Talks to Watch

Classic Game Postmortem: Alone in the Dark

27K views · Oct 24, 2018 · 57:43 · 3 HN recommenders · 3 mentions · discussed 2019–2023

Frederick Raynal gives a GDC postmortem of Alone in the Dark, the game that helped create the survival horror genre. He covers how the team built it and shows some of the old tools used.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters recommend it as a firsthand account from the creator, including the old tooling.

“There is a very nice presentation [1] in which Raynal shows some of the old tools that were used to create Alone in the Dark.”HN comment, 2023

What Hacker News said 3

Recommendsnope96Aug 2019

“video from 2012 by Frederick Raynal”

Postmortem by Alone in the Dark creator Frederick Raynal

Full comment

There's also a great "Classic Game Postmortem" video from 2012 by Frederick Raynal, too: this video

RecommendspengaruJun 2020

“Also worth a watch/listen is the talk by Frederick Raynal at GDC about Alone in the Dark.”

Raynal's GDC postmortem covering Alone in the Dark and porting Alpha Waves to PC

Full comment

Also worth a watch/listen is the talk by Frederick Raynal at GDC about Alone in the Dark. He touches on converting Alpha Waves from Atari ST to PC: this video

in “Alpha Waves was the first 3D platform game” · view on HN
RecommendssmokelOct 2023

“There is a very nice presentation [1] in which Raynal shows some of the old tools that were used to create Alone in the Dark.”

Raynal shows old tools used to create Alone in the Dark

Full comment

Note that both Little Big Adventure (also called Twinsen's Adventure) and Alone in the Dark were created by the same person, Frédérick Raynal! There is a very nice presentation [1] in which Raynal shows some of the old tools that were used to create Alone in the Dark. I'm still not entirely sure what kind of rendering is being used, but the editor sure looks nice (in 640x350 EGA). Perhaps there is some more background information on LBA out there as well? [1] this video

in “How the creator of Alone in the Dark came back to games” · view on HN