Amazing achievement for its time but it aged like milk. The graphics would have been understandable but the controls are the most bizarre part as it feels like it was ported from a console with two buttons. But then I find it was made for PC?

They could of assigned a few more keys to separate actions and this would of reduced it becoming an insufferable experience of constantly pausing and having to awkwardly navigate menus to achieve basic things. Even with just two buttons, you often find yourself confused which button to press. This would enabled it to be much more approachable as time has gone on and allowed people to appreciate it for the potential gem it could have been

Truly a remarkable experience to play a game that inspired a true master piece... Resident Evil. This game in no shape or form is forgiving and will punish you at all cost, but its a great to see how this game wonky controls worked. I used a guide this whole game because it is almost impossible to beat it without one in my opinion or you would probably have to spend hours trying to figure things out yourself. In one section of the game they tried to implement platforming which is god awful which is definitely not needed, but it is a little fun. Its just good to see how Capcom took this game and made it so much better and later on seeing how alone in the dark then resident evil again further down the line in the series.

Review EN/PTBR

The biggest jumpscare I got in this game was a frog's face appearing for 1 second on my screen

It's impossible to say that this is a bad game for its era considering that it was one of the first in survivor horror genre.

If you're not familiar with old games, I highly recommend this game because I went into it thinking it was going to be something frustrating and limited where I would be lost for a while, but when I saw it I ended up beating the game in just 6 hours.

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O maior susto que eu tomei nesse jogo foi o rosto do sapo aparecendo por 1 segundo na minha tela e desaparecendo

É impossível dizer que esse é um jogo ruim pra época em vista que ele foi um dos primeiros em quase todos os aspectos que ele se dedica dentro do genêro survivor horror

Se você não tem frescura com jogo antigo recomendo muito esse jogo pois eu entrei pensando que ia ser algo frustrante e limitado aonde eu ficaria perdido por tempos mas quando vi eu acabei zerando o jogo em apenas 6 horas.

This is what Resident Evil would look like on Gameboy Color!

Alone in the Dark is the grandfather of the survival horror genre, and honestly not much else other than being known for its name and having 4 reboots that each failed miserably.

it's not that deep of a game, imagine resident evil 1 but with awful controls, visuals that resemble StarFox, an overflow of useless items with a limited inventory, AWFUL combat, and obviously some cryptic puzzles.
Yeah, yeah I know I'm being harshed and it's pretty damn impressive for 1992, it does hold some historical values and such but this is a website where gamers talk about the games and not artistic and historical values, as a game it sucks and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone, I can't even ask for like a remaster because the game is still painfully generic in its story and visuals so you might as well just play resident evil 1.

That's kinda it about this game, it's really short like 5 hours long at best, it's just funny how Resident Evil 1 is still kind of a 1:1 with this game, they both have the puzzles, the manor, and the really annoying final part that change the gameplay and turn into an escape sequence.
Overall a pretty forgettable game outside of historical values and shouldn't have gotten that many reboots, like c'mon by the time I'm writing this there's a new reboot coming! Sometimes you should just let things go and start making something new.

"I'm Alone in the Dark!"
"I'm Alone in the Dark, Too!"
Best quote ever?!

Memes aside, Alone in the Dark was always a series I knew nothing about despite my huge love for the survival horror genre (at least, the old tank control style) and this year I thought it would be nice to fix that. With how much I've heard about it being unplayable """""aged""""" dogshit I figured I wouldn't really get much out of it, but I kinda appreciated it a lot tbh? lol

My favourite aspect was definitely the atmosphere. The fact this shit came out in 1992 is actually uncanny to me. Every single document in the game is voice by various different narrators who are implied to be the writers and it's just one hell of a neat touch. The voice actors simultaneously sound as if they've had a million roles before, and like they're total amateurs. I don't know how else to describe it, the overacting is just godlike.
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161553663240716368/AITD.mp4
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1163702809548570725/damned_yankees.mp4

The visuals are so antiquated but I honestly think it only adds to the vibe of the game taking place in a Lovecraftian mansion. It's not the scariest game ever but I genuinely got frightened at multiple moments in the game, including the glass shattering at the very beginning. Like Emily and Edward's models are so pixelated and jaggy (especially in their faces) they look like a living blowup doll with lipstick smeared on and a man made out of triangles, respectively. It's just hilarious seeing them slash equally awkwardly animated pirates to death. https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161554573090107412/image.png
https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161554441854525531/image.png

The music is honestly stuck in my head at this point. The game is about 2-3 hours long and only has like 4 tracks, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't immediately google a 30 minute extended cut of the ending theme the instant I finished the game. But it's the way the music is utilized in the game that truly makes it stand out like jumpscare chords in a B-horror movie; case in point https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161569731229274153/DOSBox_0.74-2.1_Cpu_speed__8000_cycles_Frameskip_0_Program__INDARK_2023-10-11_03-41-54.mp4

The story of course is nothing deep, but I really love how the documents all serve to create a cohesive sense of setting, that the player truly is Alone in the Dark mansion as they piece together puzzle solutions from the aforementioned overacted documents. There are also some books that will kill the player upon reading them which is still something unique to do in the survival horror genre even today.

