I can think of few settings eerier than an abandoned railway station and a derelict hotel.  Both have proved to be apt settings for rather disturbing tales in film and fiction and Dark Fall: The Journal shows that they are also perfect settings within an extremely unnerving video game.  The game was released in 2003 and several years on still stands up enduringly well.

The title begins as you listen to your answer machine messages playing and it becomes apparent that all is not well.  Your brother, Pete, is working on a redevelopment project but something is wrong and he is very anxious for you to join him.  Dutifully you head to Dowerton to find out what is wrong, only to find that not only is Pete missing but two others are too: ghosthunters called Polly White and Nigel Danvers.  From the moment you arrive at Dowerton Station it’s clear that things are far from how they should be and being guided by an unseen 11 year old does nothing to allay your concerns.

Without giving too much away it seems these are not the first disappearances at the station or hotel.  Indeed, several people have disappeared over time (including your 11 year old friend).  Most noticable was the disappearance of six people together.  The main objective of the game becomes finding out what happened to the missing people, in particular your brother.

This is a point and click style puzzle adventure that is heavily reliant on two things: an excellent memory and good logic skills.  Oh and a notebook!  Unlike many games, Dark Fall: The Journal does not note the things you find for you.  Therefore you will most likely find that you need to scribble constantly throughout the game noting references, images and numbers that may or may not be relevant further down the line.  In theory, I have absolutely no objection to this – in fact, in some ways it helped me focus more – but in practice my handwriting is illegible after a while of scrawling hurriedly and my diagrams are so far removed from how they should look as to be useless, so I do feel this would have been a helpful addition to the game.

In the most recent release of Dark Fall: The Journal (on the Adventures in Terror – British Horror Collection) a walkthrough has been provided with detailed instructions on how to solve each puzzle.  This is certainly very useful to have in case you find yourself in a bind but I found that for the most part the puzzles were perfectly manageable.  I kept a room-by-room log of objects and unsolved puzzles which helped me recall easily where things were.  Time consuming perhaps but much easier than just moving round aimlessly for hours looking for a particular item.  After all, Dark Fall: The Journal takes place across the station and the hotel and the locations are numerous.  Several hotel rooms, bathrooms, a bar, a buffet, a kitchen, a dining room, the cellar, the attic, station platforms and the station office  will leave you with plenty to explore.

Dark Fall: The Journal is hugely atmospheric.  I’ll hold my hands up and say that I rarely watch horror films and certainly not alone.  Therefore it wasn’t particularly surprising that at times I found the game extremely unnerving.  Fleeting shadows, distorted voices, ethereal lights: all occurred at the most unexpected times.  Like many good horror films, Dark Fall: The Journal is all about suspense.  Some may play it and raise an eyebrow at my cowardice, others may feel the same fright as I did.  Regardless of your position I would argue that the dark abandoned corridors of the hotel, the crumbling facade of the station and the creaking darkness of the attic are wonderfully depicted.  Despite some criticism directed towards the game regarding its graphic quality, I think that the lack of sharpness works as an enhancement at times.  Several parts of the hotel are stuck in the past: it would be wrong to give the title too modern a feel.

Jonathan Boakes, the creator of the Dark Fall games, would no doubt be pleased to know that during the week I was playing through Dark Fall: The Journal I had a dream in which I was in an abandoned hotel.  It was not the Dowerton Station Hotel but instead a figment of my imagination and to the best of my recall nothing actually happened other than that I was there but I suspect it would be enough for him to know that I woke feeling extremely ill at ease.  Nonetheless I continued to play and look forward to progressing on to Dark Fall: Lights Out and the recently released Dark Fall: Lost Souls.  Perhaps that’s truly the mark of a compelling game: to make you persevere down an avenue you would normally avoid because the end result is so ultimately satisfying.

**Review by Donna Haw**