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Dark Fall: The Journal impressions

Coyote

Arcane
Joined
Jan 15, 2009
Messages
1,149
I just finished Dark Fall: The Journal yesterday. It's actually been sitting in my collection for a few years now because I got distracted by real life and never finished it the first time, but I got Dark Fall: Lost Souls for Christmas and figured that, since it takes place in the same area, I might as well go back and finish DFTJ before starting it. Thought I'd post my impressions here, since it isn't exactly like the Adventure Gaming forum is bursting at the seams with new topics. This isn't intended as a formal review, so there are some spoilers throughout, but I put them in spoiler tags in case anyone wants to read it to see if the game sounds interesting.

You start out by getting a phone call from your brother, who's been planning the construction of some sort of entertainment center at an old, abandoned hotel next to the station for a discontinued train line in a small English town called Dowerton. He's gotten a little freaked out by some of the things he's experienced since arriving and calls you to help him out because, he says, you were always good with this sort of thing. (An alternative interpretation is that he just wants to get you killed and damned to eternal unrest.) So you head in the direction of Dowerton, and the game begins.

The game takes place in the hotel and a small area around it. When you start out, you're in a train tunnel. The ghostly voice of a British child guides you through the first few screens, but after that, you're on your own. Well, actually, you can come back to him for hints throughout the game by looking at a puzzle and returning to one screen, but this doesn't seem to be very useful because 1. he doesn't help with all of the puzzles (I went to see him once when I had trouble with one puzzle - turned out I had just failed to notice some buttons - and he had nothing to say), 2. the most difficult puzzles are the ones where you don't know where to solve them until you've already done so,* and 3. the hints don't seem all that helpful in the first place (the only other time I visited him he gave some helpful advice along the lines of "That water heater hasn't worked in ages"). As you explore, you'll learn more about the hotel and four different set of disappearances that occurred there over time,† leaving the ghosts who you hear, see, and occasionally interact with all over the hotel. Your task is to find the source of these disappearances and eliminate it, saving the souls of those who went missing in the process - which, you'll quickly learn, may include your brother and two innocents who recently came to the area.

* For example, the one involving a rune that appears in the steam of a mirror in the first floor bathroom.

† Tom Oliver, the wounded soldier from Cromwell's campaign; the hotel guests who disappeared in 1947 when George Crabtree tried to destroy the source of the hauntings; Timothy Pike, a young boy who went missing and is now a living undead hint dispenser hobo residing in the train station; Polly, Nigel, and your brother from just before the start of the game.

The setting itself is well done. The game was made by a fairly small team in 2001, but the graphics are quite adequate for the purposes of conveying the atmosphere - and Dark Fall, as with most horror games, is all about atmosphere. The sounds are extremely well done, and add greatly to sense of dread you get while exploring. From the simple sounds of doors opening and floorboards creaking as you move from screen to screen to the voices and background noises that you hear all over the hotel to even things like a program some students-turned-ghost hunters who have visited the hotel used to try to isolate voices out of white noise, the sounds in the game all contribute to the creepy atmosphere. The voices are pretty good, aside from a radio interview you can hear at one point that's long enough for the lack of professional voice acting to become noticeable. The designers also did a nice job adding little touches that gave the hotel a bit more fleshing out, things like old-timey war posters and advertisements scattered about, photo albums and dinner menus, some vintage nude pictures stuffed in the bottom of an eccentric bachelor's desk in a room otherwise full of major plot-important clues, a set of pictures the students had taken where some of them were relevant to puzzles, but others were just pictures of the students messing around, etc.

The puzzles were well-designed too, for the most part; at no point should you ever find the need to start clicking random inventory items, and only once or twice did I miss something I could interact with because I'd failed to notice it (even then, it wasn't so much a case of pixel-hunting as having failed to examine a scene thoroughly enough the first time). Although some of the puzzles may seem like they require outside knowledge when you first encounter them, all of them can be solved with information given within the game. There was one puzzle that I solved accidentally without ever having figured out how I was supposed to actually solve it,* but given the quality of the rest of the puzzles in the game, my guess is that I simply missed something. There was also one that I thought was poorly designed in the sense that the controls did not work very well, which could mislead you into thinking you were missing something required to solve the puzzle when really you just weren't clicking in the right spot.† Finally, there's one area outside the hotel that can be very easy to miss, but if you're thorough in your explorations of the hotel, you'll find items indicating that you should keep an eye out for it.

* The puzzle involving Edith's special song. More on this below.

† Opening the suitcase in the attic. It took me a long time to realize I could move the screwdriver up and to the right at the same time, because I had tried that earlier and could only get it to move left and right. Even when I had the right idea it took several tries because I'd click the lower left and have it go straight left, etc.

