I kinda want to add one thing. The English voice acting might not be very good, but the French voice acting (done by professionals like Marc Alfos and Benoît Allane) is simply fantastic. It definitely does improve the game.
you are right. I got the GOG version, but still always download the french ISO version from an abandonware place. Also keep the floppy English version to show it (It is one of my favourite games). But yeah, the English voices... just no...
Outstanding video. I'm 40. I played the game when it first came out in 1992 at 10 years old. At the time, the thought of actually completing the game seemed impossible. After multiple playthroughs over the years, it still gives me chills; the way it did back then. When I actually set the tree alight, I feel a sense of accomplishment - having performed the seeming impossible. The game is in my top 10 games of all time. To me, it's legendary.
It was my first game for my first computer in 1993 when I was 33. I adored this game. I thought it was spooky as hell, and it gave me shivers to play it. Definitely top 10 for me as well. I never did finish it though. This video is really making me want to play it again. This game had so much charm, more than any other game I can think of.
I'm 41, this game is also in my top 10 games of all time. I first played it with a friend back in 1995 or so, we kinda ruined it by eventually using a walkthrough. I wish I could replay it now without knowing about all the items and puzzles. I love doing all the research of reading pages in books. There are quite a few more you can pick up in the library than I initially knew. Reading some of them will either hurt or kill you, though. Unless you met certain conditions.
I was 29 when Alone in the Dark came out...I had been a PC gamer since 1985..and this was like discovering the electric light and atomic power all in one. I was a Freshman in College on the G.I. Bill and I immediately changed my major from Business to Computer Science. After graduation I went to work at Orgin....then Digital Anvil/Turbine, this game had such a profound effect on my/life Career, glad to see it getting the respect it deserves.
My older cousin was dating a dude named Jeff in her college days. He introduced AITD to me and my older brother. I also vaguely remember him showing us another scary game called The 11th Guest or something. I still to this day am terrified of the chord that strikes when enemies show up in AITD
I played this game back in '93 on my dad's DOS PC, and with the audio being pumped out of a piezoelectric buzzer. It was absolutely terrifying, and an experience never replicated.
I'm Haitian, so the voodoo aspects were a pleasant surprise 😂 Love Lovecraft as well, good video, brother (I also noticed the correct pronunciation of Haïtienne!) Shub-niggurath is one of my favorite creatures... I forgot exactly but I think it stands for Goat Mother of a Thousand Dead or something of that ilk. 🤙
Shub-Niggurath is frequently referred to as "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young." More rarely, she was called "the All-Mother," and was described as "a kind of sophisticated Astarte."
If you haven't seen it, I might suggest looking into Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. I am by no means an expert on voodoo/hoodoo, but it's that game that taught me that those two words were different (specifically, iirc, hoodoo is the magic, and voodoo is the religion), so I think they did their research. If you don't want to play it yourself, you could look into a Let's Play of it. I'd recommend Dilandau3000's.
Alone in the Dark is the Doom or Super Mario Bros. of survival horror, if not the whole entirety of the genre of horror itself. So many games owe their existence to it, not just even horror games. Devil May Cry for example.
I don't remember where I found this out, but as it turns out the first Devil May Cry was originally going to be a Resident Evil game, which explains why there are so many similarities.
"The Return of the Sorcerer" wasn't based on the Cthulhu mythos. It is Cthulhu mythos. The original mythos was Lovecraft and his friends putting references to eachother's work in their stories. That was one of those stories.
Yup, can back that up too. Important distinction to make as what comes today in more modern times is based on it, but that crew were the OG's and all played large part in formation as we know "Lovecraftian writing" today.
Thank you for giving this game so much insight and love as it always got overshadowed and almost forgotten. Playing this since I was a little child and always hoped for a decent remake or at least a good new entry in the series. I hope the reimagination will do it justice!
The first room in AitD is a masterpiece. Granted, not the whole game was like that, it's not like there weren't any flows in gameplay moments and presentation. But, man, I can attest from my experience that even in 1994 (the year I got my first PC) it felt like a true horror. There was everything: thick atmosphere of an old cursed house, moments of silent suspense and intense panic, chilling music. It was the whole horror package! And if someone thinks it looks a bit silly now, I don't blame them, but know that after about 5 years of 8-bit and 16-bit gaming on NES, Genesis and SNES, this was a very unique and treasured experience for the young me, something I had never seen before in my Marios, Sonics and Ninja Gaidens before. So, when several years later I played Resident Evil, it was AitD that was always a reference in my mind, bc it was the pioneer, while RE was clearly the follower, even if Capcom denied the influence for many years.
This game has been the cause of many of my terrors when young. But it is sooo good, and can't stop playing now as grown up adult. Can't wait to listen to the analysis.
Man these early 90’s games look like they had so much passion put into them. They really put the focus on atmosphere. Games like Another World and Darkseed always looked like artwork to me as a kid.
I think that the best moment of _anything_ is always the experimentation phase; people not knowing what works and what not, any success truly feels like one, the public marveling infront of the unknown... It is kind of magical.
@@the.bardboyenski600 oh definitely, the experimentation phase and the golden age that almost always follows once things start falling in order is the best part of any new medium. it's too bad it never lasts forever and things eventually become homogeneous and boring.
My first night gaming on a pc at the age of 12 was on Ultima Underworld and Alone in the Dark. Mindblowing doesn't even come close to describing seeing such advanced games at the time.
I play Ultima Underworld even nowadays - on a vintage 486 notebook)... For me when I was 10 in 1993 and had no pc at home - one day I came to my bro's place, who had a 486 then - and saw and played at once Doom, First Samurai, Monkey Island II and Another World - also saw Win 3.1 with paintbrush for the first time - it was a great experience then)
I was always astounded by a '92 game having 3D characters and objects. And they looked so beautifully crafted to me as a kid, all inventory items. Frederick Raynal also made another great game with 2D backgrounds and 3D characters, Little Big Adventure in '94.
