Classic Game Postmortem: Alone in the Dark

In this classic 2012 GDC postmortem, Frederick Raynal shares how he and his team crafted the seminal horor game Alone in the Dark that helped spawn a genre that still scares millions today.
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[@obiwaankenobi4460]

This is definitely history. The first 3D horror game. Awesome.

[@magnolerriccardo6840]

or maybe that's how "survival horror" genere begun.

[@ilyadaemon]

I played in 1994. I even redrew the Derceto Manor floor plan on graph paper.

[@genericpersonx333]

I will never forget the day I first saw Alone in the Dark and said "wait, you can make PEOPLE out of polygons?" Until that time, I never saw anyone make anything but environments and maps out of 3D polygons, with all the other entities being sprites or other 2D representations.

[@ccollalto]

It's so satisfying to watch stuff like this, the great achievement of a person that has the strength of will not only to make full use of the little resources at hand to reach an ultimate goal but also to improvise and innovate, motivating other people to reach that same goal and keeping everything moving forward despite the hardships and doubts involved. AITD scared the shit out of me as a kid and I gratefully take my hat off, thank you Mr Raynal.

[@PaulBosMusic]

This and Ecstatica were my favorites from that era, followed by family-friendly Twinsen series. Check them out!

[@Clay3613]

Glad I'm not the only one who played Twinsen.

[@goopah]

I played this game in 1993, when I was 33 years old, and it scared me enough that I had to take frequent breaks.

[@WhiteFalconus]

An amazing game, one of the most memorable ones from my childhood. Remeber getting the shareware/demo version where the hero still had that pink sphere as his head, it looked so weird, especially when close to the camera :-) It was so much better later in the full game. BTw. cant understand those people criticizing Frederick's accent. He is obviously trying hard to speak in a language that is far from his own and what he is saying there is so interesting that its more than worth coping with the accent and grammar mistakes. He also seems like quite an amiable and cheery guy.

[@DusanPavlicek78]

Amazing presentation! Alone in the Dark is one of my most favorite games!

[@rmmartins133]

Nice, I didn't know you could hide behind the wardrobe from the zombie with the yellow shirt!

[@dzejrid]

This game scared the shit out of me as a kid. I played it for maybe 2 hours in total, starting it multiple times and even getting as far as the ground floor, but I could never stomach the tension. I remeber it very well, even have some slight nostalgic feeling about it, but it contributed to the fact that as a gamer I really, really, really dislike any kind of survival horror games. I have never played any Resident Evil, Silent Hill or similar titles because after Alone in the Dark I already knew this is not my cup of tea. This is not a complaint, rather a compliment to Frederick for creating such a memorable experience, that even over a quarter of century later I still smile when recalling it.

[@Clay3613]

Resident Evil 2 remake is not very scary, try it sometime.

[@tuyatrojouey6485]

A wonderful insider story ! Thanks Frederick ! (et vive la France au passage :D )

[@cobbb11]

Played with my sister and dad and we left the damn lantern in the library after killing the vagabond. The amount of despair we had when we realized we needed it after going below the house cannot be duplicated to this day.

[@Heyoka86]

Forget Alone in the Dark 1, it's Little Big Adventure that Frederick Raynal should best be remembered for. LBA was an amazing game, and it's severely underrated.

[@makaronaldo]

Both were amazing and a remake would be incredible!

[@MiguelBaptista1981]

Had no idea LBA was his. I loved both games.

[@ZoidbergForPresident]

Yeah but Alone in the Dark was the first 3D survival horror... which spawned many others like Bio Hazard/Resident Evil and the like...

[@Schmidtelpunkt]

Indeed - it broke new ground. If you had a computer at that time, you had to look at it. The gameplay obviously was still rather raw and I don't think I ever played it very far, but it simply pointed at what would be possible. Little Big Adventure was probably better executed, but it did not really feel like something new, as at that point it was already clear everything would be 3d at some point.

[@DiRECs]

Totally agree. Both were amazing in their era.

[@cyclicyttrium4318]

This game used to scare me so much that i had nightmares about this game ...

[@atohms]

KamyFlex Gaming me too! Scared the shit out of me as a 13year old

[@dzejrid]

I was around 12-13 at the time, I dislike survival horror games to this day because of this game. It's a credit to an amazing design that impacted the rest of my gaming career. Maybe not in a way Frederick intended, but I mean it as a compliment to him and his team.

