adventure

The Lost Crown: A Ghosthunting Adventure
$29.99
This is a game that you can't stop playing once you start because you NEED to know what's going on with this town, and where this treasure is, and who/what is haunting your house, Saxton in general, who/what is trapped in the caves, and the church, and in the woods, and in the cabin by the tracks, and why! There are a lot of secrets to learn, scandalous murders to discover, spirits to identify, mystery to be scared of, and things to give you nightmares. Don't play it in the dark!

It's a game by Jonathan Boakes, who, if you have ever played a game he's made before from start to finish, you know has made another masterpiece because failure just doesn't seem to be in his capacity. His name is a selling factor in itself. He's probably the only creator's name you'll see in the center of the box cover as a main advertizement, because his games are that good. If you loved Dark Fall, you'll adore this. It's right up there, but with more story, more timeline, and interactive characters you can talk to.

Each individual panel/scene you walk through has anywhere from a few to a huge number of things to click on and explore, search through, read, see more closely, etc. All of this brings incredible life to the town of Saxton that you got off the train at, and then got flooded into staying. All the minute details reveal a town of two faces. One that is popular with tourists, full of surperstitious but friendly enough people, and has flowers growing around town if you're only there for a few minutes. But within 10 minutes of gameplay you're pretty freaked out because you start to realize (and this grows with each passing frame) this Saxton has murder, a grisly history, voices in the walls, macabre imagery absolutely everywhere, lots of ghosts (no character will ever deny the ghosts. they'll give you frightened warnings in a nervous way while making sure no one is watching, but no one will ever say the town is a safe place, and if they did, you'd never trust them because, let's face it, you're not blind.). You start to see that some characters are literally and dangerously insane. You even get the distinct impression and increasingly scary feeling that you're not in the twenty first century anymore, that not all the people you're talking to are really alive anymore but they don't know it, that perhaps some people have split personalities because by night someone may be doing something very disturbingly out of character...

The whole game keeps you unsettled in a place frightening enough that you'd really like to find some solid ground, and for a gamer who lives for scary stories and/or movies, the things that jump out at you or literally go bump in the night, and the twisted tales you learn of really hit the spot. The effects are very effective and eerie, modern, believable, but still simple. There isn't a lot of useless walking around because the story moves at a nice pace, is interesting, and the clues do make you think and effectively take you to where you need to be without being painfully obvious. Sometimes you need to experiment and play around with the things you get, like the ghost hunting gear you come by, in order to figure out what they're for, but it's never too complicated.

Jonathan Boakes is somewhat of an icon in the scary/puzzle game community for creating the best point and click games with a frightening edge available in the world. This isn't just personal oppinion, he's actually award winning and has a cult following. While Dark Fall is viewed by most people as his star creation, I found that this story entrapped me even deeper than Dark Fall did, though Dark Fall is more nightmare-inducing. I think this game is actually part of the Dark Fall series in a distant way, because the main character is a Dark Fall character, and the reason he's hiding in Saxton in the first place is because he stole evidence of the Dark Fall demon from a company that was looking into sending someone to go check out the Dark Fall hotel. It turns out that it is at the end of Lost Crown that Nigel is asked to go and look into the hotel by the company he stole from. So you realize that Lost Crown is literally the start of Dark Fall, which is SO neat to people who have played it. If you haven't, buy this and buy Dark Fall, and play them both. Greatest game investments you will ever make!

The Long Walk: The True Story of a Trek to Freedom
$16.95
As I was reading my mind had a hard time believing. Then I read it might not be true...that would make more sense. What a story teller!

The Hard Way: Stories of Danger, Survival, and the Soul of Adventure
$16.95
This is my second favorite book. My first is Off the Map and my third is To Timbuktu. Jenkins is an outstanding author.

The Best Adventure and Survival Stories 2003
$17.95
My son really enjoyed this book. He likes adventure and thought it was cool to read true stories.