Lost Crown (9): Review

What would you do if you found yourself in a quaint little village and you kept meeting ghosts? Would you panic, or start hunting them? Oh, and by the way, there appears to be no way out of the village. Pretty place. Nice people here, even some of the ghosts, but who are they, really?

Oh, also, everything is in black in white with some splashes of color, but you don’t seem to notice. Could that mean anything?

I’ve said it before and I’m happy to say it again: The Lost Crown is, flatly, one of the best adventure games ever released. It easily stands alongside the Gabriel Knight series. That it was released in a time of drought for adventures adds to its luster.

It’s like an interactive movie. It has puzzles and conundrums and things to find and to use, but mostly, it has a plot that advances with scenes and dialog and soul-chilling sound effects.

You will think you’re there.

But are you sure you know what time it is?

What’s Going On?

Nigel Danvers, our hero, breaks into his firms’ secret lab and gets caught but escapes, or so he thinks, to the extremely odd little East Anglia village of Saxton. There he intends to hide, but to pass the time he decides to hunt for a lost Anglo-Saxon treasure reputed to be buried somewhere in the area. Ah, but finding that treasure pits him against some extremely nasty ghosts who have been guarding it for centuries.

In the meantime he’ll make friends in town (or so he thinks) and he’ll meet quite a few more ghosts. He’ll spend plenty of time trying to solve their problems and release them from their earthly confines.

And, Nigel discovers that Saxton isn’t quite what the casual observer might expect. Saxton seems to be either close to, or part of, The Abyss, the realm of the dead, or of monsters, or the supernatural. Something unusual definitely dwells there in Saxton, amidst all those nice folk, and those nice folk are in on it. So, apparently, is Nigel’s boss at Hadden Industries. Mr. Hadden investigates the paranormal and he seems to know quite a bit about Saxton as well. He commands Nigel to hunt ghosts, an activity Nigel is only too eager to pursue.

The Lost Crown comes across as more a ghost story than a treasure hunt, and has some deliciously frightening scenes. I’ve played multiple times yet the nighttime cemetery scene still scares me. We get to explore Saxton’s museum at night. We get little scares in the cottage. However, not all the ghosts are scary, and they don’t all manifest at night. We meet two lovely, sweet ghosts out at the Ulcombe church, and solve a mystery for them that left me feeling quite virtuous. Although . . . I can’t help but wonder if the plague victims in the Ulcombe crypt might still be just an eensey bit contagious.

Oh, and what time is it? More to the point, what year is it? One of the most intriguing parts of the game is time shifting. Often we won’t realize until later that we’ve been in a different time period, but when we do understand, the mystery of the town deepens and makes the inhabitants more intriguing still.

A warning, however, to animal lovers: the game contains an extremely unpleasant scene involving abused cats about midway through. I found it to be unnecessarily disturbing. Although I am a cat lover, the scene would not keep me away from the game, but there it is.

Where, or What, is Saxton?

Yes, it’s a pretty little village, but it’s all in black and white! Boakes’ decision to put almost everything in greyscale really captured me. First, it fits with the concept that this all might be a dream. It’s unreal, yet convincing. Boakes’ use of photographs of existing locations draws us in to this possible new reality. Add those splashes of color that we see from nearly the first frame, and the intrigue deepens.

And it moves! Perhaps the most convincing aspect of the greyscale photographs used to build the game come in the particle effects added by Matt Clark. Moths lazily flap around lights at night. Midges swarm in the swamp. Dust motes swirl in the air inside the cottage. Fog shifts along the ground, clouds drift by overhead, birds fly and dandelions drift across the screen. All that subtle movement is enough to convince us that we’re looking at a real place full of life.

But Just Who are the Saxton Folk?

Madly diverse people live in Saxton. Some of them seem to live in different centuries. Most are modern, like Lucy Reubans, Nigel’s eventual sidekick. The variety and depth of the characterizations really stand out in this game. Even in the vaunted Gabriel Knight games, usually only the leads work as fleshed-out individuals, while supporting characters are generally quirky stereotypes who really just work as props for the game. In The Lost Crown, though, perhaps because we spend more time with them, characters have far greater depth, enabling many to stand out as real personalities, not just the leads. Nigel, fortunately, comes across as somebody we can cheer on, even though he has some obvious faults. Lucy and Nanny seem to be real individuals, as does the marvelous Mr. Russet, the Station Master, Bob Tawney, Prof. Oogle and Rhys. (Yet, what imagination can have conceived of Mr. Gruel, a character who speaks only through a doll?) The humanness of Saxton’s population pulls players even further into the story. They appear to be real people even if some are a bit odd, and we care about what happens to them.

