further into the buildings. However, he was shocked to discover they were gone; demolished to make way for a housing estate. As such, he had to rely on his imagination to create everything, with the exception of the buffet room, which he based on the actual room he had explored, and the caves under the hotel, which were partly inspired by the Dan yr Ogof caves in Wales. Boakes worked on the game for eighteen months, almost entirely on his own. All of the sound effects in the game were recorded in his own house, and enhanced using Sound Forge. Graphically, the game is presented entirely through pre-rendered static images, some of which feature limited animation. When the game was complete, Boakes published it independently under the XXv Productions label, making only 2000 copies. Although approached by two publishing companies interested in the game, Boakes chose to sell it independently online, where it soon began to attract positive reviews, and generate good word-of-mouth. Boakes was later approached by The Adventure Company, who signed a deal to distribute it globally, renamed Dark Fall: The Journal. In March 2009, Boakes' own company, Darkling Room, published a special Limited "Pins & Needles" Edition, containing Dark Fall: The Journal and the director's cut of Dark Fall II: Lights Out, walkthroughs for each game, a collection of ghost stories and a Dark Fall soundtrack CD. Limited to 300 copies, each is individually numbered, and signed by Boakes. In December 2009, Iceberg Interactive, who had purchased the rights to the series from The Adventure Company, published Adventures in Terror: British Horror Collection, containing Dark Fall: The Journal, the director's cut of Dark Fall: Lights Out and Shadow Tor Studios' Barrow Hill. Reception In March 2004, Lorraine Lue of DreamCatcher Interactive Europe reported that Dark Fall "kind of surprised us because it is selling very well worldwide, including Germany and the UK." She attributed this partly to the game's use of atmosphere, rather than violence, to generate fear. In North America, Dark Fall sold 17,828 retail copies during 2003, and another 5,432 in the first two months of 2004. The game received "mixed or average reviews" upon its general release in 2003. It holds an aggregate score of 68 out of 100 on Metacritic, based on twenty-three reviews. IGN's Staci Krause scored the game 7.8 out of 10, writing "It is rare that a PC game, especially