Trivia / Darklands

• Spiritual Successor: Serpent In The Staglands, a Retraux Western RPG from 2015 which carries on the Gothic style, overall tone and many gameplay elements; and Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is a more modern take on a historical European setting minus the Fantasy elements.
• What Could Have Been: The game project was large and ambitious, but went over budget and broke several deadlines. A lot had to be left out.
  • Game files contain over a megabyte of texts, of which about 1/4th is not used.
  • The manual claimed that the designers were planning a number of sequels to expand the game throughout medieval Europe. This also is seen in-game in some of the saint descriptions — e.g. praying to St. Patrick would have increased your reputation in Ireland. Or St. Nicolas in Russia. Unused texts list over a dozen destinations for roads and boats: Burgundy, France, Belgium, England, Scotland, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Teutonic Order, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland.
  • Over 80% of unused game texts were intended for a fairly complex rebellion plot, which was never finished. The party would side with the city lord or rebels (and could even switch sides at some points) and coerce the guilds, banks and church to join your cause — either by clever propaganda campaign or by working directly with their leaders. This would involve talking to them, bribing them with money or holy relics, blackmailing with secrets like low birth/a lover/murdering the predecessor/witchcraft, or just deposing the leaders by revealing said secrets. Rebel propagandists would get attacked on the streets, there would be raids to intimidate rebel leaders and uncooperative guilds, there could be an attempt to arrest the rebel leader. The storyline would culminate in rebels taking over the city fortress or getting arrested. Or the rebels could see the futility of their efforts and stop. Or a divine intervention could resolve the conflict peacefully — with the rebel mob happily dispersing or the lord happily surrendering. Or the party could step aside and watch the events unfold, with fame and fortune passing them by.
  • There were going to be tensions and wars between some city-states, temporarily restricting travels and increasing guard alertness. The party could be stuck in a besieged city. Or could run into an army in the wilderness.
  • The situation in Bohemia would gradually change with the emperor retaking cities under his control.
  • There also was a minor Sidequest to escort an imperial courier you met on the road.
  • Judging from the game files, at some point there was no wilderness map. The player leaving a city would choose a direction from a text menu and follow the road to the next city or Random Encounter.
  • A few items, such as torches and lanterns, serve no apparent purpose in-game. Most likely the mechanics involving their use were not implemented due to time constraints, or they were intended to be added in future expansions.
  • There are game texts for such city buildings as barracks (allowing to train the party and hire a soldier), imperial mints, hospices, poorhouses, whorehouses...
  • Screenshots from the 1991 demo◊ feature a very different style of opening graphics — much more bright and simplistic EGA rather than watercolour imitation.
  • Also those scans feature the city Dillingen, that did not make it to the release version.
  • One game text file describes a city, where streets have Meaningful Names: Soldier's Road, Street of the Blacksmiths, Swordsmith's Lane, Armorer's Way, Square of Bowyers and Gunsmiths. The released versions have "main street" and "side streets" whose names are not mentioned.