{"id":217,"date":"2017-05-14T20:30:04","date_gmt":"2017-05-14T21:30:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/?p=217"},"modified":"2019-12-27T14:00:31","modified_gmt":"2019-12-27T14:00:31","slug":"freaky-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/2017\/05\/freaky-times\/","title":{"rendered":"Freaky Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Freaky<\/a>
\nIf there really was a magazine called Freaky Times<\/em>, I\u2019d buy it \u2013 especially if it only cost \u00a31.50, which is the price tag on the one pictured above. Actually this is a screenshot from a recent video game called Barrow Hill: The Dark Path<\/em><\/a> , which I bought after seeing a full-page advertisement for it in last month\u2019s Fortean Times<\/em> (a magazine that bears an uncanny stylistic resemblance to Freaky Times<\/em> \u2013 or perhaps it\u2019s the other way around).<\/p>\n

The original Barrow Hill<\/em> game came out ten years ago, and I found it enjoyable to play but nothing really special. That\u2019s essentially my verdict on this belated sequel, too. It\u2019s probably slightly more fun than the original, with more immersive graphics and more interesting characters. The style is reminiscent of Jonathan Boakes\u2019s Dark Fall<\/em> series, or Daniel Peach\u2019s Corrosion: Cold Winter Waiting<\/em> which I wrote about last year<\/a> . But those games have fascinatingly original storylines and vast, intriguing settings to explore, while the Barrow Hill<\/em> games are shorter, with more mundane locations and a plot not too different from a hundred other games you can find on Steam. But if you like first-person adventure games (as I do) and wacky New Age weirdness (as I do) then you\u2019ll enjoy playing Barrow Hill: The Dark Path<\/em> anyway.<\/p>\n

The main developer behind the Barrow Hill<\/em> games is Matt Clark of Shadow Tor studios, but Jonathan Boakes\u2019s name also crops up several times in the end credits. In fact he seems to have been the one behind the Freaky Times<\/em> mock-up pictured above (and there\u2019s another shot of it below). After a bit of Googling I found this post<\/a> on his blog, which describes the design as \u201ca little nod to the Fortean Times<\/em>\u201d. And right at the bottom of the cover he\u2019s slipped in a reference to the \u201cDowerton ghosts\u201d, from his own Dark Fall<\/em> games!<\/p>\n

\"Freaky<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If there really was a magazine called Freaky Times, I\u2019d buy it \u2013 especially if it only cost \u00a31.50, which is the price tag on the one pictured above. Actually this is a screenshot from a recent video game called Barrow Hill: The Dark Path , which I bought after seeing a full-page advertisement for … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Freaky Times”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31,70,17],"class_list":["post-217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fortean-times","tag-magazines","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=217"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":239,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/217\/revisions\/239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andrew-may.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}