenon. You can be disappointed when you revisit something you have wonderful memories of, only to discover you had over-inflated those memories over time. Or you can be pleasantly surprised when you somewhat reluctantly revisit something, only to discover it holds more value to you now given the passing of time.
And as for me? I know I found more than I was looking for…alone in the dark.
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