More than two decades after its 1995 release on 3DO, Kenji Eno’s cult classic horror game D became widely available on PC, Mac and Linux this week via the game revivication efforts of Night Dive Studios.
D was the first notable work from Eno’s now-defunct studio WARP, and while it was later ported to MS-DOS, PlayStation and the Saturn, the fact that there’s now a version for sale on Gog.com means it will be much easier for people to play and study.
While the game itself may not hold up well for modern players, D is worth studying because it was a very early, very gruesome (Eno famously snuck a cannibalism scene in by submitting a fake “clean” gold master of the game, then switching it out for the actual game he wanted to release as he was flying to hand-deliver it) example of horror game design.
Eno went on to lead development of follow-ups and spiritual successors to D, and was an iconoclastic game designer and composer until his death in 2013 at the age of 42.
For more insight on his work and philosophy of game development, look back at this tribute to Kenji Eno that was published in the April 2013 issue of Game Developer Magazine.