Hey. I've bought both Dark Fall games as part of a promo, and got a bit into the first one. So far, the atmosphere is unsettling as all hell, mostly due to the eerie sound effects.

I'm sorry for being a chicken, but I HAVE to ask: Do these games make use of jump scares? That's what put me off playing F.E.A.R. - I can appreciate a game freaking me out by atmosphere, but I find the whole "suddenly-a-ghost-appears-right-before-you-and-yells-BOO!" thing to be a cheap scare tactic, and I'm just curious if these games utilize that a lot.
And don't give me the whole "you'll find out by playing" thing. I'm not asking for spoilers, just a simple yes or no and how much.

Well, generally speaking i'd say both games don't use that at all. I can't remember any specific instances of it in The Journal or Lights Out .

Like you said, they mostly unsettle the player through atmosphere and story.

It's just that I've seen people play the third one, Lost Souls, and in that one there seem to be a lot of jump scares. But maybe that's just in that one?

I wouldn't call it so much the "scariest" as the "grossest". It goes for the modern bood-n-guts effect, and I don't like it as much for that very reason. I much prefer my supernatural creepfests to be along the lines of H.P. Lovecraft or Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House". :)

Well, i agree with you to an extent, just not on the 'grossest' bit ;)

The game does stick with most of the things that make every Jonathan Boakes' game so damn good, but it's my least favourite from the series, maybe because there was something of a shift in how it tries to convey the 'horror'. In any case, still a good game and in most aspects, mainly visuals, it's miles in front of the previous titles. The Journal is still my favourite though, even if it's really 'lo-fi' in terms of tech when compared to the gorgeous looking Lost Souls.

On H.P. Lovecraft, check out the Darkness Within games, and you'll notice that even though they're both heavily inspired on Lovecraftian settings, the second game is very different, and in fact it also has some of the same blood-n-guts you mentioned. I think the technical aspects is what sometimes influences a bit the way these games are made. I think it's understandable, developpers go to a lot of trouble to update their tools, i imagine this is even more true for small teams like Zoetrope Interactive or Darkling Room, to make better looking games, and sometimes they end putting a bit too much focus on the visual 'horror' part of the equation. I mean, we all like to show off what we can do with our new shinies, it can't be helped ;)