After completing Dark Fall: The Journal, I was very eager to try out Lights Out. This game did not disappoint. I was a little bit surprised at the science fiction tone that the game took near the end, but it did not spoil the overall experience.

I really don't want to spoil the story. Suffice it to say, you begin in 1912, then travel to 2004, 2090 B.C., and finally 2040 A.D. to solve a mystery surrounding the lighthouse on Fetch Rock.

I love the look of this game. My favorite parts of the game is when you are first discovering the lighthouse in 1912. The attention to historical detail is wonderful, and I enjoyed learning about the responsiblities and the characters themselves. It is also, in my opinion the creepiest part of the game. Exploring the lighthouse proves to be a dark and somewhat claustrophobic experience. You hear the ghostly voices of the men who have disappeared. There is great use of ambient sound, slight hints of a musical score, and sound effects. With this game, the scares come with the general creepiness and uneasy feeling of being alone and yet not alone in a lighthouse at night.

The puzzles can be somewhat tricky. Imagine if Myst were a horror/ghost story. The interface is the same as Myst which may annoy some, since you have to be at the right angle to be able to see/find key objects or solve puzzles. The puzzles will require taking notes, since there is not an in-game journal. Also, you will be reading a lot! It is very apparent what to take note of, especially if you have played Dark Fall 1.

This game has been said to be weaker than Dark Fall 1. I don't think that is very fair. The location is different and the story has more of a science fiction feel, due to the time travel. However, I do not think that this game should be called worse. It is different, and it is a fun play. I know I will definitely be playing this in the future...it'll be a lot easier since I saved all my notes!

Dark Fall 2: Lights Out; Director's cut version is a spooky firstperson-point&click game.

Warning: being an old-game, you NEED pen&paper to note the clues because THERE ISN'T diary, so no evidences or hints you'll discover or progress you'll make will be recorded! Also no maps, at all! So, unless you have the precious (and very enviable!) gift of an eidetic memory, you have to use the still reliable instruments of pen&paper to help you get to the end of this story!

Warning2: it's a game of SLOW pace! No running from monsters, no fighting! The recurring action you'll do is...READING! A lot! And observing and clicking on everything you see, and.. re-observing and re-clicking, especially when you recover a "special item"!

Now that you are warned but still find yourself intrigued by it, back to the game-review:
It's 29th April 1912, you play as Benjamin Parker, a cartographer sent to Trewarthan, Cornwall, to map the area of the harbor town and find yourself involved in the tragic events occured to the Keepers of the Lighthouse..
This is the beginning of a story well written and designed: the more you proceed, the more you are gripped by it. A story that branch out through the present, the past and future (from the point of view of whom?..you'll see). One could say that there are many protagonist: Benjamin Parker, the Lighthouse, the Keepers and..the Spooky! All of them has story to tell and you are there to unravel it and..maybe, save them all... in every time... as I was going up the stair... I met a man who wasn't there...

Gameplay: it's a firstperson game and you can't move freely on the screen but have to use the arrows (forward, back, right, left) that show up moving the cursor on the screen; when cursor is shaped like magnifyglass you can zoom in; with curson sa an hand, you can pickup object and click things; when the cursor is shaped like a wrench you have to use some objects from your inventory.
The inventory is suited at the bottom of the screen. At the top, on the left, there is the activity bar (save, load, quit).
Since there isn't an auto-save, to do it you have to click on Save and it will open My Documents folder (or make a new one in a directory you prefer), where you can label and save your progress ( do it often).
As I said before, there is no diary to take trace of the clues and evidences you'll find nor a map.
Also, every action you do, need to be repeated again and again and again.. example, if you find a locked box and you're able to lock-pick and open it, but then you "exit" from this action, you HAVE TO lock-pick it again! The same thing happens for doors, hidden drawers and so on: you have to repeat those action every time!
Remeber to click on everything (it's important, you'll see) read everything and sift through everything..you don't know where a clue can be hidden...

Pro:

1. The story: intriguing, gripping, original and inspired by the poem "Flannan Isle" of Wilfrid Wilson Gibson, 1912
   
2. The pluzzes: well designed and clever
   
3. The acting-voices: soooo Cornish and very well acted (especially the spooky voices). As well as the background musics and enviromental sounds and effects
   
4. The graphics: the ideas and concepts behind the drawings of the enviroments are very interesting and well designed

Con:

1. The lack of diary to trace the evidences and clues
   
2. The absence of a map (especially in some situations can be disorienting)
   
3. The major hindrance is the obligation to repeat over and over actions already made: like lock-picking doors, drawers and etc. everytime you want to open them

My rate for this game is 7/10 (I would have rated it more if there wasn't that problem with the "repeating" actions)
..here... over here... this way... he's watching you... he's waiting for you.... hi hi hi hi....

Wonderfully atmospheric with a twist in the tail.
Very much obvously descended from the original Dark Fall, but only a few minor references link the 2 story wise so it matters not which order you play them in.
Its great atmsphere more than makes up for the 'slide show' graphics, as with the original.
If you enjoy point and click adventure and atmospheric/suspense horror than it may well be your cup of tea. It is not visceral, or bloody or graphic, but it definitely sent shivers up my spine (much more so than slasher horror ever does, tho i love both).
If you want to enjoy it, and 'get it', play it slowly, explore and take in the atmosphere from one of the masters of atmospheric horror adventures.