Also, a misconception to address. Motherfuckers online said there are no differences between the male and female main characters, and I'm here to say that's a load of horseshit. Even without finishing the game as Edward, I noticed that Emily's campaign differed in multiple ways including her intro being different and her monologuing about her deceased uncle upon finding his pictures. Though, frankly, I 99% just played her on account of her running animation not looking like she had a candle stuck all the way up her arse https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1156847687476457492/1161554246462877786/run_animation.mp4

Right, the running and document reading....

The gameplay loop is funny as fuck ngl. Cheap deaths are so frequent in the game that I would dare to call it fake difficulty, save for the the player can quick save and quick load multiple files, with my favourite out of left field death being this one: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1052492536125607966/1162324435752202300/AITDeez_nuts.mp4

Hell, I'd go as far as to say that the game WOULD be unplayable dogshit were it not for the quick saving and quick loading. No judgement to anyone who uses them, but I personally never use save states in emulators since I feel like it removes all the fun from challenges to overcome for me and also prevents me from fairly judging a game as it's more akin to repeatedly bashing my head on a wall than improving my fundamentals. Alone in the Dead feels like a game that simply could not exist in a playable state without these save states, and I feel no guilt using them since the game was clearly balanced around them.

An example of this can be found in the gunplay. On top of having BS deaths to worry about, the characters cannot aim for shit with the rifle especially. Readying a gun or sword takes a trillion years and there is no snappy auto-aiming, so smol monsters can and will just stunlock the player until all 50 HP are depleted. It's so egregious!

Thankfully, the player can just as easily stunlock enemies with their melee attacks (which shockingly were much better to the point I actually had fun meleeing the zombies to death) provided their positioning is on point.

Hell, I even kinda liked the gameplay on the whole. Exploring the mansion was pretty fun, it was more compact than I expected and the running was quite fluid despite the lack of a quick turn. I've seen people online post about how the running was super finnicky and unreliable, but a pro tip to all reading who are interested in playing this....

The default GOG config is borked. There, I said it. In DOSbox, increasing CPU cycles makes inputs delayed and less reliable. By using CTRL+F11 and CTRL+F12, one can manually adjust the virtual CPU cycles. Setting them somewhere in the 8000-10000 range should just about serve to make the running animation consistent, definitely something to experiment with.

I'm not sure if the CPU cycles affected the jumping either (I doubt it tho) but with the complaints I heard about the platforming in the final area, I was surprised I managed to perfectly platform across everything first try. It was kinda rad actually.

Fuck it, this is a pretty strong 7.5/10 to me. If the game was better balanced, there was more music, the main characters were fleshed out a bit better, the experience was slightly scarier, and especially if the weapons didn't suck ass to use, this could be a strong 8+/10 game.

However, the fact it was the first true attempt at a 3D survival horror game, yet still managed to have unique ideas for the genre even today, memorable voice acting even if not necessarily for the right reasons, 2 campaigns with minimal bugginess to them, and an otherworldly atmosphere? I just can't help but love it. Truly one of the most important video games of all time, I definitely respect the vision. Happy October!

When it comes to modern, long lasting genres, survival horror is one of the most prominent and successful ones when it comes to video games. It hasn’t been around as long as most other popular game genres, but it has become one of the most popular and beloved, and there have been many games developed over the years centered around this genre… for better or worse. Of course though, survival horror wasn’t always a staple of the industry, such as back in the late 80s and early 90s, where the genre was practically non-existent. Sure, there were some horror games out there at the time, but when it came to early horror in video games, it mostly just consisted of video games with spooky themes, like with Castlevania and Splatterhouse. That would change though when it came to one of the first most notable survival horror games to have ever been made, Alone in the Dark.

Since Alone in the Dark is being brought back from the dead… again, I decided that I wanted to properly take a look at the series by playing the first entry. After all, I had been wanting to see what Alone in the Dark was all about, since it would be the game to inspire Resident Evil, which would also go on to inspire many, and I mean MANY, different horror games and franchises later down the road. So, I played through the game, and… it was actually a lot better than I thought it would be. Obviously, I can’t judge the game as harshly as other games I have covered, given how it was one of the first to properly take on the genre, and… well, given how it looks, but I actually ended up having a lot more fun with it than I was expecting, even if the game is FAR from perfect.