Thanks for confirming my hunch. Seeing the graphics and hearing it was from a French studio, I couldn't help but think of LBA. Shame AitD burnt out Raynal so much, but I'm glad we went straight on to do something similarly creative. With all the remasters and such these days, as someone already mentioned, it'd be nice to see the LBA games running nicely on modern systems if they aren't already. To think major publishers used to fund such quirky projects... and I'm not sure the massive budgets that games now get are always worth it.
I played this in 1992 and it absolutely scared the shit out of me. Haunted my dreams. Genuinely believe that it was the scariest game in existence upon release.
Interesting how Emily could be viewed as the “easy mode” character for her biography clues as well as her faster move speed, as Jill in both the original Resident Evil as well as the early 2000s remake for the GameCube fulfills that same purpose while Chris (analogous to Mustache Bro here since I forgot his name) is the character intended for those experienced with the game and/or overall genre as he’s on his own for most of the game, with Wesker showing up to help him only in the Remake if I recall correctly.
I remember being blown away by this when I was around 10 years old. Just hearing that having a sound card would let you hear the foot steps was amazing.
i think the voice over action is intentional. its supposed to mimic the type of intonations that were used on radio premiers of stories like the end of the world back in the relevant era that this game is supposed to depict.
That first screen is brilliant. It immediately involved getting items, using items, combats. And then doing couple of simple puzzles could help you completely avoid those two combats. You could die a lot in that screen until you figure out things. Then you could also speed run it by just grabbing the item and leave asap. Oh, it also give hints of what to do for couple of encounters later on. It basically teach you almost everything you will need to finish the game.
Great analysis! Alone in the Dark will always have a special place in my heart having played it as a kid it was definitely an incredible experience, it had so much great lore and I was fascinated with the unsettling moments and scenarios like a dinning room full of zombies just casually sitting there or the two gargoyles just randomly guarding the stairs, it’s definitely a shame that the original development team wasn’t recognized and credited enough for their work, one can only imagine what the series would turn out to be if they remain with it
Helluva Flashback (no pun intended)... I do remember this being the first time I was genuinely frightened in a video game. You could've cut and pasted this game on consoles for years and no one really notices, which is basically what happened.
John Carnby is the recluse, the main hero of the Return of the Sorcerer is a typical unnamed protagonist of short Mythos stories. In a way, Edward's idea of "devil worship makes me smile, this is a vacation" might as well be "this runs in the family". Voiceovers might be an acquired taste to the modern ear, but I'd disagree that they are as bad as RE - those driven to madness devour the scenery appropriately raving, and whoever read Edward's opening monologue in the first and third games did a pretty bang up job for the times.
"there isn't a map." My friend, it's 1992. The map is on your desk next to you. Either included with the game or drawn by your own hand. So many videogames of the time expected you to extend the world you are playing on the computer to the real world. Feelies and instruction manuals weren't things to be tossed aside and ignored, but key parts of actually understanding what it is you are doing.
Oh this game scared me alright as a kid. I still vividly remember a nightmare I had from this game. It was mainly focused on the tree at the end, but the feeling, sounds, gameplay, plot and music (pure terror) burnt itself into my memory forever.
I worked on the 2008 reboot. I was so disappointed at what Eden Studios did. During development, I wrote a memo basically saying the game was generic and they needed to tap into the franchise’s history and lore. The only thing Eden did was add a lame Easter egg in a file found in an ambulance. Instead of focusing on unrealistic crafting (pour gasoline on pistol rounds to create incendiary rounds, etc) and a very basic object destruction model (breaking doors with fire or an axe) they should focus on the paranormal investigator aspect of Carnby. He’s a paranormal investigator, not John McLane trapped in Nakatomi Plaza. I recommended the gameplay cash in on all the ghost hunting shows that were at peak popularity. Instead of equipping Carnby with a lighter and aerosol can flamethrower give him an EMF meter, K2 device, digital voice recorder, and other forensic tools. The gameplay I imagined was like “Condemned: Criminal Origins” but with the supernatural. I was ignored since I was very low on the totem pole. And now, years later we have the masterpiece: “Phantasmophobia”. I wanted more for this game. I created an ARG on MySpace with profiles for each character. Theophile was trying to find Carnby before Crowley. Followers would help by finding clues on the internet and sharing them with Theo. I think some of the profiles are still up. The hubris at Eden was mind blowing. They were so proud of that steaming pile of garbage. This was the last game I worked on from the development end.
I made a report in college about video games being an art form that can tell a story like a book and how that title of a book captures the reader like a game cover captures the player. Using Alone In The Darks title alone sounds terrifying and works as a game and a book. The teacher loved it.
I had to disregard the last 20 minutes of this video for the simple reason that real gaming is about only one thing;journey, not wether you beat it or not or how fast. If that is the kind of gaming you want play arcade games, mobile games, or games that come in cereal boxes.
I got this game in a random bundle in the mid 90s (also had an nfl game in it, can’t remember what else) and it quickly became my favorite. Only issue I ever really had with it was that you can get stuck in the section at the end by not collecting everything you were supposed to collect before going, or by just not being quite in the right position when you place the talisman, and the game doesn’t let you pick it back up
I never had a problem when I played this as a kid, but about a year ago I had a couple buddies play this to see how long it would take them as adults, and they totally borked it. They opened the stone door at the end too early.
Oooh, I love your point about Carnby and Emily being underserved to star as the protagonists. I made a similar point, and I think that's integral to making Alone games stand out from every other Resident Evil clone. We need some sense of normalcy, of being dwarfed by supernatural evil, not so capable of answering it that it seems a foregone conclusion we will win
Even tho it was motivated by technologic limitations I must say that I love the result from taking a wireframe model of a room and drawing pixel art over it, it gives the game a hand crafted look similar to its adventure game contemporaries but a lot more dinamic than usual.
Thanks for giving this game/series the documentary tribute it deserves. So fascinating to learn about the hard work and innovations the team had to come up with to bring us the first conventional 3D survival horror game.
