For some reason, a metric-ton of you read the long-ass essay I wrote about the future of game preservation. In it, I spoke positively about the steps some companies have taken to ensure at least some of the games you love will be playable in the future. And I guess Sony took that personal, so they just started blasting.
Mere days after the announcement that they would, as of September 1st, revoke access to 551 different movies by removing them from the accounts of owners who legally purchased them, the company doubled down by announcing that after 2027, they would no longer release physical versions of their games. The response was... predictable.
If fast food industry accounts start dragging you all over social media, you have screwed up. Like, I'm sorry, but if Domino's and KFC are publicly weighing in on the matter, you messed up. Sony so completely shit the bed, mattress stores are extending their 4th of July sales. If I worked for Sony in any capacity, my Linkedin page would have gone dark the second that announcement was made, because I don't need any more reasons for people to want to kick my ass in real life.
Rather than dog pile on Sony though, I thought it would be more fun to celebrate the little victories. Which is why I'm happy to announce that The Lost Crown: A Ghost-Hunting Adventure from 2008 is now available on GOG, DRM-free, along with its sequel/side-story, The Midnight Horror.
Why is the British box art always so much cooler?
Developed by two-man British indie game making team Jonathan Boakes and Matt Clark, The Lost Crown serves as a follow-up to Boakes's previous Dark Fall games, where we find protagonist Nigel Danvers on the run after some off-hours hacking revealed the nightmarish research his employer was undertaking. Having booked it out of both the building and the city, Danvers finds himself disembarking from his train car at the last stop on the line: the marshy fens outside the quaint seaside town of Saxton. Should be the last place anybody would come looking for him: one of those nice, quiet areas of the world where time seems to have stopped decades ago. Danvers has zero connection to the area, nothing to link him to the town or its people.
Which is why it's odd so many of Saxton's residents seem to know Nigel's name before he's introduced himself....
If there's one word to describe The Lost Crown, it is 'atmospheric'. Boakes stages the game the way Frank Miller handled Sin City, where everything's presented in black and white, but every so often, there's a touch or splash of colors to add variety. While Saxton itself is fictional, the town and its surrounding environs are built using photographic and audio elements captured by the developers from in and around the very real seaside town of Polperro in Cornwall. It's a dream of mine to one day travel to Polperro and enjoy the scenery while maybe joining Clark and Boakes on one of their ghost hunts -- the pair have been paranormal enthusiasts and investigators for years, which helped serve as inspiration to create their ghostly-themed games in the first place.
If there's a second word to describe the game though, that word is 'patient'. The Lost Crown takes its time getting into things. There's a lot of setup to work through, characters to meet, and puzzles to solve before getting into the meat and potatoes of the story. This might initially seem frustrating, especially if the player is more used to action games that dump you in the deep end and wave, but I assure you, there's a reason for The Lost Crown's pacing. Saxton, the town itself, is a major character in the narrative, and she's only going to dole out answers to questions when she's good and ready. Just because there are ghosts around doesn't mean the townsfolk will change their behavior. Shops still keep normal hours, and residents may need coaxing before they open up to an outsider.
The Lost Crown may bill itself as a horror game, but make no mistake: Saxton ain't Silent Hill. How much it gets under your skin will be a direct result of how much you're willing to immerse yourself in the atmosphere, to play along with the game's eccentricities, and to smile along knowingly with its limitations. If Resident Evil is a AAA cinematic blockbuster, The Lost Crown is a local stage production. It's 'Folk Horror' in the vein of The Wicker Man or The Owl Service -- seriously, if you've never seen The Owl Service, the whole mini-series is on YouTube and you owe it a viewing. Something is definitely off in Saxton, but it isn't until Nigel receives a parcel of ghost-hunting gear (from his employer, no less!) that he can start putting the pieces together.
But trust me, even if you think you have an idea where the story's going as a player, I guarantee you're still in for some twists and turns, especially if you aren't paying attention to little things the game never actively draws your attention towards.
So, I'm out here celebrating not only that games like this exist, but also that they're available on platforms like GOG, where you truly do own what you've purchased. It's for surprises like this that I always make sure I've got extra funds in my Paypal account. Sure, I already own the physical, boxed copy of the game I bought back when it came out. But I also like to support causes I believe in, and this is definitely one of those causes. I was just as excited to re-discover The Lost Crown today as I was the day I first brought the game home back in 2008. The intervening eighteen years have been kind to it, and I happily place it towards the top of my point-and-click adventure gaming list, with other notable entries like Scratches, Barrow Hill, and the Dark Fall games.
