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Hi everyone and welcome
to the Darkness Within: The Dark Lineage developer diary part 2! In
the previous
part, I promised to talk about the new features and characters
of the game. Also I will reveal some of the game locations in this
chapter; so let’s begin!

Feature-wise, the game
was really enhanced in contrast with the previous game. In addition
to all of the nice features of In Pursuit of Loath Nolder, The Dark
Lineage will present a lot of new and great features that will make
the game play more realistic and frightening.

One of these features is
the lighting. Lighting is probably the most important and atmosphere
enhancing part of the game. You can carry different light sources,
like an old fashioned lantern, a flashlight and even a candleholder
and with these, you will light your way up through the thick, darkness-clad
areas of The Dark Lineage. Of course you will not be in complete darkness.
There will be light sources other than yours that are cracking the
thick veil of darkness here and there but these also will cast their
shadows around and thus create an ominous mood for the game.

The second most important
improvement is the support for real-time physics. In The Dark Lineage,
you can push and pull some objects to clear your way or reveal underlying
secrets. Or you can use objects as stepping-stones to get to spots
you cannot normally reach. However, you don’t need to worry, you do
not need to push or pull doors or lids to open them. We implemented
the physics support only enough to make game play more realistic.

I think that’s enough about
the lights and physics; so let’s talk about the characters a
bit: The Dark Lineage will include a lot more beautiful and detailed
characters than its predecessor. Hearing this may disappoint some
players who loved the solitary exploration of the In Pursuit of Loath
Nolder, but don´t worry, we tried to keep the solitary exploration
of the previous game as much as possible. The side-characters in the
game are only present at some points of the story to provide information
to the gamer. Other than these, you will be alone in your exploration.

Amongst the new characters,
there are a lot of out of the ordinary ones like a madman, some grave
robbers and the crawling chaos, Nyarlathotep. I am sure the latter
one will make Lovecraft fans grin. By the way, did I mention you will
also see a shoggoth?

And lastly I want to talk
about the game locations. We prepared a lot of moody places that will
make use of the new features of the game engine. A lot of dark, attractive
and detailed places are waiting to be explored, like an old Victorian
mansion, a dark and quiet town, a tomb, an abandoned nursing home
and more! That’s all for now. We will talk about more game locations
and some other interesting things in the next part.

I hope you enjoyed this
second part of my diary as well. If you have any questions, I encourage
you to access our forums at www.zoetrope-interactive.com/forum.
Thanks for reading!

Developer’s
Diary Part 1