Not seen the video (yet[still watching]) but me and my siblings loved this game (and 2-3) to bits altough we didn't understand anything for we didn't speak english! It was tough to beat it without any clue, but our love for this game endured even after theese years! Thank you for making this video!
An extremely well made and accurate analysis! Having played it recently in our channel we also wanted to make one, but you completely covered and nailed it! Personally, we are excited for this reboot, as it is much more accurate to the imagery and the lore of the first one than the other two reboots (2000 & 2008). As for the direct sequels (II and III) they were rather comedic, indeed, but prove that milking the cow is not a recent phenomenon in gaming.
Thank you for yall the work you put into this. Im going trough a very nasty time at the moment and content like this is really helping me. Thank you for making this.
I remember playing this on the 3DO as a kid. I would play until it got too spooky for me (the slow deliberate movement paired with the music cues). Then I would play some "Way of the Warrior".
Great video! The amount of research you do for your videos is really admirable, you create a documentary for these games. Would love to see you cover other niche games in the future!
Rofl what you refer to as "the last 5 minutes of gameplay" is literally my entirety of childhood memories! I watched my dad play this and ge only ever got as far as the caves... I love going back to stuff I've never touched or looked into since growing up. Hearing the Medusa yell as it died touched a part of me that I didn't even remember existed
Very awesome retrospective! I had memories when i first discovered this game on the 3DO on a kiosk in 1994, Alone In The Dark was indeed a pioneer for 3D adventure games!
I hated this game. Why? Because I was 8, it was in English, I didn't speak English and I died immediately all the time. But I knew that what I was looking at was leagues beyond everything else, so it frustrated me not to be able to play it. That's why I hated it.
Hey this was genuinely well put together with thought and concern to how it looked. An hour of joy that helped me appreciate the game and the story. Thanks! Glad I don't have to play it though! I was playing video games when they brought this out and am a Lovecraft fan in the time before Lovecraft had really be rediscovered and they'd only just brought out the game Call of Cthulhu, so there was a time when I would've been thrilled by it. I wouldn't now! I can not only not stand tank controls; but fixed perspective makes it impossible for me to have any sense of where I am in the game, like you mention in the film.
I thought that the journal wass read pretty decently. It starts of calm and sceptical and get's more and more mad. Of course just showing the last bit, where the author completely descended into madness and screams Lovecraft fantasy words sounds goofy without context, but that's neither the fault of the game nor the voice actor's
45:40 There is a safe spot in the library where you can be safe from reading a cursed book. Stand on the star on the floor on 49:09 before you look into a cursed book. THE STAR.
I don't remember which one it was, but one of the cursed books could be safely read if you were standing on the pentacle in the hidden room in the library, which was hinted at in one of the other books you could find. The early to mid nineties really did a lot to lay the foundations for modern gaming. Wolfenstein 3d and Doom, Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil and Mechwarrior 2 all pioneered and refined their respective genres.
Amazing video.Thank you producing great videos for those old games.You really bring back our childhood memories. AITD was groundbreaking when it released.Me and my friends were so scared to play it.After we learned the controls,we were shocked to find that we could actually block some monsters with furniture and the monsters would still try to brake into the room.The horror! We were so afraid that they might actually succeed and brake in. I never managed to finish either the first or the second game.Luckily,nowadays i can watch long plays and see the story.
One of my favorite games in the 90's. Glad to see people still remember it fondly. :) It's got a TREMENDOUS legacy but it is weird that as you said chases the genre it once created.
I feel like people don't give this game enough credit. Survival horror is massive now and people always think of resident evil but THIS game started it all.
@@incognitoman3656 Yes, the game can be emulated via DosBox. You can purchase the game on GOG, where a program has been written to emulate the program for you. Or you can do itself if you have a physical copy.
Awesome vid! I loved this series when I was a kid, never got to finish a single one of them though, I was a dumb kid. But it takes a special place in my heart, and I wish they could bring it back to current audiences, though from what I've seen in the reboot footage, it looks like they are going to half ass it; it looks like Evil Within mixed with present RE games rather than what AITD used to feel: the feeling of isolation and mystery, sorrounded by unsurmountable perils amidst a secret. Wish they could do the legacy some justice.
Haha, I was an idiot too, but I had a buddy to help me out. Between the two of us, we beat it in a few months. Now I can beat it in probably thirty minutes. But I do miss when games made you earn it. I also hope the remake is good, but I'm not hopeful. But I would love to be proven wrong.
@@dimebag667 I did that with AITD 3 with my brothers, though we never did finish it but we did get to when Carnby resurrects. Wishing against all hope the remake is not a hot piece of doo doo.
An interesting take on Alone in the Dark. As someone who got the game when it first came out as a child; it definitely was more scary than any other game at the time! Sure it hasn't aged well graphically, but alone in the dark still conveys its ideas and concepts quite well. You get a nice mix of intrigue/mystery, story telling through old records and the environment, some clever puzzle solving and action, and a nice bit of exploration. Even nowadays you don't always get this level of variety in games. I actually preferred the CD audio over the MIDI version in most cases as the sound card's of 1992 and prior did not have good soundfonts for midi. Some of the voice acting of the CD version is quite campy but I view that as mixture of the writers insanity and how 1920s silent films all seemed to have over the top acting with screens of text. Other voice acting works rather well like when you read a deranged priest's account of occult curiosities and rituals. It's a shame that the original team left so quickly. It also explains the dramatic shift in tone for Alone in the Dark 2 and 3. Both fun as adventure games but have a little too much silliness going on to be taken that seriously even as a child! A New Nightmare was a nice nod to RE and the original, but not really what I was looking for... After that... Let us not talk about the games made in the last 20 years... its been painful. Alone in the Dark 1 suffers what the first iteration of most technology and games do: they never age well. Often the 2nd generation and beyond of things are what get the most fame and notoriety. Maze and Battlezone were arguably the first FPS games and they have aged very pooly, hell most people dont even know of them. It wasnt until DOOM that most people began to take notice of the FPS genre which would be considered like a 3rd generation FPS game.