[@monfera]

Frederick lived 6 months in a rotating cube, and once escaped, creates an editor which lets him go back inside another rotating cube. Only to find love and happiness!

[@WalkerRileyMC]

If you want to be a game designer, it appears you must have played DnD as a kid/teen.

[@DOSRetroGamer]

For me it was board and card game design. Me and my friend made so many cardboard games it was ridiculous

[@luicecifer]

"I was fascinated by that rotating cube. So I made my own editor." - O_O Dude, what??

[@MotiviqueStudio]

Not sure how I missed this. Very cool.

[@johnappleseed8839]

A sentiment which transcends cultural boundaries... Love of zombies!

[@_zproxy]

could anyone make the first room and the monsters a shadertoy?

[@jeremycline9542]

We really loved this game.

[@bvs1q]

really good post mortem

[@hypno_ibram]

I like the accent

[@RJMc819]

I feel like I know how to speak French now. It's very similar to English, just different pronunciations, with an emphasis on completely different syllables.

[@saynotop2w]

Any Romance language of choice is worth the effort to learn. Good luck.

[@koalabrownie]

There's a reason for that, the root of english is a mix of germanic old english and french. That's why many simple words are similar to german, and many more complicated words are similar to french. You can thank the Normans for injecting a bunch of french into England.

[@RJMc819]

@@koalabrownie I was...trying to be funny, actually. It was my sarcastic way of saying that while I like Frederick's games, I can barely understand a word the man says :D

[@IDontDoDrumCovers]

@@koalabrownie yeah because they forced french on the British for 300 years making it the official language

[@b152349]

was funny, don't worry

[@Clay3613]

PHANTASM REPRESENT!

[@jesusmolina3031]

I'd love to hear the story of how and why the 2nd and 3rd games catastrophically changed the philosophy of the first game.

[@EPmager]

It was cus he left

[@SuperAwesomeGames]

Amazing. Pity you didn't upload this sooner.

[@Squival138]

When I was a kid and this game came out, I played for hours and hours and hours and died hundreds of times and was terrified the whole time. Downloaded it for dosbox a few years ago and completed it in under an hour lol. Love this game, is one of my childhood bests.

[@magnolerriccardo6840]

I 've always believed that "fake head character" was Jeremy Hartwood!!

[@makaronaldo]

Please please please remake this game in PSVR like Resident Evil Biohazard!!

[@obiwaankenobi4460]

That'd be really cool.

[@accordingtohonda4308]

blocked the window but never got outta the room...

[@wmka]

VR remake yeah!

[@ProjectIdeal]

ossoomm!!!! when a final fantasy VII, VIII IX postmortem video??? i really want to know everything about their workflow and techniques

[@obiwaankenobi4460]

Those definitely deserve a postmortem.

[@PhotonicNoodle]

Why was this video delayed so long? It was clearly released in 2012, wtf?

[@tuyatrojouey6485]

there was a tribunal judgement between Atari and Frederick about the right for Alone in the Dark. I assume it's linked... now it's settled they can upload this.

[@olibats79]

He has a fucking french accent. Et je suis français et je le sens.

[@tuyatrojouey6485]

ah ben... ça fait son p'tit charme faut dire :D ! Et puis un mec comme lui a pas besoin de s'appliquer. C'est comme Michel Ansel, quand on a ce genre de CV, plus besoin de s'appliquer :D

[@MonsieurRitournelle]

@@tuyatrojouey6485 Tout a fait, et au moins j'ai tout compris et pourtant d'habitude je ne comprends rien aux autres videos GDC ;)

[@tuyatrojouey6485]

sinon une technique que peu de gens connaissent (et qui marche très bien avec l'anglais), il suffit d'activer les sous-titre automatiques de KZbin, et ensuite d'activer la traduction FR si ca suffit toujours pas. Plus la personne articulera et plus la traduction sera correct... bon parfois la grammaire est fausse, mais tu as toujours les mots clés.

[@MonsieurRitournelle]

Tuyatrojouey Et ouais je m'en prive pas xD

[@olibats79]

@@tuyatrojouey6485 Perso je me juste les sous titre anglais et je lis en anglais. J'arrive mieux à lire l'anglais qu'à l'écouter.

[@486x]

damn listening to him make my ears bleed

[@thra-x1855]

i beat this dumb game by making a bridge out of all the inventory items. should have known then what the series was going to be like.