Nigel never left the Hadden-Building. He became (thanks to Mr. Haddens interference) part of an experiment, in which he is transported to an dreamlike land. Here it is his job to redeem some of the ghost that live in Saxton.
He works since 1978 for Hadden Industries (see Prologue), Lucy works since 2008 – they never met in real live as to young people to solve the riddles of Saxton!

I understood that his wife was named Jemima. What happened to her?
I’m sure he follows Nigel and Lucy because he knows they are “real” people. He seems to be possesed or bewitched by Frederick Ager, who created the nigthmare room by using the blood of poor animals.

You're right, Nigel was recruited in 1978. Just how old is he anyway? And Hadden does say something to the effect that Nigel is going "nowhere"... I have not played Dark Fall (yet) but I do know that Nigel is a university student in it? Another thing is that Hadden tells Lucy to bring back Nigel. From what? From an experiment? Seance?

I assume that Gruel was traumatised after Jemima's death and therefore started thinking/believing that the doll was his wife? Maybe he got into the whole Ager thing to try and resurrect Jemima?

How many of the residents were real and how many were ghosts? Were the Katherine & Robert Karswell and Nancy & Timmy the only ghosts that appeared real to Nigel? Or were there more?

saying that Lucy has to pull back Nigel, when the time is right - what does he mean?

they sound possible, but are there some hints in the game? I found nothing specific.

are all ghost - except Lucy. But than -what about Alex, Lucys brother? Saxton lies in the sixties, Lucy and Alex should not live there, but in a modern Saxton. Are there only parts of Saxton involved in the experiment?

the little girl in the museum. Couldn't Nigel redeem her, because her beeing a ghost was not connected to the Ager-brothers?

Yes, I am not quite sure what Hadden means about pulling Nigel back and whether it's from an experiment or a seance or what!

I didn't see anything in the game about my theory but just an assumption based on knowing that sometimes grief can cause people's realities to shatter and shift. Also the concept of going the route of evil (creating the nightmare room) to resurrect a loved one is a common theme in fiction so... that's what I assumed he was doing. But only Jonathan knows for sure!

I got that impression as well that everyone was a ghost except Lucy and Alex. Though Alex could have been just a part of the "experiment" if Nigel was in an experiment. Did you notice that Alex's handheld device was from the Hadden corporation? Or maybe just some were real ghosts and some were part of the experiment. Like the little boy with the camera. The camera he was using was a digital camera.

I don't think she needed to be saved. She had stated that she was there of her own free will and wasn't trapped and that she went to the museum often to play. Maybe she didn't know she was dead and still thought she was playing there because I do remember Nigel finding the newspaper article about her death.

With the pig..I keep running back & forth to feed him pizza & sandwiches..Only to find out later he was a meal & nothing more

MayDayPig has the same name: Cairan.
I cried, too.
How can someone give an animal a name and than kill it??

Mr. Tibbs was found alive.

Didn't Hadden have the Saxon warrior helmet on his desk? Is that another indication that this was partially or all an engineered experiment?

The Ager brothers are perverted by the power the crown gave to them. It started with Thomas, who made a pact with his brothers to bring harm to anybody who tries to uncover the crown. The idea of saving the land and the poeple by saving the crown is perverted by the Ager brothers: they kill innocent people to save the crown. What is if someone has to replace the Ager brothers and do what the real keepers of the crown are supposed to do? Mr Hadden could be the one - and Nigel, who infiltrated his experiment, could be his tool.

I think a combination of ghost-related phenomena are involved, including time slips and possibly stone tape theory for some of the manifestations. Nigel's visit to Katherine and Robert Karswell at the Ager house clearly seems to be part of a time slip. Producing conditions that would cause a time slip (or other ghost-related manifestations) would probably be what Haddon Industries was investigating.

For those who don't know what time slips are, check the story about Annie Moberly and Dr. Eleanor Frances Jourdain, found here
http://members.aol.com/timeslip8888/versailles.html

Another timeslip is recounted here
http://www.assap.org/newsite/articles/Time%20slip.html

Another interesting website which describes various types of ghost-related phenomena is here
http://www.ghostclub.org.uk/spring2007.htm

Now would the timeslips in certain general areas in the game be indicated by that "photo tear"? I remember it appearing at Northfield which is close to the Karswell home and it was somewhere else -- was it the other church?

I noticed one tear at the tree (yew tree?) at Northfield church and the other at Ulcombe Church. Interesting how both of them were near churches. I'm not sure what the tears indicated.