I never played this but watching I couldn't help but think of Twinsen's Oddysey (aka Little Big Adventure 2) and didn't know why until you mentioned that Adeline Software spun off from Infrogames!
Yes yes yes! Twinsen's Odyssey was/is one of my favorite pieces of media of all time. So few people that I know have played it or even knew about it. The animations, music, and so much of the content covered in this video was clearly "kept" when the developers made the Twinsen games. I hope to see or make more content about them soon!
It's hard to convey just how mindblowing those cinematic camera angles were in 1992. I think it was the first 3D game to do so. When me and my friend first played it, we spent half an hour in the first halfway just backing in and out of rooms to see the camera change. That sounds so dopey now, but it made jaws drop back then.
The "ball things" (what my brother and I called the rotating clusters of colorful orbs as kids, seen at the very end of this video) were pure nightmare fuel. That disturbing sound they make, almost wobbly spin they do, way they are invincible, and the fact that they hunt you down unerringly to kill you, make them frightening on so many levels. Seeing them now, all these years later, they're a little silly, but they still nearly trigger my fight or flight response, haha
They should make a remake of the original AITD1 (either in full 3D or with 2D pre-calculated images), the same way Capcom made excellent remakes of RE1/2/3/4 games.
I even remember entering the PC Store and finding this game, but it was the old cover (thornes) I loved and feared this game, and still every 1-2 years I need to play it through.
Tank controls were simply the best they had at the time to express movement through the fixed backgrounds. It wasn't to make the game scarier. It's a common misconception in the early survival horror games.
Yep. And while everyone is entitled to their own opinions, i have to admit that i personally sigh when i hear people praising these controls to no end because they "enhance the sense of scare". Context aside (i don't blame early survival horrors of using them), i think using tank controls to enhance scare is the gaming equivalent to most films using jump scares : it's the absolute cheapest way of doing and just show a complete lack of imagination to scare the player. Sure, characters in SH shouldn't be machines but there's a right middle between having a character that is overpowerful and making characters unfun to play.
44:50 - lol. That save screen is hilarious and soooo true 😆To this day I still encounter this issue with some retro, or retro-inspired, games. My saves for Ion Maiden/Ion Fury _are an unhelpful mess,_ lmao. I just happened upon your channel and I'm definitely subbing! Alone in the Dark is such a cool game for people to dive into and talk about, but I genuinely do not think I've seen anyone put in as much effort as you have. Wonderful retrospective!
I wasn't even aware of this game but really enjoyed this. Great production values all round so keep it up. Looking forward to seeing you take on Arena (once you've had a wee break!)
I still have the original box, manuals, disks and the cool little hint book. :) I'd love to see a remaster with point-and-click or WASD controls, hi-res visuals and enhanced soundtrack.
I kinda want to add one thing. The English voice acting might not be very good, but the French voice acting (done by professionals like Marc Alfos and Benoît Allane) is simply fantastic. It definitely does improve the game.
I remember on RUclips years ago there was only a French let's play with English subtitles. I was blown away by the French voice acting!
Shit Now I gotta see a playthrough with the french dub
@@Powered1Buttercup I made one nearly 15 years ago on my channel.
you are right. I got the GOG version, but still always download the french ISO version from an abandonware place. Also keep the floppy English version to show it (It is one of my favourite games). But yeah, the English voices... just no...
So is the name "Keith" really as terrible sounding in French then? :D
Outstanding video.
I'm 40. I played the game when it first came out in 1992 at 10 years old. At the time, the thought of actually completing the game seemed impossible.
After multiple playthroughs over the years, it still gives me chills; the way it did back then. When I actually set the tree alight, I feel a sense of accomplishment - having performed the seeming impossible.
The game is in my top 10 games of all time. To me, it's legendary.
It was my first game for my first computer in 1993 when I was 33. I adored this game. I thought it was spooky as hell, and it gave me shivers to play it. Definitely top 10 for me as well. I never did finish it though. This video is really making me want to play it again. This game had so much charm, more than any other game I can think of.
I'm 41. This game sucks lol
Same here. I would play at my cousin's, and RUN BACK HOME in terror, but being totally obsessed with Derceto and its mysteries.
I'm 41, this game is also in my top 10 games of all time. I first played it with a friend back in 1995 or so, we kinda ruined it by eventually using a walkthrough. I wish I could replay it now without knowing about all the items and puzzles. I love doing all the research of reading pages in books. There are quite a few more you can pick up in the library than I initially knew. Reading some of them will either hurt or kill you, though. Unless you met certain conditions.
I was 29 when Alone in the Dark came out...I had been a PC gamer since 1985..and this was like discovering the electric light and atomic power all in one. I was a Freshman in College on the G.I. Bill and I immediately changed my major from Business to Computer Science. After graduation I went to work at Orgin....then Digital Anvil/Turbine, this game had such a profound effect on my/life Career, glad to see it getting the respect it deserves.
My older cousin was dating a dude named Jeff in her college days. He introduced AITD to me and my older brother. I also vaguely remember him showing us another scary game called The 11th Guest or something. I still to this day am terrified of the chord that strikes when enemies show up in AITD
Wow, Jeff. This game had quite an effect on you! Are you still in the games industry?
Cool story! thanks for sharing!
I played this game back in '93 on my dad's DOS PC, and with the audio being pumped out of a piezoelectric buzzer. It was absolutely terrifying, and an experience never replicated.
I'm Haitian, so the voodoo aspects were a pleasant surprise 😂
Love Lovecraft as well, good video, brother
(I also noticed the correct pronunciation of Haïtienne!)
Shub-niggurath is one of my favorite creatures... I forgot exactly but I think it stands for Goat Mother of a Thousand Dead or something of that ilk. 🤙
Shub-Niggurath is frequently referred to as "The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young." More rarely, she was called "the All-Mother," and was described as "a kind of sophisticated Astarte."
