Introduction

In the Olympic Games there
are some events, such as diving and gymnastics, where points are
awarded just for difficulty. If the athlete attempts a difficult
maneuver, then mistakes which normally would have cost points,
might be overlooked.

This
is how I view independent developers. It is one thing for a team
to develop a game. It is quite another for a single individual.
Not only must they master every skill of art and technology, but
they must subject themselves to endless review and repetition of
their creation. Pretend you are a beta-tester and must play a game
through five times checking every hotspot and combination for bugs.
By the third time through you would be totally sick of the game.
Now imagine how many times a developer must go through it.

Developing an adventure
game single-handedly is not something a mere mortal can do.

So when one comes along
and it isn’t just a nice effort, but a thoroughly professional
piece of work that can go toe-to-toe with the Big Boys, then you
can be assured that you are in the presence of greatness.

I liked this game.

Installation

Everything
went as advertised. There was a warning about two large files which
would take extra long. Sure enough, the installation seemed to
freeze at just those points, but with a little patience everything
completed properly.

When run, the game automatically
changes the screen settings to what it needs. When finished, it
politely returns your system to its previous settings.

Extra points for installing
completely to hard drive. More extra points for not needing the
CD in the machine to play the game. Large bucket of extra points
to TAC for releasing this without any copy protection. And rare
and exotic extra points for writing the whole thing in Macromedia
so that it can even be run under Linux by using the WINE utility.

While not normally a category
of its own, this work deserves an “A+” for
packaging and the heartfelt thanks of the community for sanity
above and beyond the call of society.

Story

“A
young cartographer, Parker, is sent to the Cornish harbour town
of Trewarthan, where he is to map the lethal rocks that have
claimed lives through the centuries. A thick fog rolls in from
the English Channel as the faithful light of Fetch Rock Lighthouse
is plunged into darkness, putting the lives of those at sea in
peril. Parker may be their only hope. Armed with his compass,
charts and wits he sets off to uncover the mystery. Along the
way he discovers that Fetch Rock and its lighthouse have a very
sinister history.

Is time running out?
Or does it have an agenda of its own…“

The story has everything
you need for an adventure game. The introduction both raises questions
and involves us personally. More story unfolds with each step of
the game. It doesn’t require you to do anything out of character,
such as wanton destruction of life or property (at least that would
be out of character for me). It grips you and you want, no, need
to find out what happens next.

The only shortcomings
are from the ending being a bit abrupt. While all the major issues
are resolved, there are still little things left unanswered. Like
who hung all those little plaques in all those odd places and why
(personally, I blame Yeesha). But these issues come only after
the game is finished and don’t affect the game itself.

The story deserves an “A-”

Navigation

The
game, based on the Macromedia engine, is the classic slide-show
type (think Myst). Tried, true and quite
appropriate for adventure games.

Everything is single-mouse-click.
The mini-menu of Load-Save-Quit is permanently affixed to the top
of the screen. The inventory is always at the bottom. The whole
game can be played with only a single button mouse. The only time
you need the keyboard is to type in the name of a save game.

The cursors are small,
unique and easily distinguished. There is never a possibility of
confusing the “turn right” cursor with the “grab
item” cursor.

Hotspots are generous
and reasonable. No Hunt-The-Pixel in this game. There were only
a couple of places where two hotspots were so close to each other
that they may have been confused as one. But in each case, you
really wanted to look at both places and so there is little danger
of missing something.

My biggest complaint is
with a common weakness of slide-show graphics; the lack of peripheral
vision. In real life, healthy eyes have peripheral vision and dart
around almost on their own. You go into a cluttered room and it
is fairly obvious where the path is to the other side.

With
this type of navigation system it is sometimes hard to see details
diagonally up from you. It is like walking around with a large
box on your head and only being able to see through a hole cut
in the front. This could be corrected by rendering each scene with
a slight fish-eye effect, that it is rarely done that way. The
result was several cases where I missed a path or object that would
have been obvious had I really been there.

