Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

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TheLonelyPaladin
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Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#1 Post by TheLonelyPaladin » Fri Aug 15, 2008 12:12 am

I wanted to share with you guys my expirience with QFGIV when it was released as exactly why it's not only my favorite QFG, but my favorite video game period, of all time.

It's Winter 1993. Lynchburg VA. Giant Snow storm, School isn't just closed... a power surge lit it on fire, and it's going to be closed for weeks. I go stay with my Dad, he's house sitting for a friend... she lives in the mountains, we know once we get up there, we're snowed in until the snow clears a bit, we have to stay there none the less, because she has dogs that need taken care of so we figure we'll make a time of it. She has a great house, beutiful cabin right on the side of the mountain.

We where snowed in there for several days. I spent them sitting curled up on the couch with Jodi's Wymrhiners and a laptop playing my shiny new copy of QFGIV, in an upstairs den with a beutiful of the snow and mountains out of the windows.

Keep in mind this is 1993... this is the original 3.5' floppy release... no voice over. Keep in mind this is a laptop in 1993. The laptop was pretty advanced for it's day. 486DX4-100, nice built in sound. But like most laptops of the day... it was monochrome, VGA mind you... but VGA in Black and White.

Now, not only was the hands down greatest enviroment for adventure gaming... QFGIV is AWESOME in Black and White. It make sense when you think about it, a lot of the game is after all stylised after the old Universal horror films from the 30's and 40's and in Black and White that's exactly what it feels like. The way the shading and contrast in that game is, it just works incredibly well in Black and White. It's so good that way, that to this day I find it almost grating in it's brilliance when playing color.

Also... in that enviroment, I liked that it didn't have voice over, just leaving out the voice over left so much to the imagination... and they finally actually talked... it wasn't what I imagined (kind of like the color).

Anyway... just thought I'd share that story, I'm sure all of you have some great memories of the perfact gaming expirience! :D

FrostFlameFlare
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Re: Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#2 Post by FrostFlameFlare » Fri Aug 15, 2008 12:29 am

So you're snowed in for weeks. Your school got fried and was closed indefinitely. You were able to have electricity and you played one of the darkest games as if it was a 1930's horror film. You lucky SOB! Now I want to play it in black and white. That sounds so cool. Thanks for sharing!

random_name
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Re: Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#3 Post by random_name » Fri Aug 15, 2008 2:00 am

Thats pretty cool. I wonder if theres a way to get it to run in B/W on modern machines.

Schloss Ritter
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Re: Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#4 Post by Schloss Ritter » Fri Aug 15, 2008 2:15 am

I know someone who once had a little portable 13" black and white monitor for checking on servers. I'm pretty sure it was 640X480 resolution too.

TheLonelyPaladin
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Re: Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#5 Post by TheLonelyPaladin » Fri Aug 15, 2008 12:08 pm

random_name wrote:Thats pretty cool. I wonder if theres a way to get it to run in B/W on modern machines.
I'm sure a similer laptop to the one I was using at the time could be had cheap. The trick is finding one with a decent intergrated sound card which wasn't so common... and even then half the ones one the market would bug out SCi games.

Solarkid
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Re: Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#6 Post by Solarkid » Sun Aug 17, 2008 10:37 pm

Hmmm?

I might be mistaken, but definatly for qfgs 1, 2 and 3 you could make them play in monocrome vga simply through the setup file.

Dave
Last edited by Solarkid on Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:32 am, edited 1 time in total.

MusicallyInspired
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Re: Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#7 Post by MusicallyInspired » Mon Aug 18, 2008 1:48 am

Unfortunately QFG4 uses the SCI32 engine. The only games that came with a black and white VGA driver were SCI1.1 games and certain SCI1 games.

Solarkid
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Re: Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#8 Post by Solarkid » Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:34 am

Ahh, thats a shame :/

Thank you for the explanation though :)

Dave

Schloss Ritter
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Re: Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#9 Post by Schloss Ritter » Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:17 am

Hmm, Windows Media Player lets you adjust "Saturation" (amount of color) in videos played, along with the standard Brightness, Contrast, etc.

Anyway, I know my video card software lets me adjust Brightness, Contrast, and Gamma of the Windows desktop, which also affects most windowed apps, I think. Maybe there are video drivers out there that let you adjust Saturation as well?

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Re: Shadows of Darknes: The Right Way.

#10 Post by Tehseen » Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:59 am

what does it has to do with a moniter?

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