Getting into the Game

Even with all The Lost Crown’s attractive qualities, actually playing the game is, obviously, the important thing. Boakes has paced the action quite well. Even when we’re not out wandering around Saxton and environs pursuing the main plot, we’re intrigued by the smaller mysteries inside Harbour Cottage. Unexpected things happen. Early in the game we have a ghostly visit from Prof. Hardacre, a character who should be fully alive at the time. What gives? We move from speculation to action as we uncover new areas—then find that we’ve shifted in time. Who, aside from action-addicted shooter fans, could stop playing?

The puzzles, mostly inventory based, aren’t terribly difficult, but they give us a nice jolt of satisfaction when we solve one. The inventory stretches across the bottom of the screen, and picking up an item is as simple as a click. When you have the correct item, it glows green. As is normal in adventures, we need to discover and perform certain actions in order to trigger an advance into the next area and the next time frame and these can become tedious. Fortunately Boakes limits the game area when we need to find a trigger, so the task never becomes hopeless.

Fans of Boakes’ games will recognize Nigel, whom we first met in the original Darkfall game. Nigel looks a whole lot like Mr. Boakes himself, a choice I like a lot. Yes, let’s have a real person as our avatar, especially as he’s throwing himself into his games so completely! Polly White gets a very brief mention here if you look quickly. The Reubans name isn’t new either.

Voice acting is fine, although the little band of actors attempts to stretch too much at times. I adored Matt Clark as the Station Master but disliked his Prof. Hardacre. Emma Harry does a nice job as Lucy, but really soars as Nancy, the little London refugee. Boakes takes on perhaps too many characters, but his Mr. Russett shines. As Nigel he has an oddly choppy cadence, but it comes across as quite individual. Using a non-native English speaker as the detective does not work at all. It appears to be a cast of friends, so some irregularities are to be expected. Most importantly, the voices contribute to the individuality of the characters.

However, Nigel’s slow, gliding movement definitely slows the game. I’d speculate that his walking pace adds at least an hour to the playing time. At first it’s fine. We have plenty to see. As the game progresses, however, some sort of short-cut movement would have helped. I understand why it isn’t there; pacing through all these areas adds realism. Boakes does take pity on us sometimes, as when he brings Nigel back from a nighttime excursion by simply planting him automatically back in Saxton. I imagine that Nigel will be speedier in the later games. Rarely, something in the gameplay goes wrong. I found a fearful glitch when I was thrown into an earlier scene, but with the sound of buzzing flies still playing from the original scene. Fortunately I was able to revert to a recently saved game. However, that happened only once in a late replay. On my first several playthroughs the game ran perfectly.

Grade: A-Plus!

The Lost Crown gives you your money’s worth and then some. I’d guess that it takes a good thirty hours to complete, and that’s mostly in real gameplay, like the Gabriel Knight games.

The imagination, the inspired craftsmanship, the intriguing plot and the unusual graphics make The Lost Crown an instant classic. It will pull you in and absorb you for hours. It will make you believe you’re there, somewhere, in that strange little place called Saxton.

It will be around for a long time to come!

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Lost Crown (8): Questions, Speculations, Observations (with spoilers)

(Careful of spoilers here. Don't read until you've played.)

Questions

Unanswered questions and mysteries abound in The Lost Crown. As the first game in a projected trilogy, that's good. We get enough resolution in the game to satisfy us, but there are abundant things about which we can speculate.


I kept a running list of questions, little and big, as I did this replay. 


1. What's going on with the flooded cemetery in the Fenland? I think the newspaper finally refers to it again in the last edition, but the significance to the game hasn't yet been explained. I suspect that Cole Tawney might come into this, as he appears to be the drowned little son of Nanny Noah and Bob Tawney. We see a shot of his grave and the flooded cemetery in the first scene.

2. Morgan Mankle's brother had a bad accident on the stairs in Harbour Cottage. Anything more to learn about that incident?


3. What's going on with the typewriter in the window by the phone box? It looks rather abandoned, so perhaps that's just a clue about Alex Spitmoor?