If you haven't seen it, I might suggest looking into Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. I am by no means an expert on voodoo/hoodoo, but it's that game that taught me that those two words were different (specifically, iirc, hoodoo is the magic, and voodoo is the religion), so I think they did their research.
If you don't want to play it yourself, you could look into a Let's Play of it. I'd recommend Dilandau3000's.
Alone in the Dark is the Doom or Super Mario Bros. of survival horror, if not the whole entirety of the genre of horror itself. So many games owe their existence to it, not just even horror games. Devil May Cry for example.
Id swap mario with "pitfall" but point taken
It's more like Wolfenstein than Doom
I'd Say RE1 is Doom. AITD is halfway between Catacomb 3D and Wolfenstein 3D in terms of the genre
@@casanovafunkenstein5090 this is better way to describe exactly how I feel about it great point
I don't remember where I found this out, but as it turns out the first Devil May Cry was originally going to be a Resident Evil game, which explains why there are so many similarities.
"The Return of the Sorcerer" wasn't based on the Cthulhu mythos. It is Cthulhu mythos. The original mythos was Lovecraft and his friends putting references to eachother's work in their stories. That was one of those stories.
Yup, can back that up too. Important distinction to make as what comes today in more modern times is based on it, but that crew were the OG's and all played large part in formation as we know "Lovecraftian writing" today.
Thank you for giving this game so much insight and love as it always got overshadowed and almost forgotten. Playing this since I was a little child and always hoped for a decent remake or at least a good new entry in the series. I hope the reimagination will do it justice!
There is a new Alone in the Dark game coming out soon! It looks interesting and it seems like it's supposed to be a sort of remake of the original
@@mark-gj4mb yes finally! I saw the announcements :), hopefully it will be good.
The first room in AitD is a masterpiece. Granted, not the whole game was like that, it's not like there weren't any flows in gameplay moments and presentation. But, man, I can attest from my experience that even in 1994 (the year I got my first PC) it felt like a true horror. There was everything: thick atmosphere of an old cursed house, moments of silent suspense and intense panic, chilling music. It was the whole horror package! And if someone thinks it looks a bit silly now, I don't blame them, but know that after about 5 years of 8-bit and 16-bit gaming on NES, Genesis and SNES, this was a very unique and treasured experience for the young me, something I had never seen before in my Marios, Sonics and Ninja Gaidens before. So, when several years later I played Resident Evil, it was AitD that was always a reference in my mind, bc it was the pioneer, while RE was clearly the follower, even if Capcom denied the influence for many years.
This game has been the cause of many of my terrors when young.
But it is sooo good, and can't stop playing now as grown up adult.
Can't wait to listen to the analysis.
Reynal is truly a pioneer. I love hearing him talk.
Man these early 90’s games look like they had so much passion put into them. They really put the focus on atmosphere.
Games like Another World and Darkseed always looked like artwork to me as a kid.
I think that the best moment of _anything_ is always the experimentation phase; people not knowing what works and what not, any success truly feels like one, the public marveling infront of the unknown...
It is kind of magical.
@@the.bardboyenski600 oh definitely, the experimentation phase and the golden age that almost always follows once things start falling in order is the best part of any new medium. it's too bad it never lasts forever and things eventually become homogeneous and boring.
@@NGRevenant
I sincerely believe it is just we live longer. And crappy experiences have started to pile up.
proof all the best games have already been made.
@@homelessEh
Not with such attitude.
My first night gaming on a pc at the age of 12 was on Ultima Underworld and Alone in the Dark. Mindblowing doesn't even come close to describing seeing such advanced games at the time.
I play Ultima Underworld even nowadays - on a vintage 486 notebook)... For me when I was 10 in 1993 and had no pc at home - one day I came to my bro's place, who had a 486 then - and saw and played at once Doom, First Samurai, Monkey Island II and Another World - also saw Win 3.1 with paintbrush for the first time - it was a great experience then)
You know what's weird? Ultima Underworld is more visually impressive than Wolfenstein 3D, runs better on weaker hardware, and came out the same year.
I was always astounded by a '92 game having 3D characters and objects. And they looked so beautifully crafted to me as a kid, all inventory items. Frederick Raynal also made another great game with 2D backgrounds and 3D characters, Little Big Adventure in '94.
Still waiting for a new LBA lol,
love twinsens odyssey to death!
Thanks for confirming my hunch. Seeing the graphics and hearing it was from a French studio, I couldn't help but think of LBA. Shame AitD burnt out Raynal so much, but I'm glad we went straight on to do something similarly creative.
With all the remasters and such these days, as someone already mentioned, it'd be nice to see the LBA games running nicely on modern systems if they aren't already. To think major publishers used to fund such quirky projects... and I'm not sure the massive budgets that games now get are always worth it.
Didn't he also do time commando?
Little big was brilliant. So so creative
i remember my cousin (who was like 10 years older than me) playing Alone in the Dark back in the 90's. I loved watching him play it.
Haha. I had the same type of cousin playing Batman Returns on Sega and thinking how mature he was
I played this in 1992 and it absolutely scared the shit out of me. Haunted my dreams. Genuinely believe that it was the scariest game in existence upon release.
I mean, it was :)
Interesting how Emily could be viewed as the “easy mode” character for her biography clues as well as her faster move speed, as Jill in both the original Resident Evil as well as the early 2000s remake for the GameCube fulfills that same purpose while Chris (analogous to Mustache Bro here since I forgot his name) is the character intended for those experienced with the game and/or overall genre as he’s on his own for most of the game, with Wesker showing up to help him only in the Remake if I recall correctly.
Keith means "wood" or "from the battleground" so considering where he finds him, the name makes sense. "French writers" or not.
Nothing drives fear into man's heart more than the battle cries from Keith.
I remember being blown away by this when I was around 10 years old. Just hearing that having a sound card would let you hear the foot steps was amazing.
i think the voice over action is intentional. its supposed to mimic the type of intonations that were used on radio premiers of stories like the end of the world back in the relevant era that this game is supposed to depict.
