Dark Fall: Lost Souls

Weird, creepy point and click adventure/puzzle game that's better played with a guide.

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Play Dark Fall: The Journal and Dark Fall: Lights Out. Then skip this one.

This game was just not fun. The maze of navigation, the jump scares, the story was missing explanation on anything happening. A lot of this game is padding, just needless time wasting things to keep you in the game. Things in the game to be very Silent Hill - esque that added nothing and actually made me dislike the game more by resurrecting a previous story that I thought ended well. Hell, how this all happened isn't even explained.

Skip this game. It's not good.

A very old-fashioned point and click slide show adventure game - but has some problems.

Main problem is its possible to break your game by using and breaking a certain object - which you need elsewhere. Normally I would scratch it to stupidity and bad luck except the previous scene points you at this exact area to poke with the object. Minor problems is some steps seem to be especially arbitrary on where to look. Also, really should allow you to fast travel to locations - because travelling feels slow and clunky.

Will revisit someday - but not now.

I was unsure about this gaame to begin with and abandoned it for a long time. But after playing other Darkling Room games, I assumed that the story would be worth the struggle to get through this one, and it was.

I leaned heavily on a walkthrough, which is abnormal for me, but made up for this game's opacity. Great story, great voicing ( so rare), and decent animation for its day. Worth playing through if you like anything else by these devs.

I had to beat this in one sitting because I did not want to come back to it. It isn't that the game is bad but rather it feels like it trips over it's own feet with being all over the place. Point and Clicks are great but be ready to devote some serious time to understanding what the game wants from you.

I picked up this game because I was in the mood for a comfy casual horror adventure game with a bit of puzzles.
And it started rather nicely with a strong audio introduction.
Then after a blind sequence, I get to see the graphics which are really good in my opinion, really somptuous despite the age of the game and the fact that everything is a prerendered cubemap made with DAZ or sthg. I don't even know how they managed to do so good looking environments, but it looks great in game despite being rather generic.
The sound ambiance is very good even though the voice acting sucks. The protagonist in particular sounds ridiculous most of the time. But despite all these flaws and the fact that everything is cheap and stereotyped, this game manages to have a very cool ambiance.

But the gameplay sucks.
The puzzles are very cryptic and not logical at all. Well they aren't completely impossible and in theory you couild solve them if you brute forced the game by trying everything on everything. But this solution is rendered impossible because of the atrociously slow movements. Movements are extremely slow and everything is padded out by the fact you have several directions to examine in every spot, pixel hunting till the mouse cursor changes to interact, and also you have to look up and down in every direction because who knows, you might miss something.
Plus everything is clunky and there are a lot of broken mouse interactions that you have to perform on objects.
So you are left with the walkthrough method, but then it kills all the charm of the game, and even with the walkthrough it's tedious to play.

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I replayed Dark 1 & 2 before playing this, and I have to say that this is a poor follow up. I don't know if that's down to a different publisher, as I've enjoyed other offerings by this developer, and will certainly be giving the next game a chance.

I had to consult a walkthrough rather early on due to an un-intuitive puzzle, and found myself dipping into it more and more as the game went on. This was mainly due to the slow camera and movement animations discouraging me from revisiting previous locations for clues I might have missed. I didn't find the puzzles as satisfying to solve as in previous entries, many just felt like a chore.

Normally a strong story/intriguing mystery can downplay clunky mechanics, but I just wasn't as invested as in previous games - it felt more like an epilogue to the first game, with an unrelated story tacked on top. It was lacking the creepy atmosphere of previous entries, instead relying on jump scares and unnecessary gore.

The player character ruined any sense of immersion for me - in previous games the PC's personality was generally in the background acting more as a narrator rather than an active participant. I couldn't empathise or sympathise with the player character, so it was just distracting me from any elements I might enjoy. I think this also contributed to the lacking atmosphere, listening to a man panting into your headphones after a jump scare unnerves in an entirely different fashion.