4. Will we learn more about Dr. Black? Can the man speak? And, he was the town doctor in 1952 also.


5. Will we ever meet the Ulcombe Lane Maiden?


6. And what about those yew trees anyway? We read a whole pamphlet about them but never put the knowledge to use.


7. Why does Mr. Russet wear that scarf over his face? Has his face deteriorated from being over a thousand years old (if he is that old, as I suspect)?

8. There's a secret passage to Ulcombe Church behind the bookcase in the Russet homestead. We haven't been there yet. Will we go?


9. Who is BG, the farmer who wrote the threatening note to Katherine Karswell? It seems clear that he burned down the Ager house, but will we learn more about him? Seek our revenge?


10. The Black Plague was in the 14th century, the 1300s, not in the 1200s as Mr. Russet says. Maybe his memory's going from age. (This comment arises from the fact that I am insufferably pedantic.)


11. Will we ever do anything with the ghosts behind the gate in the Fenland Eye? We take a recording of them. They say "Help us! You can help us!" and we never do another thing with them. At least, we don't in this game.

Fenland Eye Ghosts

12. I can't do anything with the three little display cases by the Saxton Skeleton in the museum, yet they've all got action icons. A mistake?


13. Will we ever meet Squire, Emily Travers' little dog, who died one year after her death?


14. Mr. Russet's family appears to be French, or at least Norman, in the museum library book. But he speaks Anglo-Saxon. Odd. Most of the Normans didn't bother to learn English, and the language came close to dying out for awhile. (I am, as you see, insufferably pedantic.)


15. We only vanquish three of the four Ager brothers. I think William's still around, isn't he? Coughing? Should be interesting in the next game.


16. Why does everyone hate the Ager brothers and call them evil, when it was the Agers who were protecting the town's precious magical item?


17. Why did Thomas Ager hate Nicholas Gurney?


18. Who's the ghost that walks by us in the museum? Looks like Molina. Does he range beyond Harbour Cottage? More likely it's just a generic ghost guy.


19. Oops. The museum is open from 11 to 6 except on public holidays--when it's free? Or is that just for Nigel?


20. What is the Saxton Recipe? Is it for Saxton punch?


21. Do those hieroglyphs mean anything on the museum's upper floor? Nigel comments about them.


22. Nanny says "The vicar at Northfield? That was quick." (Perhaps the last issue we get of the newspaper explains that--it seems the vicar we met may have been a ghost all along, or does it mean that normally there isn't a vicar at Northfield?)


23. Did the phantoms in the bathroom actually get Nigel? Is that why he looks like a ghost in the mirror? 

The photo Nigel takes just after the phantoms attack him in the dark bathroom.

Is Nigel dead?

24. The clock in the Bear is permanently stopped at 9:00, something Nigel mentions. Does this mean that time really has stopped?


25. Mr. Oogle was the town hall secretary in 1952, which would make him in his 70s now (although in Saxton, I doubt that matters much).


26. Hadden contributes technology to the museum, and Lucy's walkie-talkie is from Hadden. More about this below.


27. My favorite time problem: the Grindle & Ganwulf book is published in 1973, but inscribed by Nanny Noah to Bob Tawney in 1958.


28. In both photos taken automatically by the camera while Nigel sleeps, we find a triple picture of Mr. Russet with his scarf over his face. Is he protecting Nigel from William Ager?

Three shots of Mr. Russet--notice his face mask.

29. Why does Nigel turn up in that portrait of the Agers in his dream of the Nightmare room? That is very weird.


30. "It's always midday in May Day"--Mr. Russet.


Speculations


OK. Here's my tentative theory about the game. I think one of two things is going on here: either Saxton and everybody in it are creations in Mr. Hadden's computer, or Saxton and everybody in it--including Nigel--are ghosts. Or both. (We do see Nigel as a ghost in that mirror photograph, and he's in the Ager painting in one of his dreams.)


Time in Saxton basically doesn't exist. It's still ticking, as is the clock in the Bear, but it's really stopped, allowing the inhabitants to live simultaneously in all times. That's why the Ager brothers, born a century apart, are in the same painting. 


Saxton is the abyss, or at least it's on the edge of the abyss. That's what Haddon is researching, and he recruits Nigel and later Lucy to be his go-betweens. Hadden is looking into the abyss, and the abyss is looking back at him. I think Saxton is a computer construct that Hadden has created to get closer to the Other Side. 


