Dylan Dog: La Regina delle Tenebre (The Queen of Darkness) is a platform adventure developed by Simulmondo and published in 1992 for PC and Amiga. It's the first chapter of a series of games inspired by the famous Italian comic book from Bonelli Editore. The game was designed by Ivan Venturi with creative supervision by Francesco Carlà, in an ambitious attempt to transform the noir atmospheres of Tiziano Sclavi's character into a video game experience.
Simulmondo faced a complex challenge: how to digitally recreate the charm that drove Italian readers to regularly purchase issues of the Nightmare Investigator, which was extremely popular in Italy in the 90s? The solution adopted was intelligent and respectful of the original material. Rather than adapting the comic book stories—an operation that would be almost impossible anyway—the developers created original plots inspired by the characters and stories from the comic, changing and reinventing them. The Queen of Darkness in the game, for example, is not the student that someone might remember from the comic book issue, but a sexy and provocative demon.
The graphics represent one of the title's strong points. The artists managed to overcome the limitations of the original black and white excellently, adding colorations with well-chosen and evocative chromatic tones. The horror settings thus acquired a visual dimension that the comic could not offer, creating suggestive atmospheres that effectively recalled Dylan Dog's universe.
However, when it comes to gameplay, the sour notes also arrive. It's a "slow" platform game with a plot to discover, similar to Flashback: The Quest for Identity, in a way. The quality of the animations indeed almost makes one think of more famous cinematic platformers, but unfortunately, it lacks the depth of Delphine Software's titles. Dylan mainly just has to jump from one platform to another, with some fighting here and there against supernatural creatures. He usually fights with his fists and a gun with limited ammunition. The enemy AI is practically non-existent. Not having a high level of difficulty is certainly a positive aspect in this case.
The dialogues represent perhaps the most interesting, yet also the most dangerous, element of the game. Dylan can interact with various characters through multiple-choice conversations. Very often, the dialogue graphics are taken directly from the comic. The annoying part is that a wrong choice often results in the protagonist's immediate death, a tradition that is all too familiar in Sierra adventures.
The music is a pleasant surprise. If you expect a game without music, as often happens in low-budget games, you're wrong. The background music is of relatively high quality yet straightforward, and it is appropriate for the horror atmosphere. On the other hand, the sound effects are somewhat disappointing.
Ultimately, despite its gameplay limitations, Dylan Dog: La Regina delle Tenebre can be considered a successful experiment. Indeed, it's a low-budget game with few expectations, but it succeeded in the difficult task of translating the comic's essence into a digital format. The respect for the original material, combined with good-level graphic execution for the time, made it a title appreciated by fans of the series. In fact, this first episode was followed by 6 others. If you're a Dylan Dog fan, it's a game worth trying, but don't expect to have Prince of Persia in front of you. Quality platformers are something else entirely.
For this game, we offer both the original Italian version and an unofficial English version.
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