Dark Fall

Brief game description

Have you been looking for a spooky adventure game? Something that will make you think, that requires your complete attention and will have you looking over your shoulder from time to time? If yes, then you should buy Dark Fall. Turn the lights down, the sound up and be prepared for a real adventure.

Dark Fall begins with a mysterious phone call from your brother. He seems to be in some sort of trouble and wants you to come. You arrive in an abandoned train tunnel and there is a boy there who you can't see. The station and hotel are empty, but you keep hearing things and seeing things.

You rapidly find out that this hotel has been the focus point for disappearances, the most recent being your brother and two young researchers in

Game play and hints for Dark Fall

Keep writing materials at hand at all times for this game. You'll need them. This is a game where you must pay attention to everything. Any pattern may have a deeper meaning. Every note may contain a clue. You need to see the patterns and the bigger picture. To solve this mystery, you must go beyond flick every switch and turn every knob. Even the most banal of decorations of a table may have a meaning somewhere else.

The interface is simple, using the normal point and click. You must be careful to explore rooms carefully. It can be easy to miss an item or a clue. Open every drawer, look at every scrap of paper. You can pick up a small number of items, each of which will be vital to the game.

Two of the inventory items are particularly important to the game. One detects the presence of ghosts, the other can let you see things not apparent to the human eye. You'll have to get into a locked room for one, and look around rooms quite carefully for the other.

You may not directly encounter any other people in the game, but you'll certainly get to know some from the information they've left behind. You'll explore their rooms, sometimes handle the notes and articles they left behind and hear their voices.

The game features an in-built hint system, but that depends on you returning to a certain location directly after finding a puzzle you can't solve. I did use it once successfully, and it did help. I also failed to get to the location once and then did not get a hint. Given that hints are available elsewhere, this isn't really a problem.

Gripes about the game

Small one, there are a few times when you need to notice that the active spot is only a few pixels. You can miss important locations and important items if you miss those areas.

There are a couple of occasions when you can't move. One of them is when the boy Tim is talking to you. Others involve waiting for events to finish, but they aren't as obvious as the boy.

Conclusions for Dark Fall

A brilliant game with a great atmosphere. This is a game with a very spooky atmosphere, with things whispering in the corridors at any point in time. Sudden noises or changes in the game sounds leave you looking behind you. It's one of the best ghost games that I've played and reminds me of Amber: Journeys Beyond.

Images and more information are available on the Dark Fall web site. Which also contains details on how to buy this fine game.

Some final thoughts on the game.

The CDROM has hints and tips on playing the game which is a lovely thought. There are walkthroughs as well, but the hints should really suffice, unless you fail to find a location. You can copy the entire cd to your hard drive, which means I didn't have to find the cd to play the game (on my desk, this is a serious advantage.)

Good heavens, the web site mentions Dark Fall 2. Quick work and I look forward to the next game by this small company.