The story is pretty simple, just about one of two characters going to investigate the supposed death of one who lived in a supposed haunted mansion, but again, for the time, not too many games had this kind of story, and they weren’t really presented in this style, the graphics are… well, let’s be honest, they’re fucking terrible, but for 1992, it is pretty impressive seeing what was made here, even if it looks extremely primitive nowadays, the music is enjoyable, even if there are few tracks, and it seems like they play whenever the game feels like it a lot of the time, the control is… pretty awkward, especially when paired up with the depth perception of some rooms, but again, I can’t blame the game too much given what it is and when it was made, even if it hasn’t aged all too well, and the gameplay is somewhat what you would expect from a game of this style, establishing a lot of the tropes that many games after this would go on to use.

The game is a “survival horror” game, where you go through a mansion full of dangerous creatures, traps, and scares, find many items around the place to help defend yourself and explore around more, solve puzzles to find more rooms throughout the mansion and more tools to help survive, fight off against plenty of enemies with the limited resources you have, and try not to get scared along the way… even though it’s really easy to do in this case. For being one of the first of the genre, the gameplay actually holds up pretty well for the most part, giving the player plenty of room to look around the mansion, as well as enough of an idea of where to go, while also placing enough restrictions on the player to make them still feel powerless, and in turn, more nervous for their own life.

There are plenty of elements that can be found in this game that have influenced many other games later down the road, such as the use of fixed camera angles to avoke a sense of frustration and fear from the player, limited inventory so that you have to carefully think about what you should and shouldn’t carry with you to protect yourself and proceed forward, and having a non-linear sense of progression (for the most part), where the player is given a sense of freedom to explore around most of the mansion, see what they can find, and use what they find to figure out how to delve further down. Needless to say, this gameplay style works very well, allowing the player to go about their own will without needless handholding, while allowing them to feel plenty of satisfaction from solving puzzles, defeating enemies, and figuring this out… even though I used a guide for my playthrough, but even then, I still had a lot of fun going through all the different puzzles.

There are two main problems that I have with the game, which aren’t necessarily the game’s fault, but more so due to its age. First of all, obviously, the game isn’t scary at all. Yes, this is to be expected from a game that looks like this, but I imagine, for the time it came out, it was one of the scarier games to get, and it kind of could still be seen as scary, but more so towards how everything looks strange and unnatural. So, since the scare factor is eliminated, the only joy you would get from playing the game would be reliant on the gameplay, which may or may not turn people away from it.

The second problem is that the fixed camera angles could’ve been done a LOT better here. Now, I am not one of those people who believe that fixed camera angles in these types of games are garbage, and make the game too frustrating to want to play, because they do add another layer of horror to these HORROR games. However, I will say, working around in some of these camera angles can be a huge pain in the ass, whether it be from not knowing what is an object and what isn’t (even though that usually isn’t a problem), unwarranted deaths due to a lack of understanding how to move around an invisible wall that you just ran into, and those times when the camera is zoomed way too far out or in, not giving you enough room to see what’s around you, or too much room to the point where you can easily misguide yourself and end up dying. This isn’t too much of an issue, as I was able to get through the game regardless of these issues, but still, it could’ve been done better.

Overall, despite how poorly the game has aged, and some frustration when it comes to the camera angles, I still ended up having a pretty good time with the original Alone in the Dark, and I am glad that I finally decided to check out an entry in the series after knowing about for a long time. I would recommend it for those who are fans of the survival horror genre, and want to know more about the earliest products to be made around it, but for those who can’t get into it as much as me, you would probably find better enjoyment just by watching it on YouTube. Also, I did lie when I said that this game wasn’t scary at all… because I did get slightly scared by the frog in the intro. I mean, come on, the close-up view of it and the loud-ass croak sound caught me off guard. Gotta watch my back now, just in case a frog tries to jump me sometime in the near future.

Game #316

Let me start off by saying that this game was quite an experience, It was fun, the story is really well made, however the gameplay and difficulty of this game is definitely not for everyone, I really like this game because it gives a challenge but it isn't frustrating, the level design is great and the enemies and other characters are a really neat addition as well, the music and atmosphere is a definite 10/10.
Overall I'd give it around 9/10, an amazing survival classic, but after being spoiled with more updated games, it's kind of hard to adapt to, but it's worth it after beating the game.

Alone in the Dark é considerado o pai do gênero survival horror e um jogo bem antigo, mas apesar disso ele é realmente bem feito pra sua época, os gráficos são bonitos e bem charmosos, a direção de arte é muito boa também, e surpreendentemente o jogo até que me fez sentir um pouco de medo em alguns momentos, a atmosfera dele é excelente, tem momentos realmente bem sinistros, principalmente por causa da trilha sonora que é genuinamente boa.

Mas os controles são meio bostas, principalmente pra correr que é quase um teste de paciência e os inimigos em geral não são muito legais de se enfrentar, inclusive tem um em específico que você enfrenta várias vezes no jogo que é muito quebrado e irritante, e também não ajuda muito que o inventário é limitado e você não tem onde guardar os itens igual em Resident Evil, aqui tu só joga eles no chão e depois precisa ficar voltando pra pegar eles, e isso deixa o backtracking chato pra caramba, o jogo também é pouco intuitivo na parte da exploração, tive que jogar com um guia, se não eu literalmente não teria conseguido zerar, mas ainda sim foi divertido, não chegou a ser uma experiência frustrante, apesar do jogo ser datado.

