As the title clearly suggests, The Lost Crown: A Ghost-Hunting Adventure, is a point'n'click adventure featuring puzzles, inventory based environmental interaction and NPC's interaction through self chosen dialogs. Using first and third perspective, Boakes has created an unusual visual appearance. The result is a black and white environment, with vivid colors in some places. This is a new technique that manages to make the gamer thing that the main character is actually dreaming and the whole action takes place in the character's mind. It is also a smart trick to cover the low-budget graphical engine. Every object or character which is displayed in 3D suffers from low textures and lack of details.

Jonathan Boakes decided not to stick only to ghost stories, and therefore he joined a group of paranormal experts called 'This Haunted Land'. The group is based in Cornwall, England, and its activity is based on paranormal activities. During their investigations they use high technology in order to collect informations which are known as 'casefiles'. These type of technology is also present in the game through Night-Vision cameras, digital cameras, E.M.F. Meters, etc. The first encounter with these tools will take place in the caverns of Saxton shores, where you will analyze and collect ghost informations in a first perspective similar to Myst series.

Nigel will not be alone in his complex quest. He will meet Lucy Reubans, a psychology student (also a Saxton citizen), who will guide him through the rest of the story. Her experience in psychology will compensate Nigel's unexperience in this domain. She will actually be recruited, by the end of the game by Hadden's company, due to her good results in this mission.

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The game starts without many introductions with Nigel's arrival, onboard an old-fashioned steam train, called The Sleepwalker. He arrives in the harbor town of Saxton after he managed to steal some important documents that contain proof of The Hadden's Corporation involvement in paranormal experiments. Saxton is an imaginary place created from real places depicted from the harbor town Polperro (located in Cornwall region). These real places were photographed and graphically manipulated in order to fit in the game's environment. Buildings like Harbour Cottage or The Bear Public House are real estates in Polperro but with different usage in Saxton.

Saxton is a mysterious place somewhere on the English Coast, populated by strange characters and governed by extreme weather conditions which make Spring a dead season. Spring and especially May, is a perfect period for Nigel to take refuge in this desolated town, when floods surrounds the whole town. The old-fashioned train The Sleepwalker equals with fate in this scenario, as Nigel has no chance in getting further than Saxton. In no time Danvers will have no choice but to solve local mysteries and study paranormal activities for Hadden Corporation itself. Not to mention the Anglo-Saxon legendary crown that is buried somewhere in the vicinity of the town and guarded by alive and dead inhabitants. Most of these alive and dead inhabitants are used as important characters in the story events, unlike previous Jonathan Boakes games which were not very much populated. Unfortunately the relation between them tends to be bizarre. Some of the dialogs will never appear if you don't complete previous actions which are lacking of any logical reason. Pay attention to the connection between the pig and Robert (Bob) Tawny who owns and works at the Station Lane workshop. If you don't feed the pig, you won't get any help from Bob.

Many of the adventure fans will give up playing this game from the beginning because of these subtle approaches which have no logical meaning in the beginning. The start of the game gives the player the feeling of wandering without clue in Saxton and its surroundings, most of the early actions being based on exploring and guessing missing parts of the story. On the other side exploring is fun, as the regions of the town are unlocked gradually, following a reasonable sense of logic in the sequence of events. The puzzle system will not create difficult situations for an average adventures player, but there is a sensible difficulty increase because of the multiple characters and the complex and sometimes too subtle story. This fact remembers me of an another title which was suffering of the same problem: Pathologic (review). At least the game does not suffer from a bad translation as the example before.

If you are a fan of ghost-hunting documentaries and you believe in paranormal phenomenons, then you should try this game for its realistic approach in terms of technology and research methods. Jonathan Boakes realized his best game combining all the important ingredients in order to get a decent adventure.

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Gameplay: 71

Immersive story based on real technical facts and documents, regarding paranormal phenomenons. Unfortunately the game suffers from a long accommodation period in which the player is forced to wander sometimes meaningless for clues. It's good that Boakes decided to use so many characters, but I had the feeling that some of them were just there to fill the environment. The first perspective brings a little bit of variation in a game-style like this, in which all the gadgets are used like in real life. It was a pleasure to collect any evidences using this method.

Graphics: 69

An original approach in terms of graphics. Most of the Saxton town and surroundings are represented in greyscale palette. Only nature in some places is represented in vivid colors. Although it is a static environment, it looks very real due to the photographed images used in it. Every 3D object suffers for lack of details and low-end animation.

Multiplayer: N/A

Sound: 81

One of the good things in this game is definitely the sound. I didn't judge its technical perspective, but more its artistical approach. In 'hot' spots where any paranormal activity could take place, subliminal sounds are used to indicate them and at the same time to emphasize the possible feeling of danger or fear. But on the other hand the voice acting is disastrous. No intonation, no artistic approach.

Hardware: 83

Because of its nature and style, it's hard to say something bad about the hardware status. I suppose that some loading transitions are quite long, but there is nothing that I could worry about.