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.