My other frustration is
with objects that can be seen from several views, but only have
a hotspot from one of them. If it’s clickable, and I can see it,
then I should be able to click on it. I shouldn’t be forced to
first approach it from any special direction.

Fortunately, each of these
problems only manifested a few times in the game and so were not
major issues.

Navigation gets a solid “B+”

Puzzles

Well
conceived and logically implemented.

Most puzzles are logical/twiddly
variants of the combination lock. They are logically integrated
into the story and have reasonable solutions.

Inventory puzzles are
limited, but again, well thought out. The items you acquire are
asked to perform tasks that are quite reasonable for them. No Rube
Goldberg scenarios here. And again, they are well integrated into
the story.

There are also a couple
of dialog trees that must be correctly traversed. Again, they were
reasonable and quite forgiving.

The overall effect was
that everything flowed together wonderfully. I never got the feeling
that a puzzle was being thrown in on a whim or just to stretch
the game out. This whole game was truly designed.

My
only complaint was with a certain puzzle that somehow got past
QA. There is an old radio at a certain place and it is obviously
missing a knob. But it has no hotspots to indicate that you can
do anything with it. Later on you find a knob which looks like
it goes to that radio, but again, no hotspots. If you just go ahead
and click on the radio while you have the knob, even though your
cursor indicates that there is nothing to do here, the knob does
install and the puzzle begins. And since all the QA testers from
TAC are listed in the credits, we know exactly who to blame :-).

But even with that minor
faux pas, it is rare to find a game in which the puzzles are so
well integrated into the story line. Without question, the puzzles
get an “A-”

Graphics

Beautifully
done with much loving care.

The scenes are 3D rendered.
The models were taken from actual buildings and antiques, as were
the textures. No stock images were used here.

The graphics enhance the
story and never detract from it. They help set the mood most effectively.
It is dark and gloomy. You are alone, but not as alone as you would
wish. You will want to play the game with the lights off. You will
need to sleep with the lights on.

The only complaint is
the one mentioned earlier – no peripheral vision. It might
be interesting to see if a fish-eye effect could be included in
the render large enough to give a wider field of view, but subtle
enough to appear natural.

So while perfection escapes
us, I must still award an “A-” to
the graphics.

Sound

Performed
with a deft hand. Footsteps can be heard just out of sight. Pebbles
skitter down from the rocks above. Ghostly voices struggle to be
heard in the plane of the living. Never cheesy. Always adding to
the ambiance.

There is a little music
in the game – usually simple melodies or chord progressions.
Just enough to add to the atmosphere. And this music, as well,
was designed by Jonathan Boakes.

Voice acting was also
quite good. No one sounded like they were reading lines. Emotion
and character were well focused. Accents were a joy to listen to.

Sound gets an “A”,
not for innovation, but for nailing it.

Addictability

Yes, I had to
finish this game. Yes, I lost sleep over it. Yes, I woke up thinking
about it. Yes, I’ll be thinking about it for weeks to come, contemplating
the many details. A solid “B+” for
addictability.

Conclusion

A
tightly integrated game, well thought out and brilliantly executed.
An unbelievable effort for a single individual.

If you like adventure
games then you need to get Dark Fall: Lights Out.
At $20 it is an amazing bargain. You need to pay retail for it
and you need to figure out how to send more money to the developer.
He needs to be encouraged to do another one. Buy the T-shirt.

Final Grade: A-

System Requirements:

• Windows 98/ME/2000/XP
• Pentium III 450 MHz
  or Better Processor
• 128 MB RAM (256 MB
  Recommended)
• 24xCD-ROM Drive (or
  PC DVD Drive)
• SVGA Graphics Card
  or better with 32-Bit Color (32-Bit Color at 800×600)
• DirectX9 Compatible
  Sound Card
• Mouse, Keyboard, Speakers