I really wish I could recommend it, but at no point in the game did I feel like I was enjoying myself. If you're a fan of the series and want to play it for completionist's sake, wait for a sale. It was nice to see the original locations rendered in up to date graphics, but that's the most positive thing I can say about it. Your mileage may vary!

Like its predecessors, The Journal and Lights Out, it is well executed, and it was intriguing to revisit the same locale as the first game, the Dowerton Hotel and Station, and see how they tied the stories together. The game is well executed and has some parts that are quite challenging.

That said, I enjoy mystery and suspense, but not horror. So while I really enjoyed the first two games, this third game tipped too far over to the horror side for me, I was too freaked out to get all the way through.

I would recommend this game only for those who enjoy the horror genre.

This game is a lot like stumbling into a dark room and being unable to find the light switch, cursing as your hands skitter
lamely across the wall. Juggling your keys and groceries, you pull out your cellphone and turn on the flashlight. The light switch is... on the ceiling. Sure, somebody left you a broom handle in the bathroom to turn it on with, but why is the light switch on the ceiling?

And that's the game in a nutshell.

3 attempts at game, 3 crashes within 5 mins of starting game :( gave up, was looking forward to game but looks like the game has other ideas.


Update:
Use Vista SP2 + Administraive compatibility settings, now past the crashes. Also created my own desktop shortcut as wil not open from within steam.

Still more crashes and sound loops :(

Now starting to get into the game, classic point and click old style game. Only let down once you are playing the game is there are no graphic/video settings so you have what you have.

If you like old style pojnt and click (easy) games then give this a try when on special price as long as you use compatibility settings for Windows 10.

Coming from the first two Dark Fall games this one was a huge disappointment. I miss the ghost-hunting and the eerie historical Cornwall vibe I got from the previous games. Even though this takes place in the Station Hotel, it doesn't feel like the same setting as the first game.

Lost Souls relies way too heavily on boring, over-used tropes from the modern horror genre:

Creepy little girl? Check.
Scribbles on the walls? Check.
Old hospital paraphernalia? Check.
Scary dolls and mannequins? Check.
Random gore? Check.
Nonsensical jump scares? Check, check, check, and check.

Definitely play the first two Dark Fall games (and the Lost Crown games from the same dev), but I say pass on this one unless you get it at a huge discount.

I wanna start out by saying I LOVE old school point and clicks, and the first 2 dark fall games were amazing to me, story, gameplay, environments, etc. They had everything I look for in an adventure game. I cannot say the same for Dark Fall: Lost Souls. It feels like they just handed the location setting to a completely random team, and said "make a ghost story!"

The story is cliche and forgettable. The first 2 titles in the series had very original, deep plotlines that I loved delving into. The lore was awesome, and traveling to different time periods was essential AND fascinating. In Lost Souls, the story is about a ghost girl that is haunting a haunted place. That's literally it. The depth of "malakai" from 2, or the intrigue of the well are completely gone from Lost Souls, and replaced with a snotty-spoiled ghost-child wearing pig tails. A huge let down.

The environments are a GREAT improvment! This game looks amazing compared to the first entries, however it's a huge shame that the improved graphics isn't met with better game design. Instead of being afraid of the story, you will be afraid of the graphics, if you're afraid at all. Something will jump on the screen, you won't find any notes in this game that give you chills to simply read. And I found that to be a huge let down.

Another thing that really bothered me was the padding. It wasn't the content that was padded, but the controls and gameplay itself. It takes a FULL SECOND to just turn your character in a single direction. This sounds negligible, but when you're trying to figure out where to go all of a sudden you realize you've been in the same hallway for nearly 2 minutes doing literally nothing but trying to orientate your character. The game (for no real reason) also allows you to "look" up/down on every single screen. Despite how this is only used once or twice in puzzles or story exploration, it's ultimately just a trap to spend MORE time looking around slowly and accomplishing nothing.

I know my account shows nearly 30 hours of gameplay—I assure you that is not because I loved it OR because it's that long! I literally fell asleep multiple times playing this game. How uninteresting the story is, how much nothing seems to actually fit into anything, how slow it is to even MOVE, all add up to an incredibly dull game. The most successful thing this game did, was put me to sleep.

