By Dale Farris, Secretary
Golden Triangle PC Club
August 2003

Game Overview

Fans of adventure games will delight in knowing that once again The Adventure Company, a subsidiary of DreamCatcher Games, Inc., has released another super adventure game to keep this always intriguing style of computer game play alive.

This time, we have one of the most eerie and mysterious of all adventure games. You are in for a treat when you play Dark Fall. While it has all the markings of and plays like classic adventure games, the attention to sounds, sound effects, and lighting all help set up a creepy, fun game. I think Dark Fall represents one of the best examples of superior attention to sounds in any existing adventure game.

Returning from work you listen to a frightened and cryptic voice message from your brother, a talented architect redeveloping the old Dowerton station in Dorset, England. Boarding a train to meet him, you travel to Dowerton alone, wondering on what type of adventure you may be embarking.

When you arrive, the train is empty and the station is deserted. You begin to explore - the train tunnels, the station, the adjoining hotel, and the grounds - and discover that although no one is there, you are not alone. Finding artifacts, ancient documents, and a valuable journal, you realize that the area holds a history of disappearances and ghostly hauntings dating back centuries.

Somewhere in the heart of rural Dorset, a darkness is growing in strength. A force that exists at the very beginning of time and the very end of time, waiting to break into our world.

It is always waiting.

It has been triggered, a particular action or disturbance is all it needed. Those that disturbed its slumber have paid the price.

You will stand against it, rather reluctantly. It is hiding in an abandoned railway station gathering strength. This is Dark Fall.

'Dowerton' station has a history of disappearances, don’t join that history.

"There is something here, a power, in here with us." Returning from work you are met by a frantic and cryptic message from your brother, a talented architect developing the old station at Dowerton, in Dorset. April Fool's Day had been and gone, so you decide that something is up. Boarding a train at London's Paddington Station you travel to the old station alone, wondering what adventure may greet you.

Why do you fall asleep on the train and find yourself in the train tunnel?

Exploring the station, and adjoining hotel, you discover you are not alone. Time appears to repeating itself, but what is your role in all this?

Were you chosen for this task? What is the “Dark Fall”?

Armed with ghost hunting gadgets and your wits, you set out to uncover this puzzle, a little involuntarily.

Features

A perfect blend of adventure and suspense set in beautiful, grippingly eerie environments that capture the imagination

Superb sounds and sound effects make the game very mysterious, and ratchet up the tension

Immersive haunting ambient background sounds and music

Challenging puzzles to complete

Beautiful 90-degree views (No full panning)

Cryptic messages, puzzles

Solve challenging riddles

A strikingly visual adventure

Original, clever, and complex storyline

Compelling and richly detailed scenario

Classic, 3rd person perspective

Adventure captures the imagination

Environments and settings created in amazing, full detail

Beautiful backgrounds and objects

Inventory interface for objects to use

Game Play

Dark Fall plays by using only mouse. You point your mouse and click where you want to go, and then the scene changes. These pre-rendered scenes keep the system requirements down, as this does not challenge a machine as much as a game that allows for full movement through environments.

You do not have full 360 degree panning, after you click on a direction. This means when you click to move your character, after the move is completed you cannot look all around you. You must move the mouse cursor to the edge of the screen to click again if you wish to move. You also must always remember to move the mouse cursor toward all four edges, in order to enable you to click up, down, left, right, or to turn around, in order to see something at your feet or above your head that you need to see and possibly click on, activate, or pick up. These scenes also help create the mysterious, moody environment that surround you as you move through the game.

The graphics in Dark Fall are somewhat less detailed than in other similar adventure games, but the images remain interesting and relatively easy to discern. The settings and background provide the "dark" feel to the game, and the gritty images add to the realism of the game. The puzzles are well detailed, and the limited animations are seamlessly integrated into the interface.

Dark Fall excels in sound effects that help create a somber, suspenseful mood without being too apparent. There is constant audio information throughout the game, and some of it is vital to solving the puzzles. In one scene, with the various wind effects and moody feel, a telephone starts ringing. When you pick it up, you are treated to unintelligible whispering layered with some other sound effects. This means you will need to listen carefully all the time while you play the game. In fact, Dark Fall is one of the best examples of a "moody" adventure game that genuinely lives up to the suggestion that you turn down all the other audio in your room, turn off the ambient room lighting, and really immerse yourself in this mysterious game.

These effects are not overbearing, and not hard to localize in the sound stage created by the game. Ask yourself when playing the game you hear what sounds like the deep-throated barking of a dog, during a night scene in the game, if the dog is in the game, or outside your own room.

The game's voice-overs provide many hints and clues, and the play back is clear and well done. All the speakers have an English accent, and provide guidance throughout the game.

Subtitles are available by pressing F1 for those people who may be hearing impaired. However, the subtitles obviously cannot match the effects or the noises that are so vital to the playing experience.

The interface is classic adventure game design. There are no complicated controls, and all movement is strictly point and click. The icon changes when you can move somewhere, activate some object, or you are supposed to use an object. When zoomed in on something, there is some manipulation allowed. For example, at one point in the game you can rearrange a torn note to be able to read a message.