The most obvious time slip was the one at the Ager house, and that didn't have any tears that were very near to it. Instead the tears seemed close to where two of the Ager brothers (Thomas and Nathaniel) had the most power. Maybe it was because of the proximity of evil to what were supposed to be holy places. Otherwise I'd have expected a tear at the Net House and maybe also at Harbor Cottage (where there were similar manifestations of evil black vapor).

Anyway, the time slip at the Ager house didn't seem to have any obvious evil associated with it. Not at the time Nigel visited anyway.

photo tears: at the graveyard by Northfield church an at the Ulcombe church, where Mr. Russett repairs the roof.

the "April Showers" (to which Mr. Hare refers) flooded the Saxton graveyard and opend a chasm to another world. I suppose the "Shadow time" is nine o'clock: the time, the clock at the BEAR is stuck.

that some people live in the present (the landlady, Alex "Spitmoor", Lucy), some in the past. I must pay attention if the present people know the past people.
I'm not sure, to which group Prof. Hardacre belongs.

I took it to mean the flooding was what caused the rotting bodies to be washed up on the beaches and poison the waters. At the beginning of the game, I wondered if the crown had already been stolen, which in turn had caused the disastrous flooding in the first place. The flooding did not seem like a natural event.

I didn't connect it to the clock at the Bear being stuck. I wondered if the Bear, or parts of it, were being seen and/or heard "stone tape style" -- as a replay of a certain moment in the past. Remember how one time Nigel visited the Bear and heard many peoples' voices in the room, but when he entered the room there was no one there.

They seem to. At least they seem to know of them. If they aren't ghosts themselves, they at least seem to be used to living alongside ghosts.

He actually seems to belong to both. Remember there was a Hardacre who warned Nigel at night, out on the Harbour Wall. But when Nigel asks him about it next day, Hardacre doesn't know what he's talking about. Could the Hardacre that Nigel met out on the Harbour Wall be a manifestation from the future? A ghost that came into being after Hardacre was killed? Who killed Hardacre anyway? Was it Gruel or one of the Agers by way of a time slip?

Time seems confused in this game. For example, the ages of the Ager brothers. William Ager died in the 1940's, yet Thomas Ager was rector of Northfield in 1799. And some other characters look younger than events in their pasts would indicate their ages to be. So does that mean those characters are ghosts or are parts of Saxton in a time slip?

What was the significance of Thomas Ager taking Nicholas Gurney's hands and (apparently) deleting the coats of arms from his memorial? That kept Gurney's spirit from moving on and created a puzzle for Nigel. But why would Thomas Ager have bothered? Wouldn't killing him and stealing his money be enough?

And then we can go back to what caused the "April Showers" that caused all those rotting bodies to pollute the waters. Was this the result of the Agers trying to empty out the town?

There was another clock stuck at 9 o'clock somewhere in the game. I can't remember where though. Was it Ulcombe church?

Perhaps they needed to keep the people they killed trapped and suffering? So by taking Gurney's hands and removing the coat of arms maybe that was a way of trapping their souls?

the april showers caused the flooding which caused the bodies to be washed up which disturbed the deaths rest which opend the chasm (in some way). There are this two pictures of the restless souls, which Nigel took from Hadden Industries – two of the poor souls.
The flooding did not seem like a natural event to mee, too. Perhaps the experiment caused the april showers. Mr. Hadden (as written in Mr. Hares report), is interested in the chasm, in which the other world it revealed.
Question is, if Mr. Hadden caused the chasm or if he only studies it. (I want to belief he ist a good guy).

I am very fascinated from this clock. It seems, every time, Nigel enters the room, he is, as you say, in a replay of a certain moment of the past. So I beliefed, the time (9 o’clock) has some important meaning to the story – perhaps I went over the top. (But what else could “the chasm opened at shadow time” mean? – So many unanswered questions!

As I stated at the beginning, I found hints, that Nigel never left the Labor D of Hadden Industries. All he experiences is surveilled by Mr. Hadden on the monitors. So Nigel is IN the chasm, collecting data for Mr. Hadden. Time is different here, it is defined by the different soul who live/haunt in Saxton. It is not the timelin we know in our world, more the psychological time of the singel ghosts/souls.
For example, little Oliver, the child with the camera, has won the saxton snappers price since at least for years - how can that be in the real world? Little Nancy not even recognizes how much time she is waiting for her dad.

Thomas Ager writes it in his Dairy: “Gurney has seen and heard enough … I’ll take this burrowing hand of his, and bury them deep, under tombs of stone.” Taking his arms surely has something to do with honour.