EDIT: If you're still reading and want another example of how watered down bad this is compared to the first 2, you remember the "over here!" or "here!" voice mechanics in 1 and 2? That were creepy to hear cuz it meant something creepy was happening? In this game, when you hear "Over here!" it means "HEY TURN YOUR FLASHLIGHT ON, YOU CAN'T SEE!". That's all. It only happens when you need your flashlight out. Because not being able to see wasn't hint enough? Completely ruined a creepy mechanic.

TL;DR
As a standalone game, it's better than most other point and clicks, but still forgettable 6/10
As a sequel to Dark Fall 1 & 2, it's an utter disappointment 3/10.
Just play 1 or 2 again, is what I recommend.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if you fused Dark Fall and Silent Hill together? I'll tell you what happens: you get Lost Souls, the creepiest game by far in the Dark Fall series. What a game. What a finish.

Where do I even begin, since it's all great? I love the look of this game. You can tell Jonathan Boakes definitely had a bigger budget to play with since this game moves away from the Myst like feel, and more towards 360 degree surroundings, in which your character turns, sweeping the surroundings around him, instead of slide images. Time has not been kind to the Dowerton Station and Hotel. In Dark Fall 1, the train station is unsettling, but still just an empty, abandoned train station. In DF: LS, Dowerton has turned into a hell hole - a place where vandalism, illicit activity, and even satanic activity have become commonplace. The train station and hotel is beautifully rendered, yet is visually disturbing. This game does not bank on jump scares, though I was suprised a couple times. The scares come from knowing that you are exploring an evil place.

The story is fairly simple and very reminiscent of a Silent Hill kind of story. You are an Inspector who failed to apprehend the kidnapper/murderer of a young girl named Amy. She was last seen at the train station. Your guilt and shame lead you to return to the station and hopefully find her and bring about closure. As you explore, you meet other ghosts who for some reason or other are also trapped in the hotel. Because you are such a nice inspector, you help these lost souls find their way so they can move on. Each ghost you help gives you a key that will be useful. What I love about this section is that you are able to jump back in time to 1947, seeing the hotel at its peak. It makes returning to the present all the more horrifying as you see the decay of the place.

Just like the previous Dark Fall games, the use of sound is great. With visuals and sound creating an eerie, disturbing world, this is a game that would definitely be one to play in the dark with a good set of headphones.

So, good basic story, good visuals and sound, what about the puzzles? They are by far the easiest puzzles in the Dark Fall series. Yes, you will still read a lot and you will need to take notes, but I feel that the puzzles are a lot more intuitive than the previous games. There are three floors to the Hotel, and each one serves as a kind of level. The Train Station itself serves as a level. Within each level, there are puzzles that are meant for just that area. To me, that makes this game a lot easier, unlike Dark Fall: The Journal where you just jump in and have no idea what the first objective is.

Speaking of learning objectives, your character has a cell phone! Throughout the game, you will receive texts that will give hints to where you should go, and the next mission. It will also serve as filling in parts of the story.

This game was a fitting conclusion to the Dark Fall series. I enjoyed revisiting the Dowerton Station and Hotel. It has really made me curious and excited to look at other games made by Jonathan Boakes. If you like ghost stories, you owe it to yourself to try the Dark Fall series.

6/10

A bit of a 'meh' game, really. If Steam had the option for a middle spot between recommend and don't recommend, I'd choose it. It had its moments, some of the puzzles were good and much of the story was okay as well, but nothing really shone. Some confusing UI. Some horrible voice acting (and some okay). Some cheesy horror aspects. No ability to skip repetitive dialog or animations. Quite linear, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but there are some obtuse prerequisites to move the story along at times. For instance, you're in a room, do everything you can...and move on. Explore some other area, do all you can...then get stuck. Well if you then go back to the first area, something will have changed for some reason...triggered by something else you did but for no apparent reason.