That first screen is brilliant. It immediately involved getting items, using items, combats. And then doing couple of simple puzzles could help you completely avoid those two combats.
You could die a lot in that screen until you figure out things. Then you could also speed run it by just grabbing the item and leave asap.
Oh, it also give hints of what to do for couple of encounters later on. It basically teach you almost everything you will need to finish the game.
Great video Jwlar! Really enjoyed the premier! Can't wait for your next one! ARENA!
Great analysis! Alone in the Dark will always have a special place in my heart having played it as a kid it was definitely an incredible experience, it had so much great lore and I was fascinated with the unsettling moments and scenarios like a dinning room full of zombies just casually sitting there or the two gargoyles just randomly guarding the stairs, it’s definitely a shame that the original development team wasn’t recognized and credited enough for their work, one can only imagine what the series would turn out to be if they remain with it
Keith, the ungodly horror of my nightmares. More terrifying even than the unholy hell beast, Gary.
Helluva Flashback (no pun intended)... I do remember this being the first time I was genuinely frightened in a video game. You could've cut and pasted this game on consoles for years and no one really notices, which is basically what happened.
Comment for the algorithm, another solid video with a lot of good background information
John Carnby is the recluse, the main hero of the Return of the Sorcerer is a typical unnamed protagonist of short Mythos stories. In a way, Edward's idea of "devil worship makes me smile, this is a vacation" might as well be "this runs in the family".
Voiceovers might be an acquired taste to the modern ear, but I'd disagree that they are as bad as RE - those driven to madness devour the scenery appropriately raving, and whoever read Edward's opening monologue in the first and third games did a pretty bang up job for the times.
The voiceovers are ridiculous but they are charming and fun
"there isn't a map." My friend, it's 1992. The map is on your desk next to you. Either included with the game or drawn by your own hand. So many videogames of the time expected you to extend the world you are playing on the computer to the real world. Feelies and instruction manuals weren't things to be tossed aside and ignored, but key parts of actually understanding what it is you are doing.
Oh this game scared me alright as a kid. I still vividly remember a nightmare I had from this game. It was mainly focused on the tree at the end, but the feeling, sounds, gameplay, plot and music (pure terror) burnt itself into my memory forever.
I worked on the 2008 reboot. I was so disappointed at what Eden Studios did. During development, I wrote a memo basically saying the game was generic and they needed to tap into the franchise’s history and lore. The only thing Eden did was add a lame Easter egg in a file found in an ambulance. Instead of focusing on unrealistic crafting (pour gasoline on pistol rounds to create incendiary rounds, etc) and a very basic object destruction model (breaking doors with fire or an axe) they should focus on the paranormal investigator aspect of Carnby. He’s a paranormal investigator, not John McLane trapped in Nakatomi Plaza. I recommended the gameplay cash in on all the ghost hunting shows that were at peak popularity. Instead of equipping Carnby with a lighter and aerosol can flamethrower give him an EMF meter, K2 device, digital voice recorder, and other forensic tools. The gameplay I imagined was like “Condemned: Criminal Origins” but with the supernatural. I was ignored since I was very low on the totem pole. And now, years later we have the masterpiece: “Phantasmophobia”. I wanted more for this game. I created an ARG on MySpace with profiles for each character. Theophile was trying to find Carnby before Crowley. Followers would help by finding clues on the internet and sharing them with Theo. I think some of the profiles are still up. The hubris at Eden was mind blowing. They were so proud of that steaming pile of garbage. This was the last game I worked on from the development end.
I feel sorry for all the wasted hours. Hope you got paid well.
Thank you for your efforts.
I made a report in college about video games being an art form that can tell a story like a book and how that title of a book captures the reader like a game cover captures the player. Using Alone In The Darks title alone sounds terrifying and works as a game and a book. The teacher loved it.
I had to disregard the last 20 minutes of this video for the simple reason that real gaming is about only one thing;journey, not wether you beat it or not or how fast. If that is the kind of gaming you want play arcade games, mobile games, or games that come in cereal boxes.
Alone in the Dark 3 has always been the business - cowboy ghosts, man, you can't beat it
Love to see coverage of games from this era; it feels like it hasn't had as much love as the 80s and late 90s.
I got this game in a random bundle in the mid 90s (also had an nfl game in it, can’t remember what else) and it quickly became my favorite. Only issue I ever really had with it was that you can get stuck in the section at the end by not collecting everything you were supposed to collect before going, or by just not being quite in the right position when you place the talisman, and the game doesn’t let you pick it back up
I never had a problem when I played this as a kid, but about a year ago I had a couple buddies play this to see how long it would take them as adults, and they totally borked it. They opened the stone door at the end too early.
This was a fantastic retrospective of a beloved game from my childhood. Really enjoyed watching this and hearing the whole backstory behind the plot!
I have something to watch before going to sleep tonight. Great!
Oooh, I love your point about Carnby and Emily being underserved to star as the protagonists. I made a similar point, and I think that's integral to making Alone games stand out from every other Resident Evil clone. We need some sense of normalcy, of being dwarfed by supernatural evil, not so capable of answering it that it seems a foregone conclusion we will win
Thank you for this. I greatly enjoy your content and look forward to your future work!
Great video! Alone in the Dark deserves more love and I’m glad to have found this retrospective.
This was great, thanks!
Being a horror protagonist in a suit, is somehow now the most uncomfortable thing for me. At least if he dies, he can die in style.
Great video man! I love your editing, very sleek and visually rich!
So much work went into this game AND this video. Fantastic across the board. Thank you!
Even tho it was motivated by technologic limitations I must say that I love the result from taking a wireframe model of a room and drawing pixel art over it, it gives the game a hand crafted look similar to its adventure game contemporaries but a lot more dinamic than usual.
Thanks for giving this game/series the documentary tribute it deserves. So fascinating to learn about the hard work and innovations the team had to come up with to bring us the first conventional 3D survival horror game.