The puzzles are pretty easy with one or two exceptions, and I'd guess that a first-time playthrough from start to finish would take about 8-10 hours total (it's hard to say for sure, since I completed about half the puzzles the first time I played). That all said, although the puzzles all made sense from the player's perspective, several make less sense when you considered them in the context of the world. Examples:

Why did Betty have the solution to the puzzle box in 2C written on the tablet in the hotel lobby - and in such a roundabout, puzzle-like fashion? How did the key to George's office end up in the keyhole on the inside of the locked door? Why did Betty and Edith have so many hiding places scattered throughout the house where they left notes to each other? Why is it that a picture falls off the wall in Edith's room only when you play her favorite song at full volume, and not when you play anything else? Why did George, if he was so worried about failing, only leave a hint to the first trial in such an obscure form - the numbers in the boxes, which corresponded to the colors of the quilt, which had long since been removed and would have been lost to you if you didn't have the goggles, which he couldn't have predicted would exist in the future? And why did he hide part of the alchemical ritual required to see the missing rune and the pieces of vellum with the runes on them - why not just keep a full list of the runes and lyrics in case he failed? How did he hide one rune such that it could only be seen through a surveying tool, and how did your brother just happen to know the lyric for it? Likewise, how did Andrew Verney just happen to name the new constellation after the lyric, and how did a constellation appear in the sky with the shape of the rune in the first place? (I get that these are mystical runes, so there's some leeway in how characters come to know the associated lyrics, but considering that an important part of the game is you figuring out what lyric to associate with each rune, it seems like the designers could have found some better way to convey this information to you.) Why did the piano have a secret compartment that opened only when you played a sequence of notes that Betty apparently practiced fairly often? Why the heck are the specifications used to find the secret part of the cellar via Nigel's thermal camera written on the mirror of the third floor bathroom? (This is the only one that really bothered me, because it seemed so random, like the designers said "Oops, we forgot to put the solution to this puzzle somewhere. Which room haven't we used yet?) Et cetera.

Some of these, like the many notes scattered about, are simply products of being a "Myst-like", where the player relies almost exclusively on objects within the environment to learn about things, though some Myst-likes manage to do this without seeming at all contrived so it still speaks negatively of the game if it fails to do so. Others of these can be explained in terms of the ghosts rearranging things in hopes that it would help someone to save them, but this explanation seems rather weak and unsatisfying in several cases. Still, at least these oddities somewhat subtle, only noticeable when you take a step back to think about the game; compare to, say, The 7th Guest, a older adventure/horror game where the puzzles and the gameworld are almost entirely logically disconnected from one another.

Likewise, the plot seems to have some holes in it.

Why is Timothy Pike the only ghost who is able to communicate with you in a direct fashion without the aid of the goggles? Why did the Dark Fall feel the need to mess with George Crabtree for so long before finally taking him when it was able to take most of the others even though they were completely unaware of it? Why, if it was so powerful and could apparently move through walls, did it need to make the sound of knocking on doors to draw people out into the hallway before it could get them? Why doesn't it ever attack your character before he can imprison it again? At first I thought that the reason was that it was one of those anniversary ghosts mentioned on one of Polly's websites, and it could only attack on April 29 - since that's when both the hotel guests and the most recent set of visitors disappeared - but it apparently got Timothy Pike sometime on or before April 19. And if it needed time to weaken your mind first like with George, how did it manage to get Polly, Nigel, and your brother after a few days of minor hauntings? If George had all of the lyrics and knew how to get through the trials, how did he manage to fail in his quest? If the Dark Fall was already loose, why was it a problem for Polly and Nigel to go into the secret part of the cellar? If it wasn't, how did it get trapped again after George released it? A possible answer is that George somehow succeeded in his quest after it killed all of the hotel's other inhabitants and then disappeared on his own - his ghost is peculiarly silent throughout the game - but then how did Timothy Pike disappear and become a ghost? And if the lyric ritual is what seals it and not the physical walls of the secret part of the cellar, how did opening that part of the cellar cause it to be released at all?

I suppose, in the end, that it isn't the sort of game where you're meant to think too hard about it.

DFTJ is a first-person adventure/horror game, so it's only natural that you'd compare it to Penumbra (there are others, of course, like Zork: Nemesis and The 7th Guest, but Penumbra's probably the best-known). I'd say it's slightly better overall; the horror atmosphere is not quite as well done as I remember Penumbra being, but it's still very good, and the adventure game elements (i.e. puzzles) are much better. In Penumbra, pretty much the only objects you can interact with are directly involved in puzzles, making it very easy to suss out what to do, whereas Dark Fall has many interactable objects and puzzles that would generally be more difficult to figure out even if that wasn't the case. DF has more of a generic ghost story, whereas Penumbra is somewhat more original, a plus in a horror game since it means you're dealing with the unknown; on the other hand, DF benefits from being in a more typical Myst-like format (a first-person game where you move from one set screen to the next with lots of environmental interaction and minimal dialogue with other characters), whereas Penumbra had a FPS/adventure feel. The reason I like this better is that while enemies in Penumbra feel intimidating at first, once you know how to deal with them and realize that there are only
three
types of enemies in the first game and
one new one
in the second game, it loses quite a bit of the horror factor. Especially when you consider all of the buildup in the typewritten notes between areas, which seem to be trying for some sort of spookiness medal, you start to develop a "This is what I'm supposed to be so terrified of?" resistance as you progress. Dark Fall, on the other hand, evokes a more consistent feeling of dread throughout the game as you learn more and more about what happened to the inhabitants' of the hotel with several developments that renew that feeling as you progress,* and you never see your adversary except in a sort of abstract way through electronic equipment at a distance, so there's more of a sense of wading into the unknown even as you approach the final area of the game fully prepared to do what needs to be done.

