Heart of Darkness

Heart of Darkness is a cinematic platformer video game developed by Amazing Studio. Players control a nyctophobic boy named Andy as he goes on a journey into the Darklands to rescue his dog Whisky from shadow-like spectres.

Development
Heart of Darkness suffered a protracted development cycle marked by numerous delays and changes in platform. Development began in 1992, with the PC as the lead platform. The game was not publicly unveiled until the March 1995 European Computer Trade Show, at which time the developers said it was near completion. A version for the 3DO Interactive Multiplayer was announced, but the game spent so long in development that by the time it was finished, the 3DO (which was not even launched until a year after development on the game began) was no longer commercially viable. A version for the Amiga CD32 was also in development but never released. An Atari Jaguar CD version was also announced in July 1994, with internal documents from Virgin Interactive Entertainment stating that Amazing Studio showed interest in starting development on the conversion but work on the port never moved forward beyond proposition. In 1996 Sega signed a deal for the console version to be a Sega Saturn exclusive, with the PC version to be held off until after the Saturn version was released. A release date in October 1996 was announced with the Saturn version, but Virgin Interactive due to financial decline and creative differences between Amazing Studio and Virgin's founder Martin Alper the project's funding was stripped forcing the game to be put on hold until a new publisher could be found. The game was reportedly finished at this time but wouldn't be released until 1998 after acquiring publishing through Infogrames.

In a 2015 interview with Eurogamer, Éric Chahi said Heart of Darkness was one of his most difficult projects due to the transitions "from working alone to working with a team in the context where the industry was really changing with the CD-ROM coming, the PC and with 3D arriving." Virgin Interactive dropped funding for the project in December 1996, but the team chose to persevere with making the game. Frederic Savoir explained that "we couldn't throw away four years of our life. We didn't care what it took." After nine months of work without funding, the game was demoed at the September 1997 European Computer Trade Show, leading Interplay to adopt it. A version for the Panasonic M2 was also in the works, but never happened due to the system's cancellation.

The game's cutscenes were rendered using 3D Studio. According to Chahi, the team did consider using Silicon Graphics workstations, but found that the improvement over 3D Studio was not enough to justify the expense of the workstations or having to restart the work on the cutscenes. Chahi and Chris Delaporte created the game's textures themselves rather than using the 3D Studio texture library. The characters were sketched in different poses, then built with both 3D Studio and different paint programs on a PC. Then the characters were rendered for the cutscenes and scaled down as game sprites. The sprites were animated with Deluxe Paint and Deluxe Animator.

Gameplay
Heart of Darkness is a cinematic platformer, meaning that platforming gameplay is mixed with realistic physics and a focus on a cinematic experience. Andy can only run and jump on his own, and combating enemies requires the use of outside items (the plasma cannon or the special power) or puzzle-solving.

Story
The game begins with the protagonist; a young boy known as Andy being abused by his teacher for sleeping in class where it is revealed that he has nyctophobia (fear of the dark). Being instructed that same day by his teacher to watch the solar eclipse, Andy takes his beloved dog Whisky to the park where dark forces steal Whisky away, prompting Andy to use his assortment of inventions and machines to get him back. Andy travels to another world called the Darkland in a homemade spaceship which promptly crashes, and he has to face an assortment of obstacles to rescue Whisky and find his way home.

Throughout the game, Andy is tasked with fighting living shadow creatures and dark monsters while traversing several hostile alien environments such as a canyon, swamp, underwater cave, and lava river. He receives help in this quest from a peaceful alien race called Amigos whom he befriends, and from magic powers he obtains from a meteor referred to as the "magic rock" that can kill all the shadows of fear. The main antagonist is an evil sorcerer known as the Master of Darkness who intended to capture Andy instead of his dog. Somewhat resembling Andy's teacher from the beginning of the game, the Master of Darkness has an interest in capturing Andy and sends his minions to pursue him. Another major antagonist is the Vicious Servant; a sniveling pink creature that serves the Master but is quick to betray him for personal benefit.

After traveling across the varying alien environments and fighting alongside the Amigos, Andy finds himself inside the Master of Darkness' lair where he proceeds to free Whisky and join forces with the Vicious Servant to help overthrow the Master of Darkness. Planning to use the magic rock's power to destroy the black hole at the lair's center. However, Andy is double-crossed by the Servant who kicks Whisky into the black hole and sends Andy into an ambush. Andy ends up fending off droves of shadow creatures and successfully following through with his plan but falls into the black hole himself along with the Master of Darkness as the structure around him collapses.

The black hole's center is the heart of darkness and there Andy must fight the Master and face his fears once and for all. Upon succeeding the darkness dissipates and Andy awakens in his treehouse, believing the experience was all just a dream but after Andy and Whisky go to sleep and it is shown Andy has likely gotten over his fear of the dark, the player is shown the Amigos cleaning up the wreckage of Andy's ship and proving the adventure was perhaps real.

Locations

 * Andy's house
 * Andy's treehouse
 * Town
 * School
 * Canyon of Death
 * Swamplands
 * Magic Lake
 * Space Island
 * Head Honcho's hut
 * Rivers of Fire
 * Caverns of Doom
 * Into the Lair
 * The Bridge
 * The Heart of Darkness

Characters

 * Andy
 * Whisky
 * Andy's mom
 * Andy's classmates
 * Teacher
 * Amigo
 * Phil
 * Dan
 * Sidoni
 * Head Honcho
 * Vicious Servant
 * Mefudoka
 * The Master of Darkness

Heart of Darkness (May 31, 1996 prototype)
This version was used to promote the game at the International Tokyo Toy Show and is currently the only known prototype of the unreleased Sega Saturn port.