But overall, it just didn't grip me enough to make me want to work through things...or I would just assume something illogical was going on even if in the end it just might have just taken a little more scrutiny...but time I didn't feel like spending on it.

In the end, it was good enough that I at least was willing to finish it. I got it on a 75% Steam sale, so I can't complain. If you like horror/spooky and maybe have an interest in the occult, it might grip you more than it did me and you can overlook some of its flaws.

You've been called to point and click your way through a mystery down at the old abandoned hotel and train station. It isn't long though before you're ambushed by G-G-G-GHOSTS?!? Lucky for you, you have a bottle of vodka, a handful of Clozapine and a helpful buddy with a serious texting habit. Your adventure is celebrated by the town by putting on a fireworks display in your honor but can you avoid the spooky skeletons and delerium tremens long enough to yank the mask off old man Withers?

Excellent ambiance, Don't play alone alone in the dark. Bottle of vodka reccomended for player as well as character.

I played this game before the other two and I loved it...so I bought those and will be playing this again. This game is a nonlinear horror that had me tense all the time and scared a lot of the time. Though the game is nonlinear, there are some things that need done before you can move on. Sometimes, what needs to be done is not obvious so you pretty much have to go around and try different things until you can move on. There is a quite wonderful guide on Steam (I'm sorry I don't remember the name of the one who made it, but qudos to you). This is definately not a game for children. The game has two endings and several very interesting easter eggs about hauntings and weird happenings around the area of the game. I really liked that and looked to collect them all. Some of the mechanics of the game are a little hard to work with (like moving things), but keep trying and some of the puzzles (like "conversations with...") were downright frustrating. All in all, even though I needed some help, I had a great time. Thanks to the devs and all for a great scare, and another and another....

what can I say? the game has a very good and scary atmosphere, and this is what made me to decide to give thumb up.
voice acing is poor and the gameplay is not so funny (i endd myself sometimes bored) but visuals and the overall atmosphere is very very very well conceived.
so thumb up, consider buying only if you find this game under 5€

Definitely if you like point and click adventure puzzle games, this is a great title to get. It's pretty spooky and has a fairly interesting storyline. Happy to have played this for sure

First off, only get this game on sale. Even though I recommend it, I don't for $13. It's more of a under $5 game. Also if you are looking for a really creepy game that keeps you on your toes, and/or have balls of steel, then this game might not be for you. This game has a few good jump scares but for the most part you end up losing the fear until the jump scare puts you back into it. And if you are pretty comfy with most horror games then the jump scares will make you jump a bit then be like "Meh." Finally, if you want a 'simple' game that is easy to play, then this isn't for you either. The puzzles are hard and for most of the game me and my friend had a guide we would go to every time we couldn't figure what to do.

With all the said, Me and my friend enjoyed the game. The surroundings were spooking, the story was interesting. Hell the main reason we didn't want to stop was because we wanted to figure things out. Why was he there? What were those statue? The Voice acting is pretty bad though, I remember asking my friend if they just pulled some guy off the coding crew to voice the main character. I think that might be my biggest complaint, that the voice acting was horrible. It really pulled you out of the game whenever they spoke, especially the main character. But I've dealt with worse.

If you are easily creeped out and good at puzzle games, I recommend the game. If you are more into being chased and always having to be on your toes, then maybe you should go look somewhere else.

There is nothing like good horror game and this is one of the best I've played.
This third instalment in "Dark Fall" -trilogy provides interesting storyline and most of the puzzles are logical. Some players might be annoyed with moving mechanics which are out of date, but this did not drive me off. (horror almost did :) )
One of the brightest pearls in small lake of horror games; check the 2 prior Dark Falls too and note that all 3 games have independent stories.

I took a risk on this since it looked interest, but unfortunately it did not live up to what i hoped for. It is basically a point and click adventure where you have to mostly guess the answers or items to use.

It was interesting, but I quit after I got tired of looking at Walkthroughs each time I got stuck. The answers and locations of items were not logical, so I moved onto another game after 4 hours of playing.