If you open a drawer or something that is in a zoomed-in screen, you have to close it before the game will let you zoom out. This also can be seen in the state of the objects. The game has no memory how something was left. For example, if you rearrange the torn note, zoom out and back in again, the note will be back to the original pile of scraps.

One feature missing from the game is any journaling or mapping ability. Be prepared with pen and paper, because the information comes fast and furious. Dark Fall throws a ton of information at you, much of it provided only after you figure out how to open various puzzles that reveal further details about the deep background to the story. As in most all adventure games, keeping notes is a must, and in Dark Fall you will need to write down a ton of stuff. Folks interested in spending a lot of time with adventure games keeping up with the clues and information will certainly enjoy the volume of material offered up in Dark Fall.

The puzzles are cleverly integrated into the game, although they may be a bit difficult for novice gamers. In addition, you will frequently find yourself roaming around a lot trying to find things. Of course, in an adventure game players expect this sort of thing, which just means you will want to be sure to set aside plenty of time to roam around and get acquainted with the many locations and rooms, as you will have to eventually figure out the "magical path" that takes you where you need to go in order to find the right objects or use the correct objects.

The puzzles are also well designed, and relatively difficult. Again, savvy adventure gamers should not be perplexed, but novice gamers may find the intricately designed meanderings and roaming around, in order to gather all the requisite objects, a bit overwhelming. In Dark Fall, all the information you run across helps either in firming up the story line, or more importantly, provides the clues to solving the many puzzles in the game. When you encounter various objects that only open by correctly solving the puzzle, the clues to how to open these objects are part of the material you must learn in other parts of the game.

Game Play Concerns

The developers have provided the ability to save your game anywhere in the game, which will greatly help if you get lost. With saved games, you can just give up and start over, trying again to figure out where to go. Basically, the game challenges your ability to find your way through many rooms, chambers, hidden rooms, caves, and other types of difficult to find locations. Then, once you get where you need to go, you run into the complex puzzles that require you to use information found in other locations. With the different locations you investigate, this also means you need information from one location in order to help solve puzzles in other locations. Again, savvy adventure gamers should be thoroughly challenged and satisfied by this high level of game complexity in Dark Fall.

About The Walkthrough Solution Guides

Of course, you could also help further streamline and speed up your game play experience by following along with the official walkthrough strategy guide for the game that The Adventure Company also sells. For those new to adventure games, I strongly advise using the guide, as I suspect only the more experienced adventure gamers will likely be able to complete the game unaided.

The guide will help streamline this frustrating aspect of the game, while also helping with solving the puzzles in the game.

Also, if you were interested, here is a link to the UHS hints for Dark Fall.

In my situation, playing with a walkthrough means I can concentrate on moving the game plot along, and most importantly, open up all the wonderful scenes and action that the coders have worked so hard to include in the game. Without a walkthrough, I just feel I am not getting my money's worth out of the game. Also, I always appreciate having the help to get through the game so I can savor all the impressive screens and animated cut-scenes, as was the intent of the game creators.

There is a certain degree of frustration with being stuck in an adventure game that varies from one gamer to another, and in my case, with all the other things I have to do, I just do not have the luxury of working endlessly for hours and hours on end to try and figure out what's not working in order to advance to another key plot point. So, my perspective about walkthrough guides is that these help make adventure games more fun. Not being able to decipher a puzzle or having the right object at the right time is not my idea of fun with an adventure game. 

What makes this issue even more relevant here is that DreamCatcher seems to realize this, as evidenced by their always wise price points for their games and their solution guides. Dark Fall is so reasonably priced that this makes buying the additional solutions guide (also very smartly priced) a no-brainer. You end up with a total investment that means you will be better assured you can get through the entire game and not end up spending an excessive amount of time with the game. So, no, I don't think using a walkthrough solution guide is any indication of any lack of skill or abilities, but instead, a more appropriate way to invest minimal time with an adventure game, that ends up much more likely to be a fun experience.

Game Saves

You can save your game at any point, a feature always appreciated by adventure gamers.

Targeted Customers

Dark Fall is a definite must have for all adventure gamers, and I suspect even fans of first-person shooters, role playing games, and strategy games will also enjoy this very fun, very intriguing adventure game.

Install and Setup

The game should install and set up with no problems. The game comes on one (1) CD ROM disc. You will complete a full install, and then you do not need the CD ROM disc in your drive in order to play the game. The install will load about 500MB of data onto your hard disk. During the install process, you will encounter at about 40% of the install process the loading of a very large game file to your hard disk. This may seem to indicate a stall in the install process, but it is not. The game is just loading a very large file to your hard disk.

