''Darker'' is a single-player futuristic

flight simulator A flight simulator is a device that artificially re-creates aircraft flight and the environment in which it flies, for pilot training, design, or other purposes. It includes replicating the equations that govern how aircraft fly, how they rea ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

published by

Psygnosis Psygnosis Limited (known as SCE Studio Liverpool or simply Studio Liverpool from 1999) was a British video game developer and publisher headquartered at Wavertree Technology Park in Liverpool. Founded in 1984 by Ian Hetherington, Jonathan Ell ...

in 1995 for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

. The player assumes the role of Tolly, a civilian shuttle pilot in the city of Delphi, the only city situated on the dark side of a planet in

synchronous rotation Tidal locking between a pair of co-orbiting astronomical bodies occurs when one of the objects reaches a state where there is no longer any net change in its rotation rate over the course of a complete orbit. In the case where a tidally locked bo ...

around the local star. The player must defend Delphi from the Halons, inhabitants of the planet's light side, who are invading Delphi. The game takes place over a number of missions on the planet's surface and in tunnels. The game supports the VFX-1 virtual reality headset.

Plot

Darker's story is revealed over the course of the game as information gathered by

reconnaissance In military operations, reconnaissance or scouting is the exploration of an area by military forces to obtain information about enemy forces, terrain, and other activities. Examples of reconnaissance include patrolling by troops (skirmisher ...

. The people of Delphi are not militarised, having never had reason for military action, and so technology for combating the Halon menace is developed over the course of the game. The Halon people are revealed to be invading in order to expand their cities away from the light side, which they have polluted beyond the point where it can sustain life. Eventually Tolly pilots a Halon craft to the light side of the planet, where he destroys the Halon

aircraft An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engine ...

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

Gameplay

The bulk of the game is played piloting a Caero shuttle. Because of the scarcity of energy on the dark side of the planet, power to the shuttle is transmitted wirelessly through a network of pylons situated on a regular grid across the city.

References

1995 video games DOS games DOS-only games Space flight simulator games Psygnosis games Video games set on fictional planets Single-player video games Video games developed in the United Kingdom {{Simulation-videogame-stub