(Or, this is all a dream, induced by Hadden somehow. Hadden tells Mr. Crow that Nigel is going "nowhere, nowhere at all." The train Nigel travels on is called the "Sleepwalker." Those points may still fit in with the computer construct idea, however.) 

It's clear that Hadden is watching the whole thing all the time. He's got his finger on the town, as it were. He can make disconnected telephones work. Again, did he create the town? Is that why all the technology is from Hadden Industries? 


I think so, because of those three major clues that I mentioned in my replay write-ups. Mr. Hadden (rather like Mr. Boakes) appears to have built Saxton from photographs. Not all of the photographs are in good condition. 


First, there is a large white rip in the photograph that Nigel enters in the Northfield cemetery. There is another tear in the scene in Ulcombe Church photograph when Nigel is talking with Mr. Russet. There are rust stains on the photograph on the quay next to Harbour Cottage in day five. Nigel walks behind all of these photographic flaws, and doesn't notice them.

Here's the first one: this is an obvious tear in the photograph when we first enter Northfield Cemetary. When I first saw that it simply didn't register. I saw it, but I interpreted it to be snow along the side of the tree (snow? there's no snow anywhere else!). I just didn't want to see something so out of context.

Nigel approaches the tear in the photograph

As he's leaving Northfield, Nigel walks behind the tear! (He walked behind it going in as well, but I didn't get a screenshot of that.)

Click to embiggen. Nigel walks behind the tear and never notices it.

Here are the second and third instances. First a huge tear in the Ulcomb Church photograph:

Note the huge rip in the photo on the right side of the screen. Nigel walks behind it.

And last--rust stains on the photograph:

Note that Nigel is standing behind the rust stains on the photo.

I didn't notice them when I first played (well, I saw the rust stains, but didn't know what to make of them so I dismissed it). I bought into the idea of the game world completely. I think these flawed photos, which are obviously intentional on Jonathan's part, are pretty close to proof that Saxton's actual location is the inside of Mr. Hadden's computer.


It's also clear that the Saxtonites are no ordinary people. They jump in time, they live in the eras they choose--Nanny in the 1950s, Bob Tawney in Victorian times, the Station Master in the 1920s, Rhys Branwen (and Lucy?) in the current era. As I've said, I strongly suspect that Mr. Russet is indeed "as old as these fens." They all are.


Perhaps Saxton attracts spirits from the Abyss who take up residence there. Nigel can see ghosts in the game (Nancy and Timmy, Hardacre misplaced in time on the first night, and perhaps, the Northfield vicar?) because he's much closer to them than he would be in the real world. 


And the people don't leave footprints in the sand. George the dog does, but I think that was mostly to draw our attention to the fact that Nanny, Nigel, and Lucy don't. You need the contrast in order to notice it.

Footprints from George the dog, but not from Nanny or Nigel.
(Click photo to embiggen)

Of course we see Nigel jumping around in time, but the whole town appears to do that also. I always suspected that the ringing of the Saxton bell has something to do with time shifting.  Hadden sends Nigel his equipment in April of 1978. And, Nigel was "recruited" in 1978, or so it says on the opening screen on Hadden's computer, yet Nigel says (in what appears to be 2008) that he's thirty years old. Hadden recruits Lucy in real time, 2008. 

I gather, then, that Hadden created Nigel in 1978. As a computer avatar? (And there's the only mention in the game of our old friend Polly White, from the Darkfall games.)


Other fun observations: Saxton appears to be a fairly happy place until Nigel screws everything up. And everyone is expecting him. The Station Master, Nanny Noah and Morgan Mankle all know Nigel's name before he meets them. We overhear Mr. Russet in the graveyard saying "Any day now, he'll be coming" and "It ain't right, and he knows it." I'm quite sure he's talking about Nigel. When Nigel gets into the mine, the lamps start burning brightly. 

Surely they haven't been ready to burst into flame for a thousand years. They're just for him, as is that puzzle he has to solve involving his actions in the game. It's all specifically pointed toward Nigel.

OK, everything I've said doesn't add up completely. It's speculation, after all. But I bet I'm somewhere close!

Also, I find it fitting that I'm writing this on Jonathan's favorite dates: April 29-30, and posting on May Day! 