Not seen the video (yet[still watching]) but me and my siblings loved this game (and 2-3) to bits altough we didn't understand anything for we didn't speak english! It was tough to beat it without any clue, but our love for this game endured even after theese years! Thank you for making this video!
Oh god so many memories of playing this game with my brothers.
An extremely well made and accurate analysis! Having played it recently in our channel we also wanted to make one, but you completely covered and nailed it!
Personally, we are excited for this reboot, as it is much more accurate to the imagery and the lore of the first one than the other two reboots (2000 & 2008).
As for the direct sequels (II and III) they were rather comedic, indeed, but prove that milking the cow is not a recent phenomenon in gaming.
Man what a great video, I am so glad someone finally dives deep on the backstory of the game, one of the best aspects of it.
This is VERY comprehensive and well done!
I loved pretty much all the voice acting, especially the hammiest parts!
Content alarm!
Everyone to your stations!
I remember playing this with a childhood friend in 92!! Great times 😁!
Same here, we were 11 when this came out. Unfortunately, he passed away recently. I still have the copy we used to play though!
@@robotstampede sorry for your loss❤️
59:36
"They're more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules" Captain Barbossa
Thank you for yall the work you put into this. Im going trough a very nasty time at the moment and content like this is really helping me. Thank you for making this.
6:05 I love how this kind of thinking is still used. It was *SO innovative!*
I love those readings. The voice acting is perfect!
Another underappreciated gem is Bioforge. Same style, just hard scifi.
I remember playing this on the 3DO as a kid. I would play until it got too spooky for me (the slow deliberate movement paired with the music cues). Then I would play some "Way of the Warrior".
I loved my 3DO. That system just had the worst timing though. So many awesome games but just not quite enough...
Okay, I lost my shit when you dropped that Full Metal Jacket clip in. Perfect. Chef's kiss!
Incredible video. Great work, i learned a lot
YES!! I FINALLY FOUND IT!! A RETROSPECTIVE FOR THIS SERIES!!
Great video! The amount of research you do for your videos is really admirable, you create a documentary for these games. Would love to see you cover other niche games in the future!
Very well done. A pleasure to watch 👌Would be happy to have your take on Dread Delusion.
Rofl what you refer to as "the last 5 minutes of gameplay" is literally my entirety of childhood memories! I watched my dad play this and ge only ever got as far as the caves...
I love going back to stuff I've never touched or looked into since growing up. Hearing the Medusa yell as it died touched a part of me that I didn't even remember existed
Very awesome retrospective! I had memories when i first discovered this game on the 3DO on a kiosk in 1994, Alone In The Dark was indeed a pioneer for 3D adventure games!
I hated this game. Why? Because I was 8, it was in English, I didn't speak English and I died immediately all the time. But I knew that what I was looking at was leagues beyond everything else, so it frustrated me not to be able to play it. That's why I hated it.
I always knew this game was special. Thanks for making this video. I learned things I didn't even know about this game.
Hey this was genuinely well put together with thought and concern to how it looked. An hour of joy that helped me appreciate the game and the story. Thanks! Glad I don't have to play it though! I was playing video games when they brought this out and am a Lovecraft fan in the time before Lovecraft had really be rediscovered and they'd only just brought out the game Call of Cthulhu, so there was a time when I would've been thrilled by it. I wouldn't now! I can not only not stand tank controls; but fixed perspective makes it impossible for me to have any sense of where I am in the game, like you mention in the film.
For some reason descent into madness in the journal (53:00) reminds me the autopsy of Dr. Maximilian Roivas from Eternal Darkness - Sanity Requem
I thought that the journal wass read pretty decently. It starts of calm and sceptical and get's more and more mad. Of course just showing the last bit, where the author completely descended into madness and screams Lovecraft fantasy words sounds goofy without context, but that's neither the fault of the game nor the voice actor's
The original is still good enough to still give you some chills on the first time through even much later than 1992 .
The algorithm just recommended this to me, great work man!
45:40 There is a safe spot in the library where you can be safe from reading a cursed book. Stand on the star on the floor on 49:09 before you look into a cursed book. THE STAR.
I don't remember which one it was, but one of the cursed books could be safely read if you were standing on the pentacle in the hidden room in the library, which was hinted at in one of the other books you could find.
The early to mid nineties really did a lot to lay the foundations for modern gaming. Wolfenstein 3d and Doom, Alone in the Dark and Resident Evil and Mechwarrior 2 all pioneered and refined their respective genres.
Amazing video.Thank you producing great videos for those old games.You really bring back our childhood memories.
AITD was groundbreaking when it released.Me and my friends were so scared to play it.After we learned the controls,we were shocked to find that we could actually block some monsters with furniture and the monsters would still try to brake into the room.The horror! We were so afraid that they might actually succeed and brake in.
I never managed to finish either the first or the second game.Luckily,nowadays i can watch long plays and see the story.
One of my favorite games in the 90's. Glad to see people still remember it fondly. :) It's got a TREMENDOUS legacy but it is weird that as you said chases the genre it once created.
I feel like people don't give this game enough credit. Survival horror is massive now and people always think of resident evil but THIS game started it all.
played the floppy disk version back in the 90´s... love this game
A very well crafted video and it's great to see the full narrative of this classic game being described so well. Good job! 😁
Thank you!
@@Jwlar just a question because you were active here, how would you explain the technical parts of the game? Is it emulate-able?
@@incognitoman3656 Yes, the game can be emulated via DosBox.
You can purchase the game on GOG, where a program has been written to emulate the program for you. Or you can do itself if you have a physical copy.
@@Jwlar this gives me some ideas for the Nintendo 3DS
Awesome vid! I loved this series when I was a kid, never got to finish a single one of them though, I was a dumb kid. But it takes a special place in my heart, and I wish they could bring it back to current audiences, though from what I've seen in the reboot footage, it looks like they are going to half ass it; it looks like Evil Within mixed with present RE games rather than what AITD used to feel: the feeling of isolation and mystery, sorrounded by unsurmountable perils amidst a secret. Wish they could do the legacy some justice.
