D

I imagine readers years from now will find this quaint, but the Screen Actors Guild is currently up in arms over the announcement of “AI actress” Tilly Norwood looking to be signed by talent representatives. “Tilly” posts on social media, pretends to be on The Graham Norton Show, has had a few roles in online shorts, and everything about the whole situation feels very weird. Is this the 5-alarm fire we’ve all been warned of? Have those dastardly Hollywood bean-counters finally replaced flesh and blood auteurs with soulless digital fakery? Probably not. This has the same feel of that time that AI wrote a posthumous George Carlin album, only to find out AI didn’t write it at all. It was just some guy. I’m sure there’s a huge amount of human work and tweaking behind Tilly as well.

It’s also not the first time we’ve been promised a digital actress. “D” – a name that seems explicitly designed to be impossible to search the web for – marks Warp Inc.’s inaugural release. Originally released for the 3DO, it sold a million copies in Japan before being ported to the Saturn and the PlayStation. I talked (out of order) about Kenjo Eno’s design philosophy with Enemy Zero, but D is where his concept of digital actress “Laura” began.

In short, “Laura” is the same blonde character used across what was likely meant to be more than just three games. She would be recognizable as Warp’s trademark/mascot, while fans were presumably meant to be thrilled at following what Laura’s next game would be. Like a stand-up comedian doing a sitcom, she always played characters with the same first name “Laura” and a different surname – “Lewis” in Enemy Zero and “Harris” here. She would make her final appearance in the sequel to this game – D2, naturally – after which Warp folded somewhat unceremoniously.

Wildly, D came out before Tomb Raider and Lara Croft’s awkward rise as a digital sex symbol. But the idea is cut from the same cloth. Mid-90s polygon models had advanced far enough to create memorable characters and readable expressions. Laura herself looks and animates like a plastic Barbie doll – so the gambit doesn’t entirely work – but it’s certainly a milestone from the beginning phases of digital characters. If things had gone differently for Warp, it could have even been their Laura doing Spanish TV ads.

D introduces Laura as a graduate student in San Francisco. She gets the news that her father, Dr. Richter Harris, has barricaded himself in his Los Angeles hospital and killed multiple patients and staff. Horrified and confused, Laura heads to the hospital to try and contact her dad. Why would he do this? What happened? I guess the police also hope she can help talk him down, because they let her walk right on into the crime scene, alone. That must be what the D stands for. “Dad.”

As she enters the lobby, she finds herself transported to a medieval castle. Is she hallucinating? The doors behind her are locked – how does she escape? It’s up to you to lead her through the castle’s opulent rooms and find some answers. As you explore, you’ll find all sorts of puzzles, jump scares, spikes, and mummified corpses. Quite a few mummified corpses. That must be what the D stands for. “Death.”

From here on out, it’s basically a Myst clone. You’ll move through detailed mid-90s rendered environments, walking to a few fixed “nodes” laid out around the scenes. These let you view the room from a different angle, or get close to items to inspect them. In fact, that’s really all you can do. Investigating objects breaks down to getting closer to them with Up on the D-Pad until a cutscene plays, or rarely, hitting Circle to activate what’s in front of you. If nothing happens when you press either, then all you can do is casually stroll over to a new node.

Emphasis on stroll. Everything moves at a tremendously sluggish pace – it’s all pre-rendered, but that doesn’t mean ’90s Amigas could blast out smooth motion. I’m guessing cutscenes run at 15 fps. Since every movement is a cutscene, this includes any time you shift around the locations. Seconds feel like minutes as Laura slowly clomps one foot loudly in front of the other. Her cautious movement is probably meant to heighten The Drama – that must be what the D stands for – but also surely to hide technical restrictions. It similarly doesn’t help that videos only take up about half of the possible screen, even with D taking up three CDs.

Now let’s not pretend we didn’t eat this shit up with a spoon in the ’90s. There were certainly detractors – that must be what D [ oh, stoppit! – our readers] but in the days of VHS, this was paying to experience never-before-seen, interactive, digital art. Watching Laura lope around beautiful (for the time) environments was watching the future at play. These places didn’t exist – pure imagination – but here they were, set out for you to explore. This sense is probably close to the novelty Pong players felt at seeing a pixel move around the screen that they could directly control with a joystick. I’m not saying our overall standards were lower – people still dumped on this game for being boring – but you’ve got to consider the time of its release when you judge it.