In theory this game could have been great. I really liked the different milieus and the genre shifts. There were moments when I was genuinely spooked although I knew there would be no jumpscares and no possibility of dying. The gameplay mechanics were however so frustrating that I can't recommend this game, even though I personally enjoyed it because of the story.

Cons:
- the disorienting and dizzying task of trying to find every possible viewpoint to find the one exact view with an essential item or secret, with the added bonus of some locations (caves, rocks, vents) being impossible to navigate without going in circles FOREVER.
- accidentally doing a one-way teleport and having to take the long way back
- accidentally going through the same lengthy conversations with no option to skip them
- said conversations and ghost soundbites being much too repetitive
- the ghost hunting elements of the game being sort of... light and decorative, with none of the hands-on feel of the first Dark Fall game
- getting stuck because of the aforementioned navigational difficulties and not even being able to consult a walkthrough because this is the Director's Cut of the game and some of the puzzles and hidden locations have been changed.


That said, the game isn't impossible to finish with some good guesswork. If you're a fan of this developer's games and tricky point-and-click mysteries, you could give it a go. I kind of wish I'd listened to other reviewers and skipped this one in favour of Dark Fall: Lost Souls, but on the other hand this game does dish out more of Jonathan Boakes's worldbuilding which I do enjoy.

Darkfall 2 has a deep story, albeit quite sci-fi-heavy and at times confusing. Writing down notes is a must in this game because there's no in-game journal to help you keep track of the clues and information you find. Some of the game mechanics may not initially be clear and may require a glance at a walkthrough, but all the puzzles make sense which is what really matters. A great successor to Darkfall 1!

This game reminded me of the Tom Baker Doctor Who episodes of 'Horror of Fang Rock' (fetch/fang rock - similar?). The creators were obviously sci-fi fans as 'Sapphire and Steel' is one of the magazines when hunting around. Great game!

As an adventure game coinneseur but also as someone that is terrible at adventure games I had a hard time after the first hour or so knowing what to do. The game's atmosphere is interesting but the gameplay is padded out since there is really only one location you spend all your time in, with differant time line scenarios. I found myself consulting a walkthrough with most of this game as I was sincerely frustrated throughout. Still, for the price it could be worth your time.

I love adventure point and click first person games...I'm just awful at them.

Unfortunately, I cannot recommend this game.

First, there is no subtitles at all (strange, considering the #1, had them), and the talking, arguability little, use quite thick accents or are purposedely distorted, so it's very hard for a non-native english speaker to get what is said.

Second, the game is really hard to complete without a walkthroug. I mean, I'm not a novice at adventure games, but often this one just doesn't give any hint at what to do next. The last 25/30% of the game can only be reached by clicking in a random spot at a random place, and then again we don't know why we are doing this. It just makes zero sense (at least to me).

Which leads to the story. Really, to me the first 2/3rd were good, with a nice atmosphere of a ghost story.
But then, in the last part, the story starts not making any sense at all. It follows a totally different path, seemingly just forgetting the initial setup. The end game is semi-nonsensical, with plenty of loose ends everywhere...

Beside the final one, puzzles are relatively rare. Due to the lack of clues, your time spent on the game will be mostly running errand, clicking and turning everywhere to look for what you missed. They are not rewarding, either, often having little relation to the main plot. The main/final one just doesn't make any sense at all, imho.

I finished the game following a walkthrough, having just lost motivation to try to understand what was happening, and I even regret the time spent reaching the lacklustre ending, which says something...

There are no subtitles available which makes the game a lot less understandable and enjoyable, esp. to non native English speakers. If you can not play without subtitles just skip this game and try different one from Dark Fall series.

You need to manually download and install QuickTime otherwise intro and final cutscene will not play.

I like how the plot is unravelled just through various letters, notes, clues etc. There are many places to explore and gather information to piece it all together. You even need to explore the same place in different time eras (both past and future). But for me that made the game worse - you need to backtrack even more to travel back and forth between eras.

You will need old fashioned pen and paper to make notes. And highly likely you will also need a walkthrough (has to be for Director's cut version because it differs from original version). It is very easy to overlook that you can go somewhere or interact with something - this time it is almost pixel hunting (worse than in first game). You also need to repeatedly solve the same puzzles: if you opened door by doing puzzle, you need to redo that every time you want to enter that room...

I still enjoyed this game a lot, but I consider it worse than its predecessor Dark Fall: The Journal.

I would not recommend buying this game for full price (5 EUR) unless you are absolutely certain it is your type of game. Dark Fall: The Journal costs the same and even though it looks a bit worse, it has subtitles and I enjoyed the plot a bit more. This game might be worth getting on discount or as part of game bundle - esp. if you are fan of Dark Fall games and can get over missing subtitles.

First off, I really love darkling room's games! I've finished all of the games they have out except for this one.

The writing was really bad, and was hard to take seriously. I understand the trope of "there are notes around, and that's how you're learning about the story" but with this one, the notes didn't make sense at all. Person A's note is in one room and person B's reply is in the next room, and person A's followup reply is in the next. All were clearly written in the room you found them, some seeming like the person never left. So... understanding how and if the notes got to their recipients, I don't know, was just confusing and didn't make any sense.

We ended up giving up on it two hours in.

However! Their next game, Dark Fall: Lost Souls was much better! Graphics, storyline, and everything were all improved from this game. It takes place in the same universe and timeline as Dark Fall 1 and 2, but works well as a standalone title.