The Lost Crown Silent Night 3: Finished with BONUS FOOTAGE!!!

It is New Year's Eve. I do not go out of the house on New Year's Eve, so this proved to be the perfect time to finish this wonderful demo of the new Lost Crown standalone game that will be released in Q1. Happily, the full game will offer a point and click option. Whew!

Because the only real difficulty I had in getting through the game was navigation. Even inside the church I had serious difficulty getting Nigel pointed in a direction I wanted, and then keeping him on track. I wound up just doing, mostly, short little turns and steps. Even then it was so tough that I considered quitting, but thankfully did not. The navigation problem will not be there when the full game comes out.

Another problem is that I discovered from the BONUS FOOTAGE that my game is way too dark. I remember when it first started they wanted me to slide a bar, but when I did nothing changed. Hopefully I'll be able to re-do that when I start over for the full game--because I'm positive that I missed a lot because of the navigation difficulty.

However! I encountered a couple of very good puzzles involved in turning on the lights. There was also an easy key matching puzzle which would have gone much more quickly if I had point and click.

Almost finished, so I'm not giving away much here

It's so nice to be able to take my own screenshots again! Yay! From these shots you can see how nice the game looks, even though my screen definitely was too dark:

Entering the Church

Just inside the entryway

With the altar behind

All over there are things we need inventory items to access, and clearly those will be in the full game when it releases.

I'm sure now that I was right that the character I met is a ghost. We have full conversations and it seems quite normal, but towards the end of the demo we get some major clues as to the actual status, although it isn't spelled out. 

One thing I noticed is that the crows are not only everywhere--we will find out one thing that they are doing in the course of the demo--but when we look at the photographs on the wall of the vestry, nearly all of them have crows in the photos.

And I saw a really, really nice thing that explained something major about Nigel's first visit to Northfield Church back in TLC1. He meet the vicar, who has forgotten something. We find that something and it's a flyer for a memorial for Evelyn Ackland. Then we look at the photos on the vestry wall. Only one is in color, and it is the same character we met in TLC1. The photo is labeled Evelyn Ackland. So, when Nigel met him, he was already a ghost, thus explaining Nanny Noah's comment, "That was quick." 

I really like that!

When you finish the demo, you will encounter a truly nifty snow globe, with the church inside and a clue or two lying around it. It's a really nice graphic:

Not endgame, but end Demo

Except for the navigation problem, I have to say that this is just a wonderful game! It's absolutely The Lost Crown! Fits in perfectly. I can't wait to play the whole thing!

And now for the BONUS FOOTAGE!!! On Saturday Jonathan and Matt Clark joined in a live playthough of the game on Steam, and the whole two-hour session has been released as a YouTube video! Don't watch until you've finished, but in it Jonathan and Matt tell a whole lot about how the game was made and about their future plans. (Warning: a couple of the participants use some rough language.)

I can't get the link to embed it, but here's the URL link. Jonathan and Matt join the conversation at 17 miniutes in. Enjoy!

NOT A GHOST: Silent Night

UPDATE: So sorry, the video appears to have been taken down. I'll leave the link up in case they put it back. But in case it doesn't come back, Jonathan said that if Blackenrock isn't out by Easter he's going to basically give up on life. He also said that they've already recorded all the voice work for the third TLC game, and Jonathan joked that he intends to get that out by 2060. Matt still is working on Bracken Tor, although he didn't give any kind of timeline for it. And Jonathan wants to do another Darkfall game, presumably Storm Warning. They discussed Glastonbury as well, coming sometime in the future. Both said that they have real jobs, and that's the reason it takes so long to get these games out. However, Jonathan said that he did Silent Night, from start to finish, in only three months. And he defended point and click, saying that if anybody criticizes him for it, well, he tried it the other way with this game, and all the feedback was, "We want point and click." So there!

Great fun! Great nostalgia and much much more to come!

The Lost Crown Silent Night 2: Poking Around

Not much playing time today, but I couldn't resist another try. So I hunted around in the church. Can't do anything yet in the vestry, but I did find an amusing item:

A relic from the past

It's the flyer from TLC1, that the vicar had lost. Sigh. Memories.

Also, I got a couple of shots of Old Nick, and these really help to show how excellent the graphics are in this game

From above

From the side

I mean, these graphics are fantastic, even though it's quite dark in the church. It seems that Old Nick has lost his hands again. Wonder if we'll be able to restore them in this little game?

I also got some shots of a couple of shadows lurking in the church:

In the middle

Again, in the middle

So far Nigel hasn't commented on these things. They were all over the churchyard too. Perhaps just atmosphere?

I also found some new areas, including a list of hymns, which no doubt will prove useful, a chart of the choirs from various years, which clearly also will prove useful:

Glad to have a shot of this!