I loaded the game on a Win XP Pro, SP 1 machine (P III-850, 256MB SDRAM) that had a Creative Labs Annihilator 2, 32MB video card (an nVidia GeForce 2 GTS board), and a Creative Labs Live X Gamer! sound board, and the latest drivers for each. An HP CD RW 9200 drive served as the CD ROM drive, and I had a DVD ROM drive. The optical mouse and keyboard were both PS/2 connections. I also had already installed the DirectX 9.0b files, and my machine also had an internal Zip 250 drive, standard floppy, one 7-port USB hub, a Microsoft SideWinder ForceFeedback 2 joystick, standard microphone, Cambridge Soundworks DTS 2000 speaker system, and a NIC board connected to SW Bell's DSL modem.

You use the standard Windows Add/Remove process to uninstall the game.

Price

$19.99
Note this price. This is one of the most reasonably priced computer games now on the market, and with the tremendous amount of fun you are going to have playing Dark Fall, at this price all gamers will want to play the game.

Minimum System Configuration Requirements

Pentium 233MHz processor
Windows 95, 98, 98 SE, ME, 2000, XP
32MB Ram (64MB Recommended)
502MB free hard disk space
24x CD ROM Drive (or PC DVD Drive)
SVGA Graphics Card with 32 Bit Color
32 Bit Color at 640 x 480

The above system configuration requirements indicate the minimum system configuration requirements, and as any experienced gamer knows, you just don't ever want to load and run any computer game on minimally configured systems. Computer games are notorious for taking over machines, and this is why users will need to be sure and close out all their other open files, before playing this and any computer game.

The more powerful the video and sound card, the more beautiful will the game play, and the more mysterious it will sound with high end sound systems.

About The Adventure Company

The Adventure Company is the new subsidiary of the well known adventure game company, DreamCatcher Games. In 1996, DreamCatcher Interactive launched their first title and since then, they have become a very successful publisher in the computer game entertainment software industry. In my opinion, one of this company's strongest assets is their dedication to provide customers with high quality entertainment software at very affordable prices. Some of the best interactive computer games now on the market come from DreamCatcher.

Bringing to market titles that are affordable, without jeopardizing content quality, is another significant factor that helps distinguish this company from the many that flood the market with countless game titles. DreamCatcher thrives on innovative marketing strategies, solid retail and developer partnerships, and on providing excellent customer support that is well above industry standards.

A new partnership with Her Interactive has enabled DreamCatcher to now sell the super games in the Nancy Drew series, including Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill, Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned for Danger, and Nancy Drew: Message in a Haunted Mansion. Check this link to read a review of these Nancy Drew Interactive Mystery Adventure Games.

Dracula: The Resurrection and In Cold Blood are two current games for the PC that will soon be released for the Playstation, and DreamCatcher also plans to release more games in the future for the Playstation 2 and the GameBoy Color platforms.

Necronomicon ($19.99) and The Legend of the Prophet and the Assassin ($19.99) are two of DreamCatcher's newer games that should also prove to be successful titles in their long list of super adventure games.

Other super games from DreamCatcher Interactive include Traitor's Gate, The Messenger, Riddle of the Sphinx, Jewels of the Oracle, Jewels II, Egypt 1156 B.C., Odyssey, TimeScape, Ancient Conquest, Beyond Time, Beyond Atlantis, Lightbringer, Legend of Lotus Spring, Nightlong, Seven Games of the Soul (also sold in Europe as Faust), SafeCracker, The Forgotten, The Sacred Amulet, and Time Machine.

All these are similarly designed adventure games, and all are priced very reasonably, the most expensive being $29.99 (In Cold Blood), with most around $14.99, and many even priced at $9.99, which I think are super prices for these super games. At the time of this writing, I have purchased and played nearly all these games, and these reasonable price points have always gotten my attention.

I think these affordable price points represent a very important strategy of DreamCatcher that has helped them achieve their success. When you consider the very expensive proposition to invest in the coding and other very expensive costs to develop and produce a computer game today, I think it is quite remarkable that this company markets their products at such a reasonable price.

I also think it is important to remember that DreamCatcher is still very much in the business of producing quality computer games, something many other companies can no longer attest to since they have gone out of business. What is even more remarkable, in my opinion, is that at the time of this writing, DreamCatcher Interactive remains wholly owned and self-sufficient, and has not yet been absorbed by a larger company.

So, with the easy on the pocket-book price of the game, and the also minimal price of the solution guides, you have the makings of a winner in the hotly contested battle for our limited disposable income and free time to invest in playing computer games. DreamCatcher Interactive is certainly a company worth watching and supporting.

About XXv Productions

The Dark Fall games are produced by Jonathan Boakes, for XXv Productions, London. The first Dark Fall title was released in June, 2002, and Dark Fall II is currently in production, and will be released in Q2 '03.

The game contains voice contributions by Kate Williams, Christine Smith, Jonathan Boakes, and Lorraine Marsh, with research by Philip Philippou. The imagery for the game was produced using Strata Studio. Objects are copies from original designs featured in publications such as “The Victorian Household Catalogue."

XXv Productions is lost in Lynch Fox Wood, Dowerton. The woods here are lovely, deep and dark.

Contact Information

The Adventure Company
DreamCatcher
5000 Dufferin Street
Toronto, Ontario
M3H 5T5
info@dreamcatchergames.com
www.adventurecompanygames.com

You can also order from other retailers or online vendors.