Alone in the Dark is a 1992 survival horror video game designed by Frédérick Raynal. Developed and published by Infogrames in 1992 for MS-DOS, the game was eventually ported to Mac OS, the PC-98, the FM Towns, the 3DO, RISC OS, and iOS. Alone in the Dark is set in 1920s Louisiana and challenges the player to escape a haunted mansion. To advance, the player must solve puzzles while banishing, slaying, or eluding various ghosts and monsters. The player can collect and use weapons, manage a weight-based inventory system, and explore a partially nonlinear map.
Raynal was motivated to create Alone in the Dark due to his interest in 3D animation and his fondness for horror films. The storyline was inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft and the work of directors like Dario Argento and George A. Romero. Raynal's programming team worked to convey much of this story via key texts scattered about the game's environment. To overcome technical limitations, the production team also employed a fixed camera angle system to dramatically frame the movement of three-dimensional characters on top of two-dimensional background images.
Upon its release, Alone in the Dark received acclaim, with critics applauding its unsettling atmosphere, effective soundtrack, and technical inventiveness. The game also won several industry awards and is regularly included in lists of the best video games ever made. Often identified as the first 3D survival horror game, Alone in the Dark strongly influenced the production of Capcom's Resident Evil (1996), and it also spawned a series of follow-up games and two films. A reimagining of the original game, published by THQ Nordic, was released on 20 March 2024.
Gameplay The player can select a male or female character (Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood, respectively), and are then trapped inside the haunted mansion of Derceto. The player character starts in the attic, having ascended to the top of the mansion without incident, and is tasked with finding a way out of the mansion while avoiding, outsmarting, or defeating various supernatural enemies. Although most enemies can be killed with fists and feet, the player can also find and utilize various weapons. Other opponents can only be defeated by solving a particular puzzle rather than a straight fight, while some cannot be killed at all and must be avoided.
Much of the game involves exploration and puzzle-solving, and the house can be searched through for clues as to what occurred before the player's arrival. The player can also open and close doors, push certain objects, and pick up and use key items. The inventory is limited, and the player must often discard items to make room. It is possible to discard items needed to complete the game, but discarded items remain in play and can be retrieved later, even if the player character leaves the room. Inventory space is determined by weight, not number of items. For example, the player may discard several lightweight items yet still be unable to pick up a heavy object.
Alone in the Dark has a partially non-linear level design. The player character is initially restricted to the attic and third floor, whose rooms are arranged in a way where they must be traversed in a linear order. Completing the puzzle at the end of the third floor grants the player character access to the first and second floors. The player can explore the rooms in this area in any order and revisit the attic and third floor if desired. Upon completing a specific puzzle, the player gains access to the caverns beneath the mansion. The caverns are entirely linear, and each puzzle must be overcome as it is encountered.
Plot In 1925, Jeremy Hartwood, a noted artist and owner of the Louisiana mansion Derceto, has died by suicide. His death appears suspicious yet seems to surprise nobody, for Derceto is reputed to be haunted by an evil power. The player assumes the role of either Edward Carnby (a private investigator who is sent to find a piano in the loft for an antique dealer) or Emily Hartwood (Jeremy's niece, who is also interested in finding the piano because she believes it contains a secret note that explains Jeremy's suicide). Depending on whether the player chooses to play as Carnby or Hartwood, the game begins with that character going to the mansion to investigate. Upon entering the house, the doors mysteriously slam shut behind the player character, and once they make it to the attic, they are attacked by monsters. The player character progresses down through the house, fighting off various creatures and hazards.
The player character finds documents throughout the house indicating Derceto was constructed by an occultist pirate named Ezechiel Pregzt, and that beneath the house are caverns wherein Pregzt performed dark rituals to enlarge his fortune and unnaturally extend his life. Pregzt was shot, and Derceto was burned down by encamped Union soldiers during the American Civil War. However, Pregzt's spirit lived on, coming to inhabit an old tree in the caverns underneath Derceto. Over the course of the game, the player discovers that Jeremy Hartwood killed himself to prevent his body being used by Pregzt as a host; for this reason, Pregzt is now targeting the player. If the player is incapacitated, their body is subsequently dragged to a sacrificial area and possessed by Pregzt, whereupon the game ends with an image of supernatural horrors being unleashed from the house into the world at large.
In another ending, the player character finds a passage into the caverns in Hartwood's study and makes their way to the tree where Pregzt resides. The player character throws a lantern at the tree, then flees the collapsing cavern. The flames consume Pregzt, and the house is purged of supernatural creatures and other effects caused by his influence. The player can finally open the front doors and leave the house (which, now empty of monsters, is mostly safe to explore). The game ends with the player returning to their car, only to discover that the person behind the wheel is a zombie, who drives the car back to civilization.
