Have a scary Halloween with "Veil of Darkness"

dotpixel by me!

Days of Amstrad opens the veil...and here it is - Veil of Darkness. Arguably the best horror game ever made. 


Veil of Darkness is a horror-action-adventure game for the PC, which was developed by Event Horizon Software and published by SSI in 1993. Some of the main reasons why it may have escaped your radar could be poor marketing of games in 90s, your lack of taste in good games, or you could be too young for that. In any case, you`ve missed a lot.

Veil of Darkness is a 2D point-and-click adventure game with some RPG elements mixed in. It features a fixed isometric perspective and a good amount of action-RPG style combat. Except the leveling system, it could be the grandfather of Diablo or a far relative of Sacred. But the coolness of the game lies in the twists of the plot. The plot overall sounds cheesy at first (your plane crashes in Romania, a dark curse affects a small village), but feels mysterious and the atmosphere is scary. 

The biggest factor making the game scary is the lack of technology. Don`t take my words as an insult to the game - because that`s not true. The low resolution graphics and midi sound are irritating. It is similar to being afraid of the dark, you tend to get more scared when you cannot fully see, hear or understand the details. And when this unintentional element meets the intentional horror aspect, you find yourself in a tasty horror experience.

One of the disturbing twists is figuring out who it was attacking and eating villagers - an unexpected werewolf action from an unexpected town resident. Overall, the game has a disturbing atmosphere.

Of course, do not expect like a horror movie tension, as things evolve and occur at a much slower rate and speed, nevertheless couple of plot twists, unpredictability, low detail graphics and disturbing midi sounds are its strongest points. And the slower pace will make itself unforgettable as it slowly sneaks into your conscious and subconscious.

One caveat though - if your eyes are already adjusted to the colorful HD world and hi-res sounds, it may become hard to look at this old boy on your PC. But I say, try it when you have time. It`s only like 3MBs to download.


I hope you`ll enjoy your Halloween, and may the veil of darkness (the game, not death) surround you one day. 

screenshots: abandonwaredos.com