Recomendo pra quem gosta muito do gênero, ou é fã dos Resident Evil clássicos, apesar de não ser tão bom quanto.

The progenitor of the Survival Horror genre.

This game must've looked fucking crazy in 1992. Imagine looking at the barely interpretable environments of Wolfenstein 3D next to this fully realised Mansion, in which people obviously lived and died for that matter. While the graphics are obviously outdated now, they're still functional. Personally I find them quite charming, but I can see it putting people off these days. The character designs are the strongest part in my opinion. The enemies, while just amalgamations of shapes in different sizes and colors, can even look threatening at times. Emily and Edward just barely manage to not look ridiculous, so they don't drag down the horror factor.

Okay before I go on about all that other bullshit no one cares about, let's talk about Resident Evil.

I always knew Alone in the Dark inspired Resident Evil. It's the kind of trivia basically everybody seems to know about. What I didn't realise is that Capcom whole cloth ripped this game off. A hyperbole to be sure but it's more accurate than not honestly. AITD takes place in a mansion filled with monsters, you select if you wanna play as a male or female character at the beginning and it's mostly pre-rendered. The puzzles usually involve putting a McGuffin into an indentation, in order to open a door. There are readables scattered throughout the game, in order for you to catch up on the lore. There is an inventory system in place, which is limited and there are multiple weapons and matching ammo to find. Lastly the game ends with a escape sequence.
The craziest part is that there is no Item-Box, so if your inventory is full you just dump your excess items on the ground. Just like you would exactly ten years later in Resident Evil Zero. Needless to say it sucks in both games. Capcom had ten more years of game design experience and a game they took massive inspiration from already having made this mistake and they still managed to fuck that up. Those who disregard history are doomed to repeat it I suppose. Anyway Resident Evil Zero rant over.

Let's back up for a sec. Yes, there is an inventory system. Yes, it's lmited, but not in any meaningful way. There is really no resource management to speak of, because you can save everywhere and an unlimited amount of times. Save, find out what to do, reload, do what you just learned perfectly, repeat. This takes out a lot of the difficulty. Of course there is some jank and bullshit death, which was the style at the time, but it's pretty much all negated by the unlimited save function. Now AITD is showing it's point and click adventure game influence here, this isn't the only example either. Your actions aren't all bound to keys, most of them are selected in your the inventory. Just like someone would select what Guybrush should do, before clicking on something. Its work well enough honestly. The games this fascinating combination of the survival horror Resident Evil would later establish and the point and click adventure games of the 90s, which preceded it.

The level design and puzzles are fairly standard for today, but competent enough so that it held up for me. I played through the game without a guide and only got stumped once. It's lacks most of the 90s gaming horseshit, I've come to expect. The books and parchments usually offer helpful hints about the puzzles, so no guide needed. A cool little detail is that items, for the most part, reside in logical locations. For example the medkits are found in the bathrooms, a stew is found on the kitchen table and the rifle is locked up in the attic.

Speaking of guns the combat is clunky and obviously obsolete, but functional. It's actually possible to play through the game, without getting hit. In turn it's not really hard or interesting. Although the game offers a lot of options to avoid combat all together. I felt really clever for pulling it off, so bonus points for that.

Lastly the voice acting must have been trailblazing for the time. A diary containing the house owners descent into madness is fantastically written and performed. I can't think of any game around the era which could've come close. So AITD casually sets the standard for voice acting in videogames aswell.

Honestly I say give it a go, it's short and sweet. A little janky, but not at all uncomfortable.

Alone in the Dark is a pretty good investment for anyone who's a fan of survival horror games to look back on and see where we have come from. The game is more difficult than it needs to be with some questionable controls or camera angles, especially during specific sections requiring platforming, or aiming a bow down a hallway to shoot at something (that is also shooting you).
The game does have some fun with its gameplay structure, which I give it credit for. You can skip the enemy encounters in the first room entirely by simply blocking their entrances, there's a room with a healing flask inside but going in risks more harm than the payout, there are books in the library you can read that causes your character to contort and bang their head against the floor (or just float for a second before dying). I'd say the biggest flaw is the trial and error gameplay structure that arises from being a game of its age.

If you know what you are doing, it is a very short experience. If going in blind, a pretty decent older game that you can see spawn a whole genre, just be sure to keep that giant pot of human soup handy for a few rooms down.