Haha, I was an idiot too, but I had a buddy to help me out. Between the two of us, we beat it in a few months. Now I can beat it in probably thirty minutes. But I do miss when games made you earn it.
I also hope the remake is good, but I'm not hopeful. But I would love to be proven wrong.
@@dimebag667 I did that with AITD 3 with my brothers, though we never did finish it but we did get to when Carnby resurrects.
Wishing against all hope the remake is not a hot piece of doo doo.
@@Mdlfh Nice 👍 I think every child should be forced to play this with a sibling or friend :) One of my most cherished memories.
An interesting take on Alone in the Dark. As someone who got the game when it first came out as a child; it definitely was more scary than any other game at the time! Sure it hasn't aged well graphically, but alone in the dark still conveys its ideas and concepts quite well. You get a nice mix of intrigue/mystery, story telling through old records and the environment, some clever puzzle solving and action, and a nice bit of exploration. Even nowadays you don't always get this level of variety in games.
I actually preferred the CD audio over the MIDI version in most cases as the sound card's of 1992 and prior did not have good soundfonts for midi. Some of the voice acting of the CD version is quite campy but I view that as mixture of the writers insanity and how 1920s silent films all seemed to have over the top acting with screens of text. Other voice acting works rather well like when you read a deranged priest's account of occult curiosities and rituals.
It's a shame that the original team left so quickly. It also explains the dramatic shift in tone for Alone in the Dark 2 and 3. Both fun as adventure games but have a little too much silliness going on to be taken that seriously even as a child! A New Nightmare was a nice nod to RE and the original, but not really what I was looking for... After that... Let us not talk about the games made in the last 20 years... its been painful.
Alone in the Dark 1 suffers what the first iteration of most technology and games do: they never age well. Often the 2nd generation and beyond of things are what get the most fame and notoriety. Maze and Battlezone were arguably the first FPS games and they have aged very pooly, hell most people dont even know of them. It wasnt until DOOM that most people began to take notice of the FPS genre which would be considered like a 3rd generation FPS game.
Perfect professional lecture, knowledge + videos...
I never played this but watching I couldn't help but think of Twinsen's Oddysey (aka Little Big Adventure 2) and didn't know why until you mentioned that Adeline Software spun off from Infrogames!
Yes yes yes! Twinsen's Odyssey was/is one of my favorite pieces of media of all time. So few people that I know have played it or even knew about it. The animations, music, and so much of the content covered in this video was clearly "kept" when the developers made the Twinsen games. I hope to see or make more content about them soon!
Best RUclips video I have ever watched. Good day to you sir
It's hard to convey just how mindblowing those cinematic camera angles were in 1992. I think it was the first 3D game to do so.
When me and my friend first played it, we spent half an hour in the first halfway just backing in and out of rooms to see the camera change.
That sounds so dopey now, but it made jaws drop back then.
I appreciate the videos and your perspective, extremely well written and researched as always. God bless
Thank you, I appreciate it! :)
The "ball things" (what my brother and I called the rotating clusters of colorful orbs as kids, seen at the very end of this video) were pure nightmare fuel. That disturbing sound they make, almost wobbly spin they do, way they are invincible, and the fact that they hunt you down unerringly to kill you, make them frightening on so many levels. Seeing them now, all these years later, they're a little silly, but they still nearly trigger my fight or flight response, haha
Oof I'll be working through this tomorrow with a cup of tea and a mince pie
They should make a remake of the original AITD1 (either in full 3D or with 2D pre-calculated images), the same way Capcom made excellent remakes of RE1/2/3/4 games.
One of my favorite 3do games when it came out.
I have this on 3D0 as well, it’s a great port and playing it with a controller is much preferred over a keyboard.
@@robotstampede there was nothing like it at the time. Until resident evil
That Uwe Boll movie was/is such a masterpiece, totally captured any and all of the alone in the dark games. 11/10
I even remember entering the PC Store and finding this game, but it was the old cover (thornes) I loved and feared this game, and still every 1-2 years I need to play it through.
Thanks for the hard work on this video. Very much enjoyed!!!!
Tank controls were simply the best they had at the time to express movement through the fixed backgrounds. It wasn't to make the game scarier. It's a common misconception in the early survival horror games.
Yep. And while everyone is entitled to their own opinions, i have to admit that i personally sigh when i hear people praising these controls to no end because they "enhance the sense of scare". Context aside (i don't blame early survival horrors of using them), i think using tank controls to enhance scare is the gaming equivalent to most films using jump scares : it's the absolute cheapest way of doing and just show a complete lack of imagination to scare the player. Sure, characters in SH shouldn't be machines but there's a right middle between having a character that is overpowerful and making characters unfun to play.
I hate the fact that I played this game when I was too young. So that damn zombie chicken is the reason I'm afraid of the dark.
Now, I can see the game in a totally different light. Thank you!
I can't wait for the premiere
44:50 - lol. That save screen is hilarious and soooo true 😆To this day I still encounter this issue with some retro, or retro-inspired, games. My saves for Ion Maiden/Ion Fury _are an unhelpful mess,_ lmao.
I just happened upon your channel and I'm definitely subbing! Alone in the Dark is such a cool game for people to dive into and talk about, but I genuinely do not think I've seen anyone put in as much effort as you have. Wonderful retrospective!
I have been waiting for a video on this game for so long! thanks!
I wasn't even aware of this game but really enjoyed this. Great production values all round so keep it up. Looking forward to seeing you take on Arena (once you've had a wee break!)
I still have the original box, manuals, disks and the cool little hint book. :) I'd love to see a remaster with point-and-click or WASD controls, hi-res visuals and enhanced soundtrack.
Megaman is what you’re looking for
@@MrHomelessHobos No, I'm looking for a remaster of this classic.