In my mind while playing I was thinking that it was all an experiment by the Hadden corporation and that you really weren't "there". I figured with all of his equipment he had, it was possible to transport an individual into a photograph and live in it's world. Hence the tears in some screens and the rust
in the lower left corner of the screen next to Nigels place when it was raining. Going back into those photos lets you go back into that time period and explore. One of the reasons that Nigel kept asking the barmaid what year it was. So if Hadden wanted the lost crown, what better way to send someone back to an earlier time when those with the most knowledge were still around? Obviously he couldn't go back much further because photographs didn't exist then. With enough photographs, you could build an entire town while letting your technology fill in the gaps.

Based on when the photos were taken, it could explain a lot of the different time periods. Do they still use steam trains in the UK?!?

Did you notice that some things didn't exist until Nigel was told about them? For example at the old shed. I looked at the rocks and they were clean. I turned and talked to Lucy and she mentioned blood on them. I turned and looked at the rocks again, but this time they were covered in blood. I asked Jonathan about it thinking it might be a bug and he said it was intentional. Hmmmm.....

LOL, I too fed the pig like crazy! It didn't even occur to me that it was the same pig at the festival until I went back and saw the crate with the baby pig in it and Cairn was gone! I was saddened by it, yet found it somewhat humorous that I had been fattening up the pig for the slaughter. To me it was little details like this that showed that Jonathan had put a lot of thinking into the game.

The other part that had me laughing was when he was looking through the scope at Lucy and saying, "I can see you...." It was so much like something a guy would say. Hardacre popping in and catching it made it all the more funny.

The Jemima thing was just weird. I wonder if Gruel ever really had a wife. In the one letter that is found, it was mentioned that Gruel wanted her to meet his wife but he had a strange look when he mentioned it. I think Gruel was just insane and considered the doll his wife. When Jemima was burning in the fireplace and Gruel was crying hysterically it became obvious that he was unusually attached to that doll.

Am I one of the only ones that doesn't think Gruel was the catnapper? That whole thing seemed odd. Why was Jemima thrown into the fire? Unless there was some kind of strange force that the doll contained which made Gruel do those things. Perhaps the barmaid understood this and threw the doll in there?

I wasn't paying enough attention to notice the rocks. I didn't go look at them until after talking to Lucy!

It is a strange turn of events. Who do you think the catnapper was if it wasn't Gruel? He was indeed the author of the poison pen letters though right?

Christina Molina became ill and eventually died because of drinking the polluted water that came from below the house. Well, her husband was there quite a while before she arrived and after she died. He would've had to have been drinking water from the same source. Why did he not end up like his wife?

about the fotographs as places where Nigel can “travel” due to the technology of Mr. Hadden. Sounds much better than my idea! It fits much better.

is after the crown and opened the chasm by mistake? I don’ t want to think this bad about him. He is doing the research for a long time, since he knows so much about ghosthunting. He seems interested in the paranormal at large. It is obvious, that Mr. Hadden has technology that comes from the future, he talks about the past and the future, as if its all the same to him.
In 2008 Nigel would be more than 50 years old, considering that he was recruited in 1978, when he was (let’s say) 20 years old. Lucy has a student ID for 2007 till 2010. Somehow Mr. Hadden can controll/manipulate the time, not only via fotographs.

Hmmm… Sound interesting. We have to find more hints. There is the spell Frederick Ager created by building the nightmare room works on Mr. Gruel:”I shall build a place for the darkest desires and decorate its walls with blood …I must build a place … where the greedy will lose their soul.” His diarys are really unsane.
Is Mr. Gruel really the catnapper? He works for Frederick, that’s for sure. He observes Lucy and Nigel, the two persons in town that obviously are snooping around - a danger for the crown. Perhaps the spell is linked to the paperdoll, good idea, Ivinia.

Perhaps Edward spent most of his time outside of the home on business trips, working and The Bear? Maybe he didn't drink enough of the water at home to be poisoned by it?

So near the end, where everything starts going bad after Nigel takes the crown... That's all some sort of virtual reality test to see what would happen if it were really taken?

How does the cut scene at the beginning of the game fit in? Where the Haddon employees were so angry at Nigel for breaking in and stealing the photos? Did that actually happen or was it only part of the scenario created for Nigel?

I thought the blood that appeared was ghost blood -- residue from something that happened in the past. That the actual blood had been washed away long ago, but occasionally seemed to reappear as a ghostly manifestation.

If Gruel wasn't the catnapper, who was? And where did Jemima come from? Did one of the Ager brothers create Jemima while he was alive? Was the spirit of one of the Agers inside the doll or was the doll simply some sort of "focus" for them?

There's one point of the game where you notice more color. The sky becomes blue and the interior of Nanny Noah's house has more color the second time you visit. What did that indicate?