Alone in the Dark is the grandfather of all survival horror games. As a huge fan of the genre and the Resident Evil series, playing this game was long overdue, luckily I finished it just in time for the remake. While we're at it, a remake is definitely needed. Not just because of the technical aspects like the bad resolution, awful controls, dozens of useless items which gets annoying 'cause it was combined with limited inventory and the combat is also pretty bad. Once an enemy manages to land a hit, you will be staggered and most of the time you can't do anything against it until you are dead. The steam version also has a few problems for example the window shrinking when you minimize it and the visuals are very pixelated when you maximize the game on a modern monitor. But I always had to laugh when Edward punched a zombies with the loudest SMACK sound effect. I was also pleasantly surprised by the the voice acting. I didn't expect the game have voice acting and it was very well-done. I really appreciated the voice acting because the information in the notes was often necessary to defeat certain monsters and I just hate it when I have to read so much in games. Overall I enjoyed my time with the game, it has a great atmosphere, cool monster design and I see much potential for the remake. But it was really short, at max you probably need around 4-5. I'm glad I finally beat this game because of its historical value and importance to my favorite gaming genre, survival horror.


Games I finished in 2024 ranked

Старый, но как по мне ещё не так плохо сохранившийся дедушка survival horror. По началу игра очень неприветливая, но стоит немного разобраться с боевкой и управлением, и уже более чем приятно играть. Особняк исследовать интересно и решать загадки тоже. На мой взгляд, игра полегче чем тот же более поздний Resident Evil, враги тут легкие и не представляют особой сложности, большая сложность тут понять что делать дальше. А в Resident Evil ничего не понимаешь и при этом тебе приходится разбираться с ворохом бессмертных мобов. Из-за своего возраста игра конечно не так пугает и удивляет, но я все равно заценил атмосферу. Самое жуткое было наверное читать книги, в которых описывается предыстория Джереми Хартвуда и главного антагониста, рассказывается о самых разных зловещих ритуалах и жертвоприношениях. Максимум ложка дегтя здесь это тот факт, что игра может вполне себе софтлокнутся если ты оставил какой то важный предмет, ну и не совсем очевидные действия в некоторых моментах. А так топчик даже сейчас, ждём ремейк.

The first survival horror game! Or, well, if not the first survival horror game, it’s at least the first 3D survival horror game. Or, well, if not the first 3D survival horror game, it at least sets up the template that later genre-codifiers such as Resident Evil or Silent Hill would later popularize. Classic conventions of the genre, like exploring a non-linear map, resource scarcity, and inventory management, while iterated and simplified in the years since, originally had their place here. A lot of the issues that the developers had to work around — the use of dramatic, fixed-camera frames, and a control system where you move your character in a way akin to a car in order to obscure that the landscapes you walked around were only 2D images — would be repeated with a degree of intention, even as advancements in technology and processing power meant that later developers would not have to adhere to the limitations Alone in the Dark faced. Even despite predating what it inspired by roughly 4-5 years, Alone in the Dark… honestly still plays exactly like one of its progeny, and while it might be outshone by what came after it, I… definitely still think this game is worth taking a look at, even regardless of its place in history.

You can play as one of two characters: Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood. Regardless of who you pick, the general premise is the same: a man by the name of Jeremy Hartwood has committed suicide by mysterious circumstances, and in the wake of his death, either Edward or Emily has been sent up to his attic to investigate a piano — in Carnby’s case, to obtain it for an antique dealer, and in Emily’s case to try and search for her uncle’s suicide note. Upon making it to the attic, however, they’re placed under siege by monsters, and, afterwards, soon find Hartwood’s mansion cut off from the outside world, and beset with the undead. Now whichever player character you chose must now do their best to scavenge and explore the mansion, avoiding creatures and solving puzzles in order to access new areas, both in hopes of finding a way out, and in hopes of finding out what exactly is haunting the Hartwood mansion.

And for an early work in the genre — and for something that… didn’t quite possess the benefit of knowing where previous survival horror games succeeded and failed — it’s pretty solid. I like the way this game approaches level design. The mansion is large, sprawling, and above all else, open: it’s up to the player to find out what they can access and what they can’t, and through that, what the player needs to do to open up new areas. It creates a nice feedback loop, where by opening up a new area you’re rewarded with the means to open up new areas. The game carries some fairly disparate influences — specifically, the works of H.P Lovecraft, George A. Romero, and Dario Argento — but manages to blend them all together in a way that feels not only seamless, but to the point where the game really feels more like its own thing than it does any of said predecessors. Furthermore, while it… does feel a bit weird to talk about how something being jank actually works for a game’s benefit as if that’s just a core expectation of a survival horror game, there are moments where the limitations of the time manage to enhance the experience. Any point where I had to run away or something, or carefully navigate around traps or enemies, I felt the controls added a little degree of added stress and adrenaline to the equation, and made those parts of the game feel more standout.

