Dark Fall: Ghost Vigil

There seems to be a wave of daytime television simulators cropping up lately, like House Flipper and Car Mechanic simulator which are just as enjoyable as watching the Discovery Channel on a quiet Sunday afternoon, so spotting a slightly janky looking game clearly inspired by classic reality show Most Haunted I had to jump in. In short, this is really effective paranormal investigator simulator... there's no jump scares or deep psychological terror, but fun paranormal detective puzzle solving, with some of the nerdiest (albeit incredibly believable) side characters. The Good - Really well written and acted, the characters feel completely real in all interactions, really immersive - Range in environmental puzzle solving with a lot of ghost hunting gadgets, very innovative gameplay, although few prompts with when to use them. - Shangri-La house looks fantastic, game runs smoothly without frame rate drops or glitches - The pacing at which the gameplay and story develops feels right. The small starting area helps prepare the tools for the whole house The Bad - The world is rendered, so the on rails point-and-click style feels unnecessary, it should have total control - Some of the puzzles are a little obtuse! more like an escape room (for better or worse). I needed to use their walkthrough a couple more times than I would have liked! sometimes hard to tell which information to jot down or not... especially answering colleagues questions in the first act. In conclusion, this is a low end 4 star game. Sensibly priced for a few days of mystery, marred mostly by some slightly unnecessarily convoluted puzzles... but maybe some people would prefer that more than me!

Let's say it straight: point-and-click is not the most popular genre these days. I spent plenty of time searching for a game with a good, compelling story, dark art style and bleak atmosphere. I played Still Life, all parts of Black Mirror and even indies like Scratches, not to mention all previous parts of Dark Fall. I love all of them and I wouldn't mind playing a similar game again. But Ghost Vigil offers way much more! First of all, it departs from a classical "use object-on-object" style. An integral part of the game are devices such as cameras and EVP recorder you need to use to solve puzzles. Roaming around the house with a thermal camera in search of sources of unexplained heat or using night vision to look for instructions is a great example of modern solutions that fit perfectly to classical mechanics. However, the most important advantage of Ghost Vigil is an absolutely overwhelming ATMOSPHERE! Harwood House has everything that makes you thrilled every time you open previously locked door. A story of a building that witnessed so many tragedies is gripping on its own rights. However, every room is full of signs of the bleak past: old photos and posters, shattered furniture, blood stains etc. And don't forget about distressing phone calls, sounds and even time phenomena! The game certainly knows how to make you feel uncomfortable. Are there any downsides? Well, not for me. Many people complain about radio dialogues. Sure, it may be irritating at first but it's a part of a story. Moreover, radio chatters fill the first 30 mins of the game. Some may also be disappointed with riddles. Personally, I find them perfect: they are sometimes demanding but none of them makes you feel frustrated. (Well, maybe apart from one or two.) Overall, Ghost Vigil proves how to merge the best features of the traditional point-and-click games with interesting novelties. The result is more than good. I highly recommend the game to all fans of the genre.

This experience is being completely ruined by the NON STOP radio chatter of USELESS, GAME-DISRUPTIVE dialog!

This is a cool game, most ghost detective games are more of the jump-scare and survival type, whereas this game is all about a creepy atmosphere, cool gadgets, and proper puzzles, many of them challenging. To me this was the most complex game in this developer franchise/series, with more variety in the puzzles and how you solve them, and how you interact with game-world. At some point you even get to fly a drone around. The atmosphere is the most important part of this game, the standout feature, something I think this developer is especially great at with his games. The atmosphere is lonely, bleak, oppressive, intimidating, dark, cold, grim .. great stuff if you want to immerse yourself. My only complaint is that some of the puzzles were not that intuitive, perhaps involving more steps than my simple brain could process. I did have to consult a walkthrough a couple of times. The vast majority of the puzzles are great though, fun and challenging. It took me 20-30 hours to finish the game, as I like to explore and re-explore everything I find, I also got stuck a couple of times. All-in-all a great game, done with an old-school charm but still with enough unqiue gameplay elements to make it modern in many ways, expanding what's possible to do in this niche genre.