Veil of Darkness (MS-DOS)

It's made by SSI, so it's likely to be either a wargame or an rpg. With that title I'm going with rpg.

My crappy gif really doesn't do the animation of this scene justice. This guy really needs to be more careful in vampire country.

Now the real intro begins. This vampire has spotted a plane flying overhead on his magic stomach projector, and he's not having any of it.

First he screws up the cockpit dials, then he sends some bats up there to finish the job.

He finds this hilarious.

Oh, I just noticed the severed head on his wall. Very nice.

Fortunately our hero survives the crash with only minor injuries, but passes out in the field nearby.

He awakes to find an unfamiliar woman standing over him.

Hey, I think this may be an adventure game! With a downright weird looking inventory. And music that sounds like a kid practicing a tune on his keyboard, over and over.

Yeah, there's no way I'm going to remember that. Especial with that streaky background making it hard to read the text. But she did save my life so I suppose I should go do what she says.

Okay I remember she mentioned a door...

It's really awkward to get the character to move using the keyboard. I switched to mouse but he's still a little stiff.

I appreciate the thought (and that picture of a pc with the image of this screen on the monitor. It even has blinking lights!), but I'm not sure it was really necessary. It seems a little redundant to give me a message at the door explaining the concept of messages on doors.

Also was it really better to show an animated close up of the character walking down the stairs instead of just animating the character walking down the stairs?

I've finally found the girl's father! By systematically searching every room on every floor in the house. And I STILL haven't found a damn thing I can pick up yet.

Not that I'm certain I actually searched everything I meant to search. That damn 'Nothing to take' message sticks, so I can't be certain I actually clicked on the thing correctly. The same thing happens with the 'there is nothing behind this door' messages too.

The father seems totally unaware of the invention of aircraft. He also seems to put a weird focus on the word 'metal'.

Oh I see, that means the word is added to a list of things I can ask about in the conversation.

The guy sends me out on a mission to recover a hammer from a guy called Eduard. I'm not sure he ever mentioned which house to go to though. Because that would make it too simple. But his daughter DID save my life, so I owe him.

An invisible wall keeps me from going any further. I guess I should check each house to see if Eddie's around.

No one in here, but I did find a crowbar! My first item!

Eduard's not in this house, but this mother needs my help to save her sick daughter. Apparently she's caught fatal madness.

Oh shit, yeah... that's definitely fatal madness. I'll be right back as soon as I find a cure for that, I promise!

It's a shame I can't actually ASK anyone where Eduard lives. My conversation options are sadly pretty limited.

This is interesting. A blood trail leading to a secret passage. The plot thickens!

Hey it's Eddie! The poor guy isn't looking too good though. I think he might be dead, and there's blood all over his hammer.

I think I'm formulating a theory. My theory is that if he's dead, no one will mind if I steal his stuff.

I return to the girl's father and calmly inform him of my discovery.

He actually seems pretty happy about how things turned out however, as apparently I've fulfilled part of a prophecy. He thinks I'm the one destined to kill the vampire and free them all from his curse.

He says it's the only way I'll ever escape this place.

But I've already got a way to escape this place. It just needs a couple of dents hammered out and a new windshield. After questioning a few of the locals, I finally track down the location of my wounded plane, and get a map to travel there with.

But then I'm attacked by wolves! Combat in this seems pretty bad, I need to equip a weapon, get close to the enemy and keep clicking on these two icons until one of us is dead. Fortunately the wolves are crap, and go down with a couple of good hits.

Spiders, ew. EWW.

My plane is nowhere around, but this guy knows which way it was taken. Unfortunately he was turned into a tree, and wants me to do something for him. So now I've got to go and figure out how to 'free' him.

Oh wow, I can drag the inventory panel up! It's not a fantastic system, but it's alright. I can live with it.

But I'm getting nowhere in my hunt for a cure for poor tree-guy. I haven't found anyone I'm allowed to ask about a cure, or anything I could maybe use on him, and I just can't be bothered looking any more. Because I get the feeling the whole game is going to be like this. "Hey stranger I have a problem, help me... also good luck stumbling around every building in the game trying to find any clues about what you have to do!".


Next game.