Tragically, I do think that other than in that example, the conceits of the time… manifest more as downsides than things that boost the experience. Combat is bad. Instead of just using a weapon, there’s a whole system with equipped weapons where you choose which hand to use and/or which direction to swing. What it intends is a system a bit reminiscent of real-life sword-fighting, where where and when you swing is key to interrupting your enemy and landing a strike. How it works in practice is that you’re beholden to this clunky system where you have to wind your strike up before you can swing, and meanwhile the enemy can attack quickly enough to interrupt your animation before you're ever allowed to attack. Thus, it’s oftentimes a much better idea to avoid combat unless you can actively avoid it — not because of any sense of resource management, or cost vs. gain, but because if you try it’s more likely the enemy is going to stunlock you for half your health before you can even actually land a hit on them. While I do like the contrast in how the last third of the game is much more linear and straightforward than the rest of the mansion, I enjoyed much less how the game became the very first a 3D platformer: the clunky jump controls, the camera angles the game chooses, and the steep price for falling into the water definitely made that whole endgame section kind of a slog. It also, coincidentally, throws a bunch of enemy encounters that you can’t really run away from, so the previous issues combined with getting constantly stunlocked by enemies definitely left… a rather low mark on my experience.

Still, though, even if it does feel a little obsolete compared to the games that more directly kickstarted/defined the genre, and even if I certainly had my frustrations going through the game, I do think this is still a game definitely worth experiencing, presuming you want to. Whether it’s because you want to see what inspired the original Resident Evil, or whether you want to play the game on its own terms, it’s absolutely worth taking a look. It’s much closer to its progeny than you might think. 6/10.

The survival horror genre is one of my favorites, and the genre has Alone in the Dark to thank for where it got its beginnings, at least in its game design and 3D perspective. Due to its age, I never played it, nor any of the other, less popular, entries in the series, but I am glad to say I got to do so today. It released in 1992 for the MS-DOS, was developed by Infogrames and while it shows its age obviously, I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I initially thought I would. This game will receive a remake in just a few months after this review is posted.

In Alone in the Dark, you pick one of two characters. Edward Carnby, a private investigator, or Emily Hartwood, the niece of Jeremy Hartwood. Jeremy Hartwood is the reason both of them are looking to visit the 'Derceto' mansion, as Jeremy Hartwood used to live there and had died of suicide shortly before the start of this game. Edward Carnby is tasked to find a piano for an antique dealer, while Emily Hartwood wants to find out more about Jeremy's suicide, which supposedly is explained through a secret note hidden somewhere near the piano.

I thought that was a nice touch to give both characters different motives to visit the mansion instead of giving the player a simple choice of male or female. I decided to pick Edward Carnby, who, if I may, looks like an absolute chad. His chicken walk up the stairs in the game's introductory cinematic had me immediately enamored with this character.

What the cinematic also depicts is the character you have chosen driving to the mansion and, as they enter it, the door closing behind them. Next, they walk up the stairs to the attic, from where you start your mission to escape. From here, if you choose Edward Carnby, that's pretty much your only goal. You're thinking "Shit, why did I accept this job?" and try to get out. If you're Emily Hartwood, you actually have an additional reason to be there, which is "Why did my uncle kill himself and was he really just insane or was there something else going on?". Sure enough, there is something going on in Derceto manor.

The game has the characters you pick hold a monologue describing their motives for going into the mansion, but once you are there, have no more lines. Instead, the story is told through books, parchments and notes, which are voice acted by Jeremy Hartwood (for his own letters) and other voices. Some books are simply there to add to the atmosphere of the game, while others include useful information for puzzle solving that are 1) optional to read, as you can solve the puzzles without doing so and 2) also add to the lore and atmosphere. The voice actor for Jeremy Hartwood does a fantastic job of expressing the voice of a man who is losing his mind and added a lot to the storytelling.

Ultimately, unearthing the secret of Derceto mansion is not as much of a big deal as the journey to get there, and the entire process is not as fleshed out as we have become used to through the power of bigger memory storage, but it was enough to keep me intrigued and the form of storytelling is unique enough for its time that I personally enjoyed it more than you probably would if you play it after having played more modern survival horror games recently.

This is even more true when it comes to the gameplay, though I doubt anyone today would say that the game's gameplay is 'good' either way.

This is a survival horror game that introduced all the elements you'll be familiar with by now. You explore the mansion and look for items that you will need to solve puzzles, heal yourself or engage in combat. The game has an inventory management system that is weight-based, meaning you can only hold items up to a certain weight that is not noted anywhere. Items like first-aid kits remain in your inventory even after you use them up, so you have to manually throw them away to make space, which is an odd system but something I can appreciate for the fact that this is something unique to this game.

The game's controls are tanky and the action you can use by pressing the Action button "Space" is something you select in the inventory screen. Your options are FIGHT, which allows you to get into a hilarious fighting stance while pressing Space and punching/kicking is done by pressing arrow keys simultaneously. OPEN/SEARCH lets you search cupboards, wardrobes and cabinets while you stand next to them, CLOSE lets you close doors, PUSH lets you push stuff to reveal hidden areas and later on, you get a JUMP action that is used for late-game platforming segments that put the tank of the controls to World of Tanks-esque levels.

