This week's Matt Chat covers Infogrames' Alone in the Dark, the granddaddy of survival horror games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. Released in 1992, Alone in the Dark introduced a number of important conventions that would show up in many later games, particularly its mix of static and dynamic graphical elements. While the backgrounds were pre-rendered and detailed, the moving objects (characters, monsters, etc.) were rendered on-the-fly and composed of colored polygons. While this setup would be a liability in most types of games, it worked very well for horror. Have a happy Halloween!