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[qubodup]

Hello, a buddy is trying to recall a game, by describing it, but I think he might not have asked at the best place to ask =)

Here's his description:

I've been trying really hard recently to remember an old PC game that I came across years ago in demo form, played once and never saw again. I thought it was really interesting at the time though.

The game (as far as the demo version was concerned) was in flying around shooting what seemed to be incoming UFOs. The setting was a huge sprawling city on the coast, rendered in full 3D. It looked absolutely amazing and if I remember correctly you could fly all the way down to street level if you wanted. The detail wasn't as high as it'd be these days but it was obviously quite an advanced / specialised engine at the time. I never knew the backstory to the game but it always had a very mysterious feel to it: the city looked deserted, it was night time. There was also a large "facility" (out of place in an otherwise normal-looking city) where underground tunnels came to the surface - you could fly down them but it was hard.

Anyhow, that basically describes what the game looked like. The really interesting - and unique in my game playing experience - mechanic was in the gameplay. The city featured many tall poles spread about it in a regular grid. These were topped by large white orbs, making them look like giant lamp posts. The trick was that these were actually some kind of wireless power system for your ship. Unlike the UFOs, you had to regularly swoop by one of these "power towers" in order to keep speed and steering under control. If you got too far away you could usually limp back to one but couldn't fight effectively on the way. A neat side effect of these towers was that the game designer could guarantee that you wouldn't fly too high / far and see the edges of the 3D world

I have no idea how I'd go about Googling this up although I may have another go. I'm really hoping that one of you, or someone you know might be able to give me a clue as to what it is.

It'd be cool if you could help with this!

Also, check out his 3D moonlander type of game, if you care for such stuff.

[fjj]

Sounds like Darker.

[mark williamson]

Hello, I'm the chap that was trying to remember the game! Many thanks to Qubodup for forwarding my question here. I just signed up here to reply to this thread.

Originally Posted by fjj

Sounds like Darker.

Yeah! That's exactly it! Awesome

Did I remember right about the power towers being necessary for your ship to stay airborne? I played this with a friend, over 10 years ago - we found the gameplay a bit difficult to figure out because we didn't have the instructions. Once I guessed that the towers provided the ship with power, things got much easier, so I think I was right!

Once I had the name of the game I was able to find a gameplay video on YouTube which confirmed that it was the game I was thinking of. Seeing the gameplay there brought back memories

Coincidentially, Darker was a Psygnosis game. My current games programming project, which qubodup linked to the videos of (OpenLander) is heavily inspired by Lander - another old Psygnosis title. Maybe I just have an affinity for old Psygnosis games with weird physics

FWIW, I also did a writeup of 3D Gravity Games. Maybe it's of interest to folks here although I think the only one of those released for DOS was Virus.

[yoni0505]

ohhh... i had the demo too! it was really fun!

[Paco]

Darker

[APPROVED]