D

D is an interactive movie which features adventure game elements, a horror genre storyline, and heavy use of full motion video. The player takes on the role of Laura Harris, played by a "digital actress" named Laura that appears in games by Warp, although the stories are unrelated. The player directs Laura's movements as she explores the game's environment, solves puzzles, and unravels the story. The movements occur through FMV sequences as she walks to the desired location, from where the player is greeted with a static screen which may contain items they can interact with or other paths to direct Laura.

There is no save or pause function, and after two real-time hours, the other world will be closed off and Laura will be pulled back to the real world, ending the game. Depending on the player's actions, there are different endings.

Taking place in 1997, the story begins when Laura Harris is contacted by Los Angeles police, receiving a disturbing message: her father, Dr. Richter Harris, director of the Los Angeles National Hospital, has gone on a mass murdering spree and barricaded himself in the hospital. Laura rushes to the scene of the crime, desperate to find an explanation for the well-respected doctor's actions. Upon entering the hospital, she is so horrified at the murdered bodies lying about the halls that she covers her eyes.

When she uncovers them again, she finds herself in an unknown medieval castle. Unwilling to give up her search, Laura continues through the dark corridors of the castle. While attempting to find her father, she experiences a series of flashbacks of her mother being stabbed to death. Laura's father (taking the form of apparitions) warns her to leave, saying that staying too long means being stuck in the alternate reality forever.

Development of D lasted about one year and was directed by Warp president Kenji Eno. Eno was heavily inspired by Polarware's Transylvania adventure game series and he believes D would have never been created if it were not for playing those games. Eno and Warp were still relatively unknown in the industry, and D would be their first major title. With this in mind, Eno felt that he was gambling his development career on D, and if it were not successful he would stop developing games.

There were three phases to D's development: the adventure game structure, the story creation, and finally violence was added. Since the adventure gameplay was largely finished before the story began to take fruition, flashbacks were added to detail the plot. The plot was largely based on that of Dracula, but Eno found it too boring, and so added violence and cannibalism to make the game more striking. The FMVs were created using Amiga 4000s.

The original 3DO release of D was well received. In their import review, GameFan staff stated they normally disliked interactive movie FMV games, but praised D for being innovative and creative, dubbing it "a masterpiece." In their review of the English release, they commended its horror elements and concluded it to be "the best FMV game likely ever to be made" and the best 3DO title at the time. GamePro staff gave the game high scores for its presentation and likewise commended its scare factor.

They called it "a frightening work of art" but cautioned that it was not for everyone. Next Generation reviewed the 3DO version first as an import, rating it two stars out of five, and stated that "This is without a doubt the most heavily atmospheric and creepy title to date for the 3DO - or for that matter, any home system." Their review of the domestic release said the graphics were astounding and enhanced the player's involvement in the creepy storyline. The reviewer criticized the English localization's dialogue and voice acting, and said the game suffers from low challenge and extremely short length, but still found the game enjoyable.

Modern retrospectives find D less appealing by contemporary standards, but have acknowledged its cult following and unique place in video game history. John Szczepaniak of Hardcore Gaming 101 could not find a reason to recommend D over other adventure games released prior or after, outside of the cannibalistic themes. He still recommended those interested to watch a walkthrough on YouTube. Alex Wawro of Gamasutra believed that D is worth studying as an early example of horror game design.

Brittany Vincent of Rock, Paper, Shotgun called it a "quintessential example" of a period when developers were attempting to blend FMV techniques with traditional game design to build something coherent. She called it a "surrealistic" phase in video game development when it seemed that the worlds of cinema and games were colliding. Staff at Core Gamers called D a benchmark for horror adventure games and one of the first console games with a mature-themed atmosphere. In an article titled "The aging horror of Kenji Eno's D", Richard Mitchell of Engadget shared the same sentiments as others.