Greetings all,

I used to be a major adventure gamer, starting with MYST, but in truth I have not played a game in a couple years, so I am kind of out of touch with recent games.  I typically play ensemble with my bro, wife, and niece...projecting the game up on a wall...so my gaming experience evolved nicely over the years from an individual pursuit into a family bonding opportunity.

My family and I tend to like the Boakes-style games (e.g. Lost Crown, or the Boakes-ish products like Matt Clark's Barrow Hill).   We like spooky, but don't need it to be terrifying.  We want to get back into adventure gaming, and were kind of waiting for either Last Crown or Bracken Tor to be released, but...truth be told...I think I'll be old and gray if and when that day comes.

So, what kind of Boakesian games can folks recommend? Preferably something new-ish, becuz then it is less likey that I would know it.  I suggested "Corrosion" to my bro, but he seemed to be unimpressed, but if there is a lot of support for that game in this forum, then I might pitch it to him again.  Someone in the past mentioned Baron Wittard, but I don't know much about it, except one review mentioned that the puzzles were pretty hard.  I don't mean to sound like a dummy...I have handled very difficult games in the past...but I think we are more interested in a 'medium difficulty level' game as opposed to something that requires that we pour hours into solving laborious puzzles.

So thanks very much for any suggestions!  Very much looking forward to spending some summer nights gaming with my family!

Chuck

I would suggest Darkness Within. It is not ridiculously hard but has a very intriguing (and opaque) storyline with some seriously creepy moments- puzzles involve sifting through quite a few old book and journals, there are some interesting dream sequences and dilapidated old houses to explore. I didn't 'get' the ending but loved the gaming experience.

Scratches is also pretty fun. You play the part of a writer moving into an old house to write in piece. Until he hears strange noises in the night... Atmospheric and creepy ( with the odd jumpy moment) there's a great unfolding backstory and an ambiguous ending. Seems to be on everyone's list of good horror games.

Less horror is Outcry, a short but fun game that takes you to a strange parrallel universe. I think there's a review on this site. The artwork is beautiful and the series of 'worlds' you get to explore really engrossing.

By the way sorry for the spelling mistakes I'm on my IPad and it's not letting me correct the stupid autocorrect. Or amend things in general. 

Oops.

I have not playd Lost Crown, so I can't make any direct comparisons, but have you tried Scratches? It is not a brand new game, but it is quite good.

Also, the maker of that game is working on a new game called Asylum, which looks really promising:
http://www.senscape.net/  

Thanks for the recommendations so far...keep 'em coming!

I have played Scratches, and that is the kind of game I enjoy very much.  My brother and niece are bigger fans of the epic journey typs of games, like Longest Journey, and I while I concede that that game is great and I very much enjoy a lot of that genre as well, I think sometimes those games eat up so much time that we lose momentum on those games.  We don't play every night...we might just play three or four nights in a week, so a long epic game might end up taking all summer.  So I like games where the quest/mystery is a little more constrained in scope as compared to some of the epics.  Also, in my original post, I said we like spooky...and that is true...but that is not to say that we seek horror.  We all loved the Myst games, and they aren't spooky, so don't take that as a requirement.

Chuck

You'll like Baron Wittard, I'm sure. It's very similar in style to Dark Fall 3 (360 vision) and has a great story and puzzles. Another one you might like is Blackstone Chronicles, a classic haunted house (or haunted asylum) game. And I second mention of the Darkness Within games, good stuff.There's also the Last Half of Darkness games, which tend to be less psychological and more visceral horror but still very good.