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Thursday, 19 December 2024

Game 153: Jack in the Dark (1993) - Introduction

Written by Andy Panthro

The mysterious toy shop.

On this Halloween night, a young child by the name of Grace Saunders (age 8) is lost in the big city. She chances upon an old toy shop, and after knocking, the door opens. Upon entering the door shuts behind her, trapping her in this strange place full of weird, wonderful and downright creepy toys.

Happy Halloween everyone! It’s time for…

What do you mean it’s December? What a strange turn of events!

A very brief introduction.
Yes, while this game is set on October 31st, it was released in December of 1993, as part of a promotion for Alone in the Dark 2. Even the opening image of the toyshop has a Christmas tree outside! So it’s only fitting then that I should play this now, in the run up to Christmas, and with Alone In the Dark 2 not too far off in the future (I guess I have my work cut out for me).

I briefly played this many years ago, but I don’t think I ever finished it. In a change from the usual Alone In The Dark games, this one has no combat, but rather is more of a traditional adventure game, albeit in 3D which was not yet common. This is packaged with Alone in the Dark 1 on GOG.com, and was available in the 90s as part of the CD releases of both AitD 1, and AitD 2.

The toy shop interior, with a menacing looking jack o’lantern in the upper right

I’ll keep this first entry quite short, as this is probably going to be a short adventure (I hope so, my time right now is a little limited!). Our character, Grace, is in the now-locked toyshop, and can wander about freely, with a few objects in view to take a look at. There are only “search” and “close” options available as actions for now, but this does change when you pick up new items. We’ll get into more of the story and themes of this little adventure next time, which get revealed upon searching the area.

So we leave our young character for now. She is alone (apart from the toys), and in the dark (apart from the lights of the toy shop)... Who can guess what the rating will be?

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9 comments:

  1. arcanetrivia19 December 2024 at 04:23

    Almost exactly the same time in the same year as The Nightmare Before Christmas was released. Not suggesting any direct connection, but it's interesting having two things at once that combine the two holidays.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Vetinari19 December 2024 at 05:12

    47

    ReplyDelete
  3. Laukku19 December 2024 at 05:44

    53

    ReplyDelete
  4. Busca19 December 2024 at 06:00

    Hmm, I don't know how much its apparently very short length might punish it in the rating, but I'll use the two experienced Companions above me as orientation and guess an even 50.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Agrivar19 December 2024 at 06:04

    I'd say 40.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Busca19 December 2024 at 06:49

    Off-topic: Don't know who of the admins have a recent comments feed (RSS/Atom) on their feeder/email themselves, but some Anonymous is massively spamming entries with random comments about consoles and old films.

    [You can delete this comment once the issue is solved.]

    ReplyDelete
  7. Alex Romanov19 December 2024 at 08:20

    I found this game around last years of 90s, I think it came with my AITD2 CD version game, if I remember correctly it was not even mentioned in the manual or box. I found the files on the cd and try them out, to my surprise it was an extra game ! (may not have happened like this, I dont really remember the details).

    That nice music is embedded in my brain, it reminds me a lot of Lost Files of Sherlock Holmes, the specific music played when you go to the shop around mid game to get information on the hat you found (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6qHqrZBm-A&t=4926s&ab_channel=Retro365).

    I will guess a 52, a nice little game, for a sunday afternoon with a cup of chocolate

    I find it an amazing coincidence on it's tone with the main (and only?) song of Jack in the Dark: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg0md4wPPKw&ab_channel=canape

    ReplyDelete

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