The Lost Crown was written by Jonathan Boakes, between 2005 and late 2007. The story is an exploration of the ‘classic ghost story’, featuring references to many ghost stories read by the author in childhood. Most notably,
M. R. James A Warning to the Curious features many influential elements; the seaside setting, the legend of the lost Anglo-Saxon Crown, a greedy archaeologist and the presence of a ghostly guardian, sworn to protect the whereabouts of the crown, even after death. Other literary influences include
J.L.Carr’s A Month in the Country, which features a lonely protagonist camped out in a rural country church, left alone to uncover a secret over the course of an apparently endless, hot summer. Boakes also joined a group of ‘modern day ghost-hunters’ in order to research the game, following on from paranormal experiments seen in
Dark Fall and
Dark Fall 2. Known as This Haunted Land, the group are based in
Cornwall, England, and share a passion for the paranormal and the use of technology used during investigations. Many of the results gleaned from those experiments have made their way into the game, such as the use of
E.M.F meters,
Nite-Vision cameras and
E.V.P Many of the scenes were created from photography made in real places in
Cornwall, notably the fishing towns of
Looe and
Polperro. ==Reception==