Heart off Darkness (video game)
See also: Heart off Darkness
Heart off Darkness is a Video game of action ventures left in 1998 on PlayStation and Windows.
Developed by a team of with more the 12 people under the direction of Eric Chahi, he asked for six years of work and was the single business game Amazing Studio. It was initially expected that it left on Saturn, but this version was finally cancelled.
Presented at the time of THESE 1994 and E3 1995, at the time of its exit it was pointed out by its irreproachable jouability and its sound environment worthy of a film, but did not know to convince the players. Some explain that by an obsolete kind for one time privileging graphics in 3 dimensions.
Synopsis
The play follows Andy, a completely normal kid who hates his professor, loves his dog, and is afraid of the black. One day, Andy and its dog, Whiskey, go to the park to go to look at the eclipse of the sun. During this eclipse, Whiskey disappears. In a dash of imagination, the child, Andy move in his hut, where it keeps its inventions, jumps in a space Fusée of its design, clutches in the passing helmet - or rather a strainer - and laser rifle, and leave to research his dog. It is found in another world called Darklands (the country sinks) and is crushed right in the middle of a Canyon. Inhabited by creatures of the night directed by the Master of the darkness, Darklands is extremely dangerous. Andy must overcome its fears to go to help its dog.
Gameplay
Heart off Darkness is a traditional Jeu of platform being held screen by screen. The play arises in two dimensions for profile, when the character arrives at the end of a screen, the level is relocated to reveal the following screen, and so on.The player controls Andy, which can run, to jump, walk, climb, swim. Andy can also attack or be defended by using a rifle with plasma or while launching balls of energy, according to the phase of play. This magic energy can be also used to make push seeds. One or the other of these weapons can be used in a variety of various installations. It is not possible to seize objects, but as in Another World , of the passages of the play an interaction with the level requires, like pushing a rock or going on a flagstone.
The play is linear. The player spends his time to solve enigmas, carrying out a succession of synchronized actions ( Timing ) or simply moves to reach the following screen. The preceding return to the screens is seldom necessary.
The bottom of screen in synthesized image precalculated and is animated natural phenomena, it is the case of the sheets of the trees, water or the algae. The characters have the appearance and the step of character of Cartoon. The shades of the characters are calculated in real-time according to a clean single source of light has each screen of play.
The interface of play is sober and are connected with a play comforts. A player can easily lose, but the play safeguards automatically at the time of the entry in certain screens, that is to say all both or three screens. There is no life nor of bar of life, advance in the play is gained by tests and successive errors until the resolution of some consecutive screens. When the player ridges several times on the same obstacle, the play gives some councils to facilitate the resolution.
Production and development
- Sources used :
It is besides on these vidéos that Eric Chahi and Frederic Savoir really start to work. The idea is to create animations and the decorations in synthesized images to then be able to extract the adequate resources in order to adapt to the evolution of the material: the play will leave besides in two versions graphically different. But the team does not control the tools to make synthesized image, and called upon another company for the realization of these animations. The tests are not finally conclusive, the characters lacking expression, this idea is abandoned. Time passes and the team acquires a know-how in synthesized image while working on the sprites and the levels of plays. As from 1994, and after the presentation of a model carried out by Fabrice Visserot, the team makes the decision to even carry out the vidéos it. It will carry out all animations of the play, as well as a kinematics of special end requiring the use of glasses 3D (blue and red glass glasses).
The Driving of play developed by Frederic Knowledge, Daniel Morais and Pascal de France, is developed as from 1992, it functions initially under DOS. From the duration of the development, the play is started again several times to be adapted to the evolution of the operating systems, which finally results in making it much more portable. The play will leave under Windows using a posting 8 bits i.e. 256 colors and musics sampled to 22kHz. The version PlayStation will have the advantage of using graphics of 24 bits (16 million colors) but of the sampled sounds with 11kHz. The Windows version does not have the same quality of image because that would have induced additional developments which were not carried out for time constraints, the advantage however is to be able to function on “slow” machines such as the 486 and to require less time of loading to launch a part.
Always with an aim of following the material evolution of the platforms, the characters and animations were firstly designed to be in vectorial form, but after prototyping, that was not integrated correctly in the decorations in precalculated synthesized image, this method is thus given up with the traditional profit of animation by sprite. This work of animation, realized by Christan Robert, was mainly created with the hand. It has throughout the development sought to add amusing animations of which some could be added. For example, that which makes it possible Andy to be released from the creatures which clutch it, was added at the end of the project but was not essential. The whole of the movements of Andy (to run, go, swim…) more 2 required; 000 sprites, and are the pledge of the fluidity of animation.
For the music, several type-setters were contacted and carried out tests, but it is Bruce Broughton, contacted by the team for her work on Bernard and Bianca with the country of the kangaroos , which was selected. He worked for one month with musical creation, then is turned over to London to off record the composition played by the Sinfonia London. In 1999 the original soundtrack of the play was marketed.
The play leaves finally in 1998; an update had been evoked, making it possible to improve graphics of the Windows version but was not realized. Lastly, a version Game Boy Advance was planned for 2001, but was not born.
Development team
Distribution of the voices
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