* I'm thinking of things like events that occurred when you revisited places after the first time (like when the phone in the lobby rings and you're told "He knows what you're trying to do"), finding Polly's computer with those creepy voices and first-hand account of the evil at work, gaining access to Nigel's computer and being able to see the darkness moving from room to room yourself, finding the goggles and being able to speak with some of the ghosts and see all the things written on the walls and in Edith's photo album, the way that shortly after you learn that the evil's M.O. is to knock on doors to draw people out, it starts knocking on doors when you're exploring the rooms, a similar phenomenon concerning whistling on the train platform, etc.

All in all, I thought it was a good game, and I'd say that it's well worth a try for the $5-7 it costs from most retailers these days. And it goes without saying that this is the kind of game you should play alone with the volume turned up in a dark room at night for maximum effect. On the other hand, if you're the sort who dreads playing through Bloodlines again because of the Ocean House Hotel, this might not be the game for you. (If that statement sounds condescending, that's not the intent. Horror games are an acquired taste.)

***

Moving on, some questions for those who have played the game (SPOILERS, naturally):

1. The puzzle I had trouble with was the one involving Edith's record player. I know there were pieces of the puzzle all over the place, such as hearing her hum two different parts of the song in the kitchen, Polly mentioning the song on her computer, the writing on the wall of the room with the record player that you could see with the goggles, the sheet music on the wall of Betty's room, the list of songs on the back of the record case, and a number of notes (at least three) scattered around where Betty makes note of Edith's obsession with the song. However, as far as I could tell, all of the clues except the sheet music on Betty's wall pointed to a song called "As Time Goes By", whereas the song that I played on the record player when I solved the puzzle seems to have been "On Hastings' Pier"? ("As Time Goes By" doesn't appear on the record at all.) Does anyone know how you're supposed to come up with that?

2. Gloria Grable had a specific answer for if you asked her if she was the "Sly Fox"; I think she said something like "You think you're clever, do you?" You also have the opportunity to speak with Thomas Callum via the ouija board and Tom Oliver in the cellar. Does anyone know of any unusual responses for them? Thomas, in particular, seemed like the most underdeveloped character in the game. He told me he knew Betty and was killed by "darkness", and Tom had a special response if you mentioned Will Thomas - man, the designers really like variations on the name Thomas, don't they? - but that was all I found they would answer outside of the mundane questions from Polly's ouija board tips and "Am I in danger?"

For that matter, are there any phone numbers you can call aside from the food delivery services or websites you can visit aside from Polly's saved ones?

3. This might have been mentioned in the game, but why was it that George felt such an urgent need to do the lyric ritual on the night of Betty's concert (i.e. what made it urgent that he do it then, as opposed to the next day)? He seemed convinced that something horrible would happen if he didn't do the job that night, but what convinced him of this?

4. Any thoughts on the quality of the other games in the series? I've just started Lost Souls and I'm not as impressed with it so far. It feels less subtle in the horror department, and the new movement system along with frequent ~5-second loading times makes it take forever to get anywhere, far from the instantaneous screen jumps of The Journal (not to mention feeling like I have to look up and down on each screen lest I miss something important, which so far has turned up exactly nothing). And what's this stuff in the manual about fighting spirits with a pair of rusty scissors? Sounds pretty derp and like it'll detract from the horror experience in the same way that the FPS side of Penumbra did for me. But I've only just gotten the lights turned on, so maybe it'll pick up once I get inside and start exploring.
 

Zombra

An iron rock in the river of blood and evil
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Make the Codex Great Again! RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Codex+ Now Streaming! Serpent in the Staglands Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Dark Fall 1 & 2 bundle currently $1.99 on Steam.

Did anyone else play these? They look kind of good. Sell me.
 

Explorerbc

Arcane
Joined
Nov 22, 2012
Messages
1,170
Dark Fall 1 & 2 bundle currently $1.99 on Steam.

Did anyone else play these? They look kind of good. Sell me.

I don't think anybody is gonna write a more in-depth recommendation than coyote did above.

The first one was great when I played it, scary atmosphere, interesting puzzles and nice setting.

The guy who makes these is well known for his ghost-hunting stuff in the adventure community.
 

Anthedon

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Jan 1, 2015
Messages
4,497
Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
I only played the first one so far. It's a good adventure, looks a bit dated now. And it's very difficult.
 

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