Observations (about that "scientific" ghosthunting)

I include these observations because (1) I am insufferably pedantic, and (2) because so many people choose to believe in so much pseudoscience and magic (which in the real world is getting to be quite dangerous--see What's the Harm? For ghosts specifically, see this). The scientific method actually does work quite well. It has given us the modern world and saved countless lives.


I do not scoff at people who claim they've experienced paranormal activity. Although hoaxes are common, most normal people who make claims about paranormal experiences really have experienced something they can't explain. What we need to do is take them at their word, investigate their claims and try to explain them. That's the approach of Joe Nickell (see below).


But hey, pseudoscience and magic are just loads of fun in fantasies, and, gracious me, I do not wish to change any of that! I love these games! But Lucy Reubans is supposed to be the skeptic in these games. She never (so far anyway) gets to explain her more scientific approach. I will step in and do a teensy bit of that for her. And I congratulate Jonathan for including a sympathetic skeptic in his game. Usually skeptics are depicted as the buffonish fall guys.


I wish ghosthunting indeed were scientific. We need some real science in ghosthunting. Except in fantasy games, it isn't there yet.


For example:


Ghosthunters look for anomalies, events and readings on their equipment that are different from normal. However, before you can do that, you need to know what IS normal.


If you're going to be actually scientific about ghosthunting, you first need to establish a baseline of what is normal on your equipment. Visit 50 to 100 places that are not haunted, but that are similar to your possibly haunted area. Um, do turn off the circuit breakers. Take note of nearby energy sources that could cause interference. Find out what is "normal" on your equipment, and document that. (And, um, folks, if you can't be sure you've got non-haunted places then you can't find a baseline for your equipment, which means that your equipment is useless to you.)


Now you can visit your possibly haunted area, and see if anything's significantly different. (Note: "significance" in science means that you have collected hard data demonstrating that your results did not arise from chance. A 1-in-20 probability will get some attention, but 1-in-100 or higher is far more convincing.) Draw up a hypothesis about what you think is causing the anomalies you find, and (here's the scientific method) try to falsify that. 


For example, perhaps you think your electrical meter is going nuts because of a nearby circuit breaker. Turn off the circuit breaker and see if anything changes. If it does, then you've supported (we never prove anything) your hypothesis, and now you're pretty sure that a ghost was not the cause of your meter activity. If it doesn't, then you have more support (just a little) for your ghost. But keep trying to find a normal cause of what's making your meter react. Does it react only in one spot, or in others? You have to be rigorous about this--you've got to eliminate all the non-supernatural intervening variables before you can even speculate that you might have found a ghost.


Keep looking for and eliminating intervening variables. You're trying to falsify your overall hypothesis that your suspicious activity is NOT caused by ghosts. If you can't do that after really trying, with real honesty, then you can be more confident that your ghost wasn't just a figment of your creative imagination (spooky feelings don't count, because all of us are highly adept at fooling ourselves).


Document everything extremely well. Then, you need to publish your research in a professional scientific journal, such as Nature, that is rigorously peer reviewed (a committee of scientists reviews your paper and either rejects it, sends it back to you with suggestions for improvement, or decides to accept it and publish it in their journal). After that, other researchers can try to duplicate your efforts. If others can get the same results, then you're really cooking. 


Nobody's ever done that in ghosthunting. It would change the world. 


However, always remember Carl Sagan's classic quotation: "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."


That's why just having a "feeling" that something abnormal is happening to you won't do. That isn't evidence. For evidence, we need some actual data, and lots of it, measured by reliable instruments.


However, it could be that normal instruments used in ghosthunting (not the Hadden ones, which are special) might not be up to the job (click the link to a three-minute video):


InFact: Ghosthunting

I'd love to see Mr. Dunning proved wrong, although he's quite right that only real science can demonstrate (um, support the hypothesis) that ghosts exist. Real science is a long, hard slog that allows no corner-cutting. It's a fascinating long, hard slog, but it is long and hard nonetheless. It must be rigorous, and it's worth all that trouble. It has, again, given us the modern world and saved millions of lives.

For guidance, a good place to start is with Joe Nickell, who bills himself as the world's only full-time professional paranormal investigator, and has lots of books about his experiences. 

So far Joe hasn't found any ghosts, but he's still looking. And he doesn't put people down for believing, either.
 

And neither do I. Hunt on!


(And, I do hope that Jonathan never puts any of my suggestions into his games. His games are fantasies and are fun. I want to have more fun with his games.)


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