Anyway, sorry, SQH, I didn’t mean to derail your topic.

Sometimes great insights come from slight topic deviations, it was worth it because it reminded me that Black Dahlia didn't receive the DVD-ROM treatment like its contemporaries of the late 90s.

Continuing with my research, I decided to do a bit of amateur price analysis to see how competitive Black Dahlia was in April of 1998. Specifically focusing on adventure games, with the prices being listed in U.S dollars of the Chips & Bits advertisement section inside the PC Gamer magazine. Black Dahlia actually went for a somewhat fair price considering it was a new release title around that time.

Phantasmagoria 2 - $54

Blade Runner - $53

The Neverhood - $49

The Journeyman Project 3 - $48

Shivers Two - $48

Black Dahlia - $46

Riven - $44

Tex Murphy: Overseer - $43

Zork: Grand Inquisitor - $43

The Curse of Monkey Island - $39

The Last Express - $39

Versailles 1685 - $39

Titanic: Adventure Out of Time - $33

Timelapse - $32

Byzantine - $32

Wow. Of that list, the only game I played back then was "The Curse of Monkey Island".
And I definitely wasn't able to buy more games then with my pocket money. And anyway, playing a game was special, it feels like I spent more "quality" time with it overall, not being distracted by whats happening on the internet meanwhile.

The only other title of this list I played at all was Blade Runner. But I played this much later.

So I have nothing more to say about the actual topic here, since I haven't played the game. Many years ago I watched a movie named "Black Dahlia" though, which seems to be based on the same murder. As far as I remember I didn't really like the movie, it just wasn't "for me", not saying it was a bad movie.

Hexenwerk, choosing The Curse of Monkey Island was a wise decision, back in those days it would have seemed like the best 'bang for the buck'.

Focusing the spotlight once again on Black Dahlia, the pricing is not egregious, but it is most certainly in the upper-middle price range.

Adjusted for inflation in the year 2025 the price would be $91.66 in the U.S.A. (70.16 GBP, 79.59 EUR, 594.59 DKK)

What is your opinion regarding the Black Dahlia crew holding a seance in order to promote the game?

What is your opinion regarding the Black Dahlia crew holding a seance in order to promote the game?

The above question is open to everyone, by the way.


I did one last final bit of research on the Black Dahlia game, I was searching through the features page of the archived official website, and found something interesting. The game was originally planned to support both MS-DOS and Windows 95! The DOS version would have been running on as little as 8 MB of RAM despite being a game with heavy usage of FMV. The Windows 95 version always required 16 MB of RAM.

https://web.archive.org/web/199804160051...tures.html

Things get super confusing at this point, because the DOS version might have potentially been abandoned at the last minute before publishing. Looking at the system requirements on the U.S. release box shows both DOS and Windows 95 supported with 16 MB of RAM.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/1174/blac...er-543886/

But on other releases in different countries it explicitly states on the box that the game is for Windows 95 only.

https://www.mobygames.com/game/1174/blac...er-608548/

A couple of forum posts go into more detail:

https://www.mobygames.com/forum/game/117...76731/dos/

https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?p=492816#p492816

There is even a DOS installer on the first disc and it does copy files to your hard drive, but it's totally useless.

Thank you for all the research. I didn't know about the séance — no one I've talked to has brought that up, so I suspect that was a thing cooked up by the marketing department.

Also, I find it interesting that no one has found out how to trigger the telescope easter egg where one of the beach ladies gets her tits out. I can see why they hid it carefully, since nudity would have bumped their age rating up to the point where they basically couldn't sell the game anywhere. But it is just lying around in the video directory on the disc, fully exposed (puns, haha), which is easily viewed in VLC 'cos they're just Smacker videos.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read what I wrote! I'm glad some of it was useful, considering you had never heard about the séance before.

I would not be surprised if the asking price of Black Dahlia led to it not becoming a huge success. Still way cheaper than the outrageous price for phantasmagoria 2 though.

Thank you for all the research. I didn't know about the séance — no one I've talked to has brought that up, so I suspect that was a thing cooked up by the marketing department.

Nice one, Legerdemancy!

Even though I only discovered him last year, the Space Quest Historian is my favourite video creator on YouTube. Helping him discover new things about Black Dahlia was a great honour.

To all future Black Dahlia fans that come across this forum post, here is how to trigger the telescope Easter egg:

Quote:

"  Adjust the telescope with the coordinates "-1" and "-25" and when the movie ends, hold Shift and click on the screen. "

Source:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBMwbybCRtE

Even though I only discovered him last year, the Space Quest Historian is my favourite video creator on YouTube. Helping him discover new things about Black Dahlia was a great honour.

Awww. Thank you. <3