Cultural references The story is heavily influenced by the works of H. P. Lovecraft. Grimoires found in the mansion's library include the Necronomicon and De Vermis Mysteriis, both taken from Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. The last name of the character Edward Carnby is a reference to John Carnby, a character in the Mythos tale The Return of the Sorcerer by Clark Ashton Smith. Finally, several supernatural opponents are recognizable creatures from the Mythos (e.g., Deep Ones, Nightgaunts, Chthonians), and Pregzt even mentions Cthulhu.
Development Background
In 1991, the French video game developer Infogrames acquired the rights to adapt Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role-playing game (based on H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos) into a series of video games. When brainstorming ideas for what an adaptation would entail, Infogrames CEO Bruno Bonnell proposed a game where players would use matches to gain snapshot views of a completely dark environment. Frédérick Raynal, a programmer at Infogrames, was struck by the concept. As a fan of horror film directors like Dario Argento and George A. Romero, Raynal had long wanted to create a horror-based game, and so he approached Bonnell, asking if he could lead the project. Raynal also proposed that the game be rendered using 3D animation. However, Bonnell felt that such a game was not possible, given the technical limitations of the time, and so he assigned Raynal to work on a French port of Maxis's city-building simulator SimCity (1989). Despite this setback, Raynal was determined to realize his horror game concept, and to convince Bonnell that such a project was feasible, hewith the help of fellow Infogrames employee Didier Chanfrayspent his evenings working on a 3D animation engine to power the game.
Chanfray played a significant role in developing the nascent game's tone and visual style during this stage of production. Using white chalk and black Canson paper, he created a concept sketch of an individual standing in a dark, eerie hallway, illuminating the environment with a lanterna sketch that Raynal later called "iconic". To determine the set decorator, Raynal organized an internal contest among Infogrames' staff, inviting them to design potential background sets for the game. One of those who participated in this contest was Yaël Barroz, a graphic artist nearing the end of her fixed-term contract with Infogrames. Barroz's submissions emulated the style of traditional paintings, and Raynal found them so striking that he brought her on to help develop the look of the game's environments.
In September 1991, Raynal and his team presented an early proof of concept of their horror game to Infogrames. At the time, the game only contained a few rooms, but when Bonnell and Infogrames head of productions Éric Motet saw this demo, they were convinced of the game's potential for success and officially approved the project. Infogrames subsequently diverted resources to Raynal's project, which resulted in the development team expanding from three individuals to seven. During this phase of production, the game went by several working titles, including In the Dark, Screams in the Dark, The Old Dark House, The Thing in the House, and The Evil Fear. The name Alone in the Dark was eventually settled upon, with the word "Alone" being added to "reinforce the tragic nature" of the game.
Writing and animation
To help develop the story, Infogrames hired Hubert Chardot, a screenwriter who had worked for 20th Century Fox. Chardot outlined the plot in only three afternoons, and he also wrote most of the dialogue. While Alone in the Dark would go on to be advertised as a game "inspired by the work of H. P. Lovecraft", Raynal has admitted the works of Argento and Romero were stronger influences on the game and that Lovecraft was used to provide "ambiance, to give roots to the mystery and to add a few creatures to the bestiary". This decision to allude to the author's creations rather than directly adapt one of his works led Chaosium to contend that the game was "too far removed from the spirit of H. P. Lovecraft", and so they subsequently revoked Infogrames' Call of Cthulhu license. Other sources claim that Chaosium revoked their license because they believed Raynal's game to be too simple to do justice to the complex rules of their pen-and-paper game.
Due to his belief that computer graphics at the time were not sufficiently frightening on their own, Raynal decided to integrate key texts into the game which could convey necessary backstory details: "A few polygons", he noted in an interview with GamaSutra, "[is] not very frightening, so I knew that I needed the text to put the situation into a very heavy background story for the game." In terms of the setting, Raynal also decided that the game should take place in a 1920s mansion, as such an expansive locale would be conducive to player exploration, and the specific time frame would allow "for weapons while avoiding the modern commodities that were too difficult to properly handle" or which would have "caused atmosphere and consistency problems". To heighten player anxiety, the game was designed so that simple tasks like walking down a hall, opening a door, or reading a book could potentially result in death. While these deaths occurred in only a few areas, Raynal and his team included them to make the player worry about seemingly ordinary actions.