First details illuminate Darkling Room's Ghost Lantern: Kilminorth Farm

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Short haunted house mystery revealed by the creator of Dark Fall, Incubus and The Lost Crown

We all know houses can be haunted (assuming one believes in ghosts), but can a photograph be haunted too? We may just find out that the answer to both questions is YES in the upcoming new game from Jonathan Boakes and Darkling Room, Ghost Lantern: Kilminorth Farm.

Legend has it that the remote Kilminorth Manor Farm is haunted by a "dark entity," with first-hand reports over the years of bangs, growls, doors opening on their own and more. Perhaps we can finally figure out why when renovations turn up a "mysterious sealed box" filled with "letters, old census information and strangest of all, a few glass photographic plates, from the era of early photography." Fortunately you have a sort of magic projector that can not only display such plates but reveal their hidden secrets, and it soon becomes clear that a "terrible crime happened nearly 200 years ago" in this place. To solve this centuries-old cold case, you must use both natural deduction and paranormal investigation as you "study the old documents, call out into the darkness with your microphone, and see what the Ghost Lantern has to show you."

The "charming [but] run-down" Kilminorth Manor Farm is a very real place that Boakes has investigated several times personally. Presented in full 3D but with a user-friendly point-and-click interface, the game faithfully recreates both the setting and the ghost tools you'll be using in your investigation, such as the EMF K2 Meter, Gauss Meter, and RemPod, along with more standard equipment like a tripod camera (which doubles here as a place to record your progress as well). Although not expected to be a long experience, with a playtime of only 2-3 hours, players can expect lots of random elements to send shivers down their spines, along with inventory items to collect and puzzles to solve along the way. But beware the answers you seek, and especially those you ask aloud, as "the room will be listening to you" and the clues promise to lead to a "startling conclusion" when you're done.

There is no target release date for Ghost Lantern: Kilminorth Farm, but you can wishlist it on Steam right away, and watch writer/designer Jonathan Boakes himself offer some behind-the-scenes video insights into the kind of gaming experience we can expect.