Alone in the Dark has a pretty great way to start you off in the attic. As you are still trying to grasp the controls, an enemy jumps into the room through the window and attacks you. You can kill it with your fists but will take some damage. Just as you think the danger is averted, another enemy comes up from a trap door and you engage him as well. For new players, these will both surprise you and you'll 100% of the time have a suboptimal approach. Because see, the game quite clearly is OK with you avoiding its combat system as much as possible. I'd like to think they had mercy with players even back then, as they knew how unspectacular the combat was and is.

What you can do here is push the wardrobe in front of the window and a chest on top of the trap door, which lets you avoid the combat here altogether. Later on in the game, you can close doors to do the same, avoid a ghost lady by simply ignoring her and skip fights by placing certain items next to the enemies to distract them, like a gramophone or a pot of soup. You do have to engage in combat multiple times, but you will quickly realize that the best way to get through the game is to avoid it as much as possible. The game also only has very few healing items that you can find, adding credence to this.

The game is quite short overall, it took me a bit over 4 hours to beat it, but it could easily be done quicker, if you figure out some puzzles faster than I did. A lot of the time I lost though was due to the controls, especially in the last third of the game that included platforming sections, where it was very easy to fall into the water.

Additionally, to beat the game you will need to make sure that you don't fall into that water because it will wet your matchbox, which means you can't light your oil lamp, which means you can't see in the dark. The last major area before the final boss is a dark maze, so I had to replay over half an hour after realizing that I could simply not beat the game anymore.

The atmosphere this game creates these days can be described as creepy in a funny way. I can imagine certain parts of the game to have been scary at the time, and fighting two enemies in the first area while you still try to understand the controls certainly does a great job of having you on edge from the get-go, but at this point in time I can't say I was ever truly scared. The chicken-walk your character does up and down the stairs is hilarious, the male character has the ugliest face in video-game history, the enemies look like cartoons rather than actually scary monsters and whenever you hit an enemy, the game plays a smack sound akin to what it would sound like when you bitch-slap somebody, which in addition to your character's fighting pose had me in tears during the intended-to-be tense opening fights. The best way the game genuinely scares you I think is through the random deaths that can occur at every step and with its random use of its spooky sound effects, which make you think that enemies are nearby, even if they aren't.

Overall, I can definitely recommend the game to survival horror fans, because it is enjoyable enough to warrant an afternoon of your time. It pioneered an entire genre, so I think it's definitely worth being played. Outside of fans of the genre, fans of video game history will surely find some enjoyment with this for a little while, but I wouldn't say it's a good game by today's standards, though it does a solid job as a graphic adventure through its simple yet clever puzzles.

STORYTELLING/CHARACTERS | 7/10

Two characters to choose with different motivations, though this doesn't impact the playthrough

Story (Voice acted) told through books, notes and letters, with plenty of optional texts to dive into

GAMEPLAY | 12/20

Enjoyable mix of exploration, puzzle solving and combat

A lot of enemies to fight or avoid, but which constantly keep you on your toes

Inventory management that has its charm because it is done in a unique way for its time, but wouldn't be a lot of fun once more games start doing it

Tank controls that you do get used to, but which aren't that good. Running animation in particular often just doesn't trigger

Too many cheap deaths means you'll need to save often or be ready to replay many parts of the game

MUSIC/SOUND/VOICE | 9/10

All text voice acted, but there is no in-game dialogue

Voice actor for Jeremy Hartwood has the best performance by far

Hilarious smacking sound when punching that didn't fit in with the atmosphere but still had me in tears from laughing

Sound effects are otherwise the scariest part about this game

Good soundtrack that fits the vibe of the game, accentuating both the mystery of the Manor and the horror within

GRAPHICS/ART DESIGN | 7/10

A rare 3D game for its time with charmingly ugly polygon graphics

Many areas in the mansion varying in appearance

Some scary, ominous looking characters like the ghost lady and the dancing ghosts in the dance hall

Odd choice for the design of many enemies

ATMOSPHERE | 8/10

Confident that it was rather scary for its time, though not quite as scary anymore (I don't get easily scared though, so your experience may differ)

The game does a good job of creating an uneasy atmosphere and has many moments that tell you to expect the unexpected, which keeps you on edge

The incredibly ugly design of the male character, the smacking sound when kicking/punching and the cartoonish look of some enemies make the game much more light-hearted in feel than probably intended

CONTENT | 7/10

Will take 2 to 5 hours to beat

Not many puzzles in retrospect, but plenty of interesting ones

Many items in the game simply useless however

LEVEL/MISSION DESIGN | 7/10

Some parts of the game can be approached in multiple ways

Game does a great job laying out the dangers in the game and you can feel gradually improving as you go

Attic part of the game is just superb game design

The basement and maze levels in the final third of the game were not so good

CONCEPT/INNOVATION | 10/10

The start of a whole genre as we would know it for years to come

REPLAYABILITY | 2/5

Two main characters, though will little difference in playstyle

You can tackle some parts a bit differently, as you gain more tricks

PLAYABILITY | 5/5

Worked well at all times

OVERALL | 74/100

(This is the 78th game in my challenge to go through many known games in chronological order starting in 1990. The spreadsheet is in my bio.)

