Story
Julia Miller has been dared to enter the Dobson Manor, an abandoned mansion on the outskirts of town. For as long as anyone could remember, breaking into the Manor and reaching the attic has been a rite of passage for all teenagers in town. To many the haunted estate is nothing more than an urban myth...
Unaware of the lurking shadows, Julia reaches the attic only to realize that the stories about the house are true. The shadows are alive with an unseen evil that is bound to the darkness. Julia must now escape the house without succumbing to the frightening evil waiting at the edge of the light.
Philosophy
Dark Corners is a game based on film and visual storytelling techniques. These theories are the cornerstone of the games design. This applies not only to the NIS sequences, but to game play as well.
In Dark Corners, the player is put into dark levels that are only lite by small bright lights. This technique utilizes the visual theory known as "frame-within-a-frame". During game play, the user can only see limited amounts of the screen at any one time, this build tension between the on screen light source and the edge of the screen. We are trying to give the player a sense of a bigger world, while only exposing bits of it visually. This keeps the player thinking there is something sinister just beyond the radius of the light.
The horror genre can be divided into two schools of thought, gore (Dawn of the Dead) and suggestion (the Blair Witch Project). Building on the "frame-within-a-frame" feature of the game, we decided to go with suggestion. This entailed characterizing the darkness as an entity itself through the use of sound and scripted sequences. The result was the player has to apply a certain amount of closure to the game play and use their own imagination to fill in the visual gaps provding the game with an unsettling nature.
"Often it's what you can't see that is scarier than what you do see"
The result of the application of these theories was an immersive experience that pushes the boundaries of what is defined as horror in the videogame genre.
Mechanics
When the player enters the shadows they are attacked, when they are in the light they are healed. The player must then escape the house by solving a series of environmental puzzles that unlock room. Game progression is handled by giving the player tools to combat the darkness (flashlight, flares) and putting them in situations where they must use them to survive. Along with tools that game has a linear difficulty curve mitigated by the introduction of progressive complications during game play.
Red Herring Games is proud to announce that Dark Corners has been nominated for the inaugural CAEAA event in Vancouver September 14th. We have been nominated in the best student game category. Keep you fingers crossed.
The CAEAA or Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts is a first run awards show hosted by some og the biggest names in animation, games and film. This Years cerimony is hosted by no other than the captain William Shatner.
-RHG
Dark Corners has just been released in Germany. The German PC gaming magazine GAMESTAR released the unreal Modification as part of it?s covermount for...
Red Herring games has just released a new version of DARK CORNERS! this version addresses some of the outstanding issues found in version 2.0. In this...
Stay in the light... Red Herring Games is proud to present Dark Corners a total conversion of the Unreal 2.0 engine. Dark Corners is an immersive first...
Dark Corners modification for Unreal Tournament 2004.
Oh hey, 10 years after the last comment. There are some spelling errors in the description. The ones I found:
"To many the haunted estate"- needs a comma after "many".
"dark levels that are only lite by small bright lights"- lit* (not lite)
"this build tension between the"- builds* (not build)
"The result was the player has to"- was that the player has to*
"game play"- is one word, not two (so "gameplay")
"videogame"- is two words, not one (so "video game")
"environmental puzzles that unlock room"- rooms* (not "room")
"Along with tools that game has a linear difficulty"- not sure what you're trying to say there. I think you meant to say "Along with the tools, the game has a linear difficulty"
Only want to help out, just found the mod and it looks really good, thought a corrected description would look more "professional".
Thanks for the great work with this mod, you have a great eye for framing and contrast!
Hey there. I was wondering if this is a conversion mod or a add on stand alone mod for UT2004 Cause i dont like to much the conversion mods cause i dont want to ruin the standard UT2004 game just want to add some extra stuff in it is it possible with this mod? thnx for reading this comment & perhaps answering as well
It's a stand-alone mod. It doesn't "ruin" the standard UT2004 game.
WOW ! :D
Aparently it is a astunishing game. Well done
WASD for player control.
Left click for flashlight.
Right click for flare.
Press "E" for world interaction.
-RHG
i don't have a 360 controller. how do i map the controls for PC?
... *installs UT2K4*
hi everyone,
sorry for all the Downloading trouble with filefront. Dark Corners can now be DL'ed at a more stable site:
Vfs.com
thanks,
RHG
Red Herring Games is proud to announce that Dark Corners has been nominated for the inaugural CAEAA event in Vancouver September 14th. We have been nominated in the best student game category. Keep you fingers crossed.
The CAEAA or Canadian Awards for the Electronic and Animated Arts is a first run awards show hosted by some og the biggest names in animation, games and film. This Years cerimony is hosted by no other than the captain William Shatner.
-RHG