From a strictly modern perspective, the game is an absolute rip-off. There are maybe 20 puzzles in the whole game, while those three discs only hold a maximum of 2 hours of gameplay – literally. You either beat the game in under 2 hours, tracked by a pocket watch in your inventory, or you get the bad ending. Nothing about D is particularly difficult, either – this is very much Baby’s First Escape Room. D is 1000% a relic of antiquated interests (in early computer graphics) and game design (see also, Mansion of Hidden Souls), if for no other reason than people would just watch the whole playthrough on YouTube instead of spending $60 if it was released today.

Still, it has its charms, and it was clearly made by artistic minds. Cutscene framing is excellent, models and environments hold up, pacing is tense. There’s some legitimate trepidation about what’s around the next corner. You can never die, but the game still feels dangerous. Sound design can be a little sparse, with some exceptionally loud shoes for Laura and not much in the background beyond a low thrumming, but it works well enough. I started to appreciate the almost metronome-like quality of Laura’s deliberate steps. Richter’s voice actor is a bit too over-the-top while Laura only responds in gasps, but it fits the era.

Unfortunately, there are some pretty bogus puzzles. Biggest criticism goes to the rotating room on the second disk. You enter said room, turn a crank, and the whole assembly turns to the next of 12 possible stops. It’s clearly a way to introduce new rooms without having to render hallways and more walking, but the time it takes up is dreadful. You turn the wheel and watch its animation. You back away from the wheel. You slowly turn around to see if you’re at a new door – nope, just a solid brick wall. Slowly turn back to the wheel. Scoot back up to it. Press Circle. Watch the animation again.

I feel like 30 minutes of the 2 hour run was taken up by turning this wheel. It’s helped a bit by mapping out the layout- so you know exactly how many times to crank the wheel and no longer have to waste time turning around to check – but it’s still a lot of back and forth between the side rooms, made worse by the time spent spinning this dumb central one.

A similar time-waster is the (slight spoiler) only point in the game where you’re attacked. It’s the only Quick Time Event in the whole game and it truly comes out of nowhere. Worse, it’s one of those where you fail if you press the button more than once, so hammering the upcoming direction is right out. You must press the direction once while the prompt is on the screen. Failing any part of it dumps Laura at the bottom of a pit, where she must dust herself off and slowly climb back out. You can never skip a cutscene – even one you’ve seen many, many times by now- so every time you fail a prompt, it’s a teeth-grinding, glacial climb to immediately face your attacker again.

I’d also call out the final gear puzzle on Disc 3, but I think that one’s on me for being impatient and bad at math. What is worth noting is that the game treats Up on the D-pad and Circle for action almost interchangeably some times, but rigidly separate other times. I was convinced I had investigated items by getting close to them with Up when I still needed to hit Circle to then activate them. It seems clear enough in writing, but the game has a way of lulling you into making this mistake.

Ultimately, my biggest issue with D was the ending. I think the plot does a good job of pushing you forward, but the payoff is an enormous disappointment. The third disc is almost entirely cutscenes and the great revelation is a total groaner. It’s worth mentioning that I didn’t even understand who the character was in Laura’s repeated flashbacks – the renders made it look like a little girl – and I didn’t put what happened together until it was verbally explained in the final cutscenes. The game’s so short that I’m not going to spoil the ending, but, I’ll simply say I just hope you enjoyed the journey to get there.

Finally, a lot was made of the forced 2-hour run time, alongside a total inability to save the game at any point. If you quit and need to come back, you have to start over from the beginning. I never felt like either one was a dealbreaker. Despite the looming time threat, I breezed through the game with time to spare on the first try. There’s less than 2-hours of game here, so any time pressure ends up being more of an illusion.

And from a modern perspective, that short length may be D’s greatest strength. Divorced from having to fret over spending $50-60 on it, you can just enjoy a sub 2-hour game without feeling like you’ve wasted time or money. If Kenji Eno’s idea was to create a interactive, digital movie with a movie’s run time, then he’s pulled it off. It’s arguable whether the design holds up today – and the novelty of its “groundbreaking” CG art certainly isn’t the same – but I’d say D is definitely worth a play for any adventure game aficionados.

 

The Good

Spooky adventure through a stylishly-framed mid-90s CG castle. Startles (and iron spikes!) around every corner. Short run time makes it easy to get into and recommend, especially when you aren’t paying new game prices for the privilege.

 

The Bad

What a dumb revelation. That’s what the D stands for. Plodding pace of movement and nearly every animation feels rough in today’s world- bet you’ll be checking your phone a lot while Laura clomps over to the next scene. No good reason not to be able to save mid-game.

 

Laura! Leave here! He wants YOU!” – Dr. Richter Harris