Who has the funnier run? Edward or Logan from Syphon Filter?

I think the biggest thing that prevents this from being more easily playable is how it follows the early 90s adventure game creed of "murder the player any chance you get." surprisingly a lot of it is forewarned in a way King's Quest never gave you the luxury of. Yeah, that trap door in the attic is probably going to reveal a monster, better cover that up! Even though the game can be brutally slow to do anything, in a lot of ways it's approachable still, and very knowingly goofy in others while still maintaining effective tension because of how good the game is at killing you.

Edward taking a pugilist stance and punching out zombies with the loudest SMACK sound effect is one of the many examples of Alone in the Dark's brilliance.

I wish it used the mouse though, that's the big thing that kills me with this. It was the same with Grim Fandango before its remaster, but Manny didn't have to dodge monsters from beyond the veil. It has a learning curve and a shockingly unhelpful manual but it isn't impossible to get it down.

Also shout out to the voice acting, surprisingly well-done, charming deliveries. Emily's southern drawl is making me realize more women in games need to be from Louisiana.

I love early 3d models, monsters, southern gothic horror, scary houses, and pre-rendered backgrounds so I was made in a lab to like this game. I just can't believe it took me so long to get around to such an important piece of gaming history.

Capostipite dei survival horror, fonte di ispirazione primaria per titoli come Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Eternal Darkness (etc), Alone in the dark è un videogioco dalla base ludica innovativa, che mescola elementi di avventura grafica, avventura testuale, action in terza persona e, talvolta, pure elementi platforming, creando così un genere tutto suo che avrebbe fatto le fortune di diverse case di sviluppo negli anni a venire.
Nonostante questo suo ruolo da colonna portante della storia videoludica, Alone in the dark è stato, ed è tutt'ora, pesantemente criticato da pubblico e critica per la sua eccessiva difficoltà, causata in parte da certe meccaniche non propriamente smussate, quali continui backtracking, combattimenti legnosi, movimenti lenti e alcuni bug. Molti dicono che sia invecchiato male, ma io non sono totalmente d'accordo. I problemi ci sono e sono evidenti, ma nonostante tutto mi son molto divertito ad esplorare la pericolosa tenuta Derceto e nello scovare i libri segreti dal contenuto romanzesco, veri e propri tasselli di una delle prime "lore" dei videogiochi.
Nonostante il gioco sia ambientato in un unico edificio, ogni stanza possiede un suo stile particolare, in modo tale da non annoiare mai il giocatore, che, al contrario, sarà sempre più incuriosito di scoprire cosa si celi dietro ogni porta chiusa; inoltre, ciò serve a farlo orientare perfettamente anche senza l'utilizzo di una mappa. Questo dettaglio, non scontato nei giochi moderni, è sinonimo di un ottimo level design.

Qundi che dire, val la pena giocare AitD nel 2023?
Sì, se siete amanti degli horror anni 70 o appassionati di videogiochi.
No, se preferite titoli più adrenalinici e non avete molta pazienza.

Historically fascinating but very rough to play, even by the standards of its era. After playing Resident Evil I fully bought into the use of tank controls as a way of creating cinematic shots, but the average camera angle in this game is much less artful—although there is the occasional inspired moment, like switching to a shot outside the window looking in at yourself just before a monster bursts through. But I can forgive many control scheme fumbles in such an early 3D game.

What really gets me is the combat. Not the controls, which are actually fairly clever once you get the hang of them, but the absolute opacity of what's expected of the player. Some enemies will crumple from a few hits, but others seem to be effectively invulnerable, with no rhyme or reason as to why. I stabbed a rat a dozen times with a knife and it never died—but crucially, it did fall back and emit a gout of blood, which should have been a clear signal that it was getting injured.

I don't mind being weak and pathetic. It's a baseline expectation of the genre, and it's cool to see it present right here at the root. But when a rat or a spider is indestructible, it diminishes the fear of the highly-destructible zombies and birds you also fight. When you can't enter a room not because its resident is too strong for you, but because it randomly ended up camped in the doorway and a single hit will stagger you back out of the room, it brings mechanics into primacy over mood in a way that diminishes the effectiveness of the game.

Frustrations aside, it's fascinating how Alone in the Dark engages with saved games. Where its successors parcel out saves as a resource to be carefully applied, this game not only allows you to save freely, it demands you do so. Death comes swiftly and unexpectedly. Walk in the wrong space, open the wrong door, get cornered by a rat, and you're gone. You can even end up soft-locking yourself without noticing, only to find out much later. The rational response is to hoard a mountain of saves in different places at different times to be able to stitch together one final flawless run—foreshadowing a common mode of play for stealth games in the process.