The Dark Eye

The Dark Eye
First release	1995
Also known as	N/A
Developed by	Inscape
Published by	Warner Interactive
Distributed by	(unknown)
Platforms	Windows, Macintosh
Resolution	640x480, 16-bit
Engine	Director
Support	Since ScummVM 2.8.0
Available for Purchase	No

The Dark Eye is a first-person horror adventure game released by Inscape. Much of the story is a series dream sequences based on the works of Edgar Allen Poe.

Install notes

The Dark Eye has key files stored in an installer archive. You will need to run "SETUP/DKYINSTL.EXE" in a Windows VM, then copy the full contents of the CD into the folder that gets created (usually "C:\DARKEYE"). ScummVM should then recognise the game.

The intent is for a future release of ScummVM to run it straight from the CD; the common codebase has support for the InstallShield file format, all that's missing is the autodetection plumbing to target the movie inside the archive.

As of the time of this writing, the Macintosh version has not been tested and is unlikely to work.

Saving

For Director games, saving the game is a feature written by the original authors of the title. The Dark Eye is ahead of its time in that it has an Auto-Save feature. The catch is: saving only gets triggered when you visit the save game list on the main menu.

When in game, press Esc once to go to the head map screen, then again to go to the save game list. Your game should be saved.

Known issues

Game versions

As of this writing, testing has been done with the Expert Software release of this game. Other releases, such as ones marked as version 1.0.3 have not been fully tested. A prominent bug in 1.0.3 is that on day 2, opening the door to Henry's room causes a scripting crash in ScummVM 2.8.0 (due to a unique typo in a hand-written data structure); this should be fixed in the latest daily build.

Stuck cutscenes

Occasionally, in ScummVM 2.8.0. a cutscene can make it to the end and the game doesn't return control to the player. Pressing Esc to go to the map screen and clicking the eye to return should reset this. This bug should be fixed in the latest daily build.

Missing audio

Occasionally when saving a game, the internal mixer volume control can get stuck on 0; this will result in no music on the head map screen, and no sound anywhere except in certain animated cutscenes. This will also persist in the saved game.

To manually repair, open the debugger with Ctrl + Shift + D and type the following:

repl
set the soundLevel to 5
lingo off
c

Then press Esc to go back to the save menu. This should restore the sound volume levels.

External links

• MobyGames entry for The Dark Eye
• Wikipedia entry for The Dark Eye