Introduction

Thank you very much for purchasing the "D" interactive software title.
Warp Inc. spent about one year working hard to develop this game for
your enjoyment.

The best way to play this game is from the very beginning to the last
scene. Think of it as if it were an actual movie.

For this reason you have just 2 hours to solve the whole mystery.

Once a movie begins, you cannot stop the movie to get a box of popcorn.
So we did not include a save option.
Please enjoy your movie-going experience.

Please continue to try to solve the mystery of "D" until you are able to
watch the whole movie and discover the best ending.

Good luck and be careful!

Kenji Eno
President
WARP INC.

-From the manual for D

Hey everyone! It's the mid-nineties, and that new full motion video technology is taking the video game world by storm! All the experts are telling us that our silly old Nintendo and Sega games are going to fall by the wayside, and interactive movies are going to take over. If you want to get a taste of the future, you'd better get yourselves one of those CD-ROM based systems, like the Sega CD. Or even better, how about a 3DO Interactive Multiplayer from Panasonic? It gives you FULL SCREEN FMV in your movie-games. It's only $700. A bargain, right? Better start saving up now kids, or you'll be left in the digital dust!

...

Well, maybe not. While games did eventually gravitate towards trying to be more like movies, it was more of a gradual shift than an immediate sea change. The early attempts to make this transformation happen weren't welcomed by most, and the clunky use of full motion video in those games gave FMV a bad reputation that lingers to this day. However, there were a few movie-game attempts that ended up better than most of the drek, and that's where D comes in.

The two D games were productions of musician/software designer Kenji Eno and his team at WARP. The first D was released in 1995 on the 3DO, Playstation, Saturn, and PC. D2 was released in 2000 only for the Dreamcast. The two games were attempts of figuring out how to make interactive horror movies using the technologies of their times. The first D was all-FMV, most likely because the choices back then were between FMV or traditional sprite-based graphics. The second game was fully-polygonal, as the Dreamcast allowed WARP to create real-time graphics that surpassed the low-budget FMV of the first game. The difference in real-time graphics vs. pre-rendered video made a big difference in WARP's interpretation of how an interactive movie could be created.

The first D seems quite cliche now, but at the time it was something very different for console owners. It's a slow-moving, heavily-atmospheric tour through a haunted house. Gameplay is minimal, restricted to turning the playable character in the direction you want to go, as well as interacting with the occasional puzzle. D wasn't about its gameplay, it was more about creating a sense of dread in the player. These days, after experiencing the various Silent Hills and Fatal Frames, D may not seem impressive in that respect, but in 1995 it was rather effective.

The second D takes some elements from the first, but for the most part it's completely different. There's actual gameplay in D2, for one thing. D2 combines elements from survival horror, first person shooters, hunting simulators(?!), as well as incorporating the first person exploration segments from the first game. WARP's idea of what could constitute an interactive movie changes quite a bit from the first game to the second. When you play D2, it's quite obvious what the major influence was on this change: Kenji Eno played Metal Gear Solid. And liked it. A lot. D2 contains ridiculously long cutscenes and a bizarrely preachy ending that still leaves me wondering today if Eno was trying to be like Hideo Kojima, or if he was mocking him.

While WARP's attempts at making interactive movies seem pretty clunky compared to the slick productions of today, these games provided a very unique and different experience during the times of their releases. I would be interested in what kind of horror production Kenji Eno would create using today's technology, but unfortunately D2 was the last horror game he directed. He folded WARP and got out of the video game business after D2 didn't sell, and has only recently gotten back in. His only game since returning to the business has been a puzzle game on Wiiware(Japan only) called "Kimi to Boku to Rittai". Maybe he'll attempt another interactive horror movie someday, but it doesn't seem likely for now.

Note: Youtube has great video quality, but of course there is the eleven minute time limit, so the videos on Youtube will be split into chunks to fit in that llimit. If watching the Youtube videos, watch "Youtube A" first, then "Youtube B".