Dark Fall 2: Lights Out

About Dark Fall 2: Lights Out

Dark Fall 2: Lights Out was written, designed and scored by Jonathan Boakes and first released for Windows in 2004 by his studio XXv Productions, two years after Dark Fall: The Journal. The 2009 Director's Cut reworked the graphics and puzzles and added characters, dialogue and conversations with ghosts; it is the version sold today on Steam and on GOG.

Many lives have been lost on the rocks around Trewarthan. In 1912 Benjamin Parker, a cartographer sent to map the coast, arrives as a thick fog comes in, a foghorn sounds and the light of Fetch Rock goes out. Its three keepers have vanished, and Parker soon finds himself suspected. The way to the truth runs through the lighthouse itself, and through other times in its life, past and future.

It plays in still, pre-rendered first-person views. You click to move from spot to spot, the cursor shows when something can be taken, used or examined, and the inventory sits at the bottom of the screen. There is no journal and no clue log: codes, names and dates have to be written down by you. Boakes builds the fear out of sound and empty spaces rather than chases, and GOG's page suggests playing in a dark room with the speakers up.

Critics in 2004 gave it mixed reviews, praising its atmosphere and Boakes's work and finding the graphics dated; Steam players rate it Mostly Positive. It suits players who liked The Journal, Barrow Hill or The Last Door and want a slow, lonely ghost story with notes and puzzles.

Boakes took the idea from the Flannan Isles, where three keepers vanished from a Scottish lighthouse in December 1900, and from the poem that event inspired, which turns up in the game. THQ Nordic publishes it now. It came to Steam in December 2013, and a first run takes about four and a half hours by HowLongToBeat's count.

How to play Dark Fall 2: Lights Out

1. Buy the game on Steam or GOG and install it on Windows.
2. Click at the edges of the view to move through the lighthouse and the town, one still view at a time.
3. Watch the cursor: it changes when something can be picked up, used with an item or looked at closer.
4. Keep paper and a pen by you and write down codes, names and dates; the game will not keep them for you.
5. Use items from the inventory at the bottom of the screen, and follow the story into each period of the lighthouse's past and future.

Tips

• Check every view from each angle: some objects only show from the right spot.
• Read every book, sign and letter; most puzzle answers are hidden in them.
• Play with headphones or the sound up: the ambient sound carries much of the fear and some clues.

Questions