And of this!

And, I found what must be a clue to something that I'll encounter later, because I couldn't interact with it at all.

230 Volts?

Also, I sent a link of this blog to Jonathan, and he responded and told me that you get the maps with the M key, and perhaps by clicking the scroll bar of the mouse. I recall that these controls are listed in the options section of the menu. I just forgot. 

Still can't open the sort of "backpack" that's in my inventory. It wants another inventory item. Hmm.

But that's all I had time for today. A teensy bit of progress, but I think I'm going to have to venture outside again next time, which no doubt will require turning off the Steam overlay. I might leave it on just a bit to grab some screenshots though.

This may be just a little side game, as it were, but I'm super busy right now so it could take me a week or more to finish, easily.

If I can, of course!

Next Entry.

The Lost Crown Silent Night - 1

If I can stop myself from dancing and turning handsprings, here is my first blog post on Jonathan Boakes' The Lost Crown spinoff mini-game, Silent Night. From my experience with it so far, it meets the story standards of TLC, and far exceeds the graphics.

The game takes place at Northfield Church, where, apparently, Nigel will not be going in Blackenrock. So it's wonderful to visit there again.

Jonathan made the game with the Unity engine, and the result is absolutely gorgeous. The graveyard, the church, inside and out, come across as just stunning. We still have black and white with splashes of color, except that the concept in this game works even better.

Outside the church. See the red on the right side.

Note, I am unable to take screenshots at all, so I've stolen all of these from Jonathan's blog and Facebook page. (Update: I have managed to get my screenshots working again, so my next blog entries will have my own shots. Yay!)

This section of the game is only a preview, with the full game to release, we fervently hope, soon. The preview is free on Steam and is supposed to run about three to four hours. However, I spent at least the first full hour just trying to navigate Nigel through the world.

Because . . . 

A controller. Gasp.

Although once the complete game comes out there will be a point and click option, in this preview you can use only a controller or WASD for navigation, and that make things very difficult, especially outside the church. I have owned a controller for about a year, but this is the first time I've hooked it up (yes, I'm that much a PNC adventure fan). So I'm not very good at it. Amendment: I'm not good at it. 

I don't seem to be the only player who had problems, however. As the game first downloads, Nigel, even when walking, is nearly impossible to navigate. He weaves wildly from side to side even if you can manage to get him pointed in the right direction, or, rather, a direction. Clicking on observable objects becomes a matter of luck.

Word came through on Facebook from Jonathan to turn off the cloud analizing, and others suggested running it directly from the .exe file to bypass Steam. Just turning off the Steam overlay turned out to be equal to the .exe file. I tried both. With the overlay turned off the game became playable, but still difficult.

I was lucky enough to get into an FB Messenger conversation with Jonathan on Christmas Eve when he responded to my Christmas gif, and he said that when you get Nigel inside the church the controls work much easier. That turned out to be true. On his FB page, Jonathan also says that he'll stick to PNC in the future. My input is that controllers are great for platformers and shooters (not that I'd ever play a shooter), but they make no sense for adventures.

And the church is wonderful. The graphics are so good that I rather hope Jonathan does stick with the Unity engine, but just be sure that the PNC option is enabled. (However, Jonathan is the artist. I will leave it up to him!)

Nigel outside, wondering where to go and how to get there.

Inside the church. Are these photos clues?

My major difficulty with the controller now is that it takes freaking forever to move the cursor over something I want to click on. I'm still having a little bit of trouble navigating, but I am learning the controls. I haven't yet figured out how to access my audio files (I do have one already) or the pics Nigel takes. Nigel takes pics now automatically—we only have the option of the nightvision camera, the EVP recorder, and the EMF meter as our optional ghosthunting gadgets. Also, Nigel has picked up several maps of the area and of the church, but I haven't yet figured out how to access those.

Despite those difficulties, I have solved an easy puzzle about lighting candles, and I have met what appears to be an actual person.

Needless to say, I am HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS of this character, apparently living, that I have met. What is this character doing here? Nigel clearly already has traveled into a different time slot in classic TLC fashion, and remarks several times that things are different. I'm pretty sure this person is going to turn out to be someone recently deceased who perhaps hasn't figured that out yet. 

Nice.

I now have a mission to go outside again (gulp) to find the generator, but I think I'm going to hunt around in the church for a bit longer instead. 

So I'm into the story!

I will happily do my best with this preview, hoping against hope that the full game will come out soon. And I am getting better at using the controller, so that will be helpful for other games. It's about time I learned to use one.

However, I will absolutely stick to point and click for adventures in the future. Absolutely. And I'm so glad that Jonathan agrees!

And I am back in Saxton (or rather, the area)! Jubilation!

Next Entry.