About the colour. I had just assumed there was more colour (the blue sky) because it was May Day and marked the end of winter, beginning of spring/summer, renewal, rebirth, etc. I did not notice the colour shift in Nanny Noah's house though the 2nd time time around.

I thought the increasing number of colors had to do with the Agers being gradually defeated. I can't remember for sure, but I think there were two times I noticed an increase in color number, one after Thomas Ager was contained at Northfield and the next after Frederick was defeated in the Net Hut (and you saw the images of two of the Agers breaking up in the painting of the Agers instead of just one).

Which reminds me of something else I didn't really understand. Why do you see Nigel's picture inside the Ager painting at one point?

did have the keys to the cottage .She could have been the one .I think the bar lady may have been the cat napper as her cat did nt go missing and as was said earlier why did she throw the doll in the fire .Did the doll have some sort of power

I have a hard time believing that a cat owner would skin and torture other peoples' cats. Besides, where is her motivation? We didn't see any sign of her being under the Agers' influence.

Agreed. Morgan Mankle, the bar owner, really didn't have much of a role or history in the game (compared to other characters) for her to have been the catnapper/torturer and creator of the nightmare room.

Nigel is 30 in TLC: when he is talking to the Vicar of Northfield Parish and the Vicar talks about himself being a newcomer, only been there 30 years, Nigel states "I am 30". I assummed the year in TLC was between Sep 7 2007 and Jun 21, 2010 because that is the effective date of Lucy's student card. So if he was recruited by Hadden in 1978, was a paranormal student (along with Polly White) in Darkfall The Journal in 2002 and 30 years old in TLC, he had to have been recruited at birth! I really wish Jonathan Boakes could clear this up.

Great observation. I forgot about that conversation with the vicar. The year in TLC should be 2008 since that is also when Lucy is "recruited" by Hadden.

Very very curious... perhaps he was recruited at birth. Could Nigel be "the experiment"? After all, he did break into the Hadden computers to view Project Dark Fall.

Maybe there will be a sequel for us to ponder Nigel's situation even further.

ETA: If Jonatham does plan on further games with Nigel and the mystery surrounding him and Hadden, then I think I don't want an explanation about his age, what Hadden does either. It would spoil it for future storytelling.

Could this Nigel Denvers be the son of the previous Nigel

Was the Nigel in the game "real?"
Or was he just a computer copy (or avatar) of the "real" one? (the "real" one being the one in Dark Fall). If the gameworld was recreated from photographs, maybe the Nigel in the game was simply an AI programmed to resemble the real Nigel. The whole game could be taking place inside one of Haddon's computers -- a simulation of what might happen if Nigel actually visited Saxton.

If this were the case, it might be a reason why Nigel's manner of speaking resembles certain voice menus, which can react to your input but which usually have choppy speech (and sometimes even speech recorded by different microphones). For example when you phone up the electric company about a power outage, and it reads back from pieces of recorded messages so you can verify your phone number where you're located. Or when you phone up for the correct time, the voice that says "The time is..." is separately recorded from the snippet that says "ten" which is separately recorded from the snippet that says "forty."

Yes, that's what I thought of too about his speech pattern after the discussion in the other Lost Crown thread. But was Nigel computer-generated or is he real. And if real, has he always been manipulated by Hadden? Because if he wasn't real why would he break into the computers to view the Project Dark Fall files?

I think Nigel is real in Dark Fall. But I think the Nigel we see in Lost Crown may be only a computer simulation that was based on Nigel. The Haddon Industries programmer fed the computer all the information he knew about the real Nigel (Nigel's personality, the type of person he was, what choices he'd make in certain situations, etc). And the computer generated this Nigel avatar. The avatar is placed in the scenario where he believe's he's stolen something from Haddon Industries and has to go into hiding in the remote village of Saxton. As far as the Nigel avatar knows, he is Nigel and he's on the run. And that's what you believe because you're playing from the avatar's point of view.

Alternatively, the theft did take place -- but only in the virtual world created by Haddon Industries. The items that were "stolen" were virtual objects in a virtual representation of Haddon Industries. The only "real" person you saw in the game may have been Mr. Haddon (who programmed the whole situation to see how it would play out).

It's possible that the avatar did something unexpected when it stole the pictures and printouts. Or maybe Mr. Haddon put the idea in its head. The two people who were talking to Mr. Haddon in the opening cut scene may or may not have been part of the simulation.

The Nigel who was a graduate student in Dark Fall doesn't necessarily have to have joined Haddon in 1978. Nor was the real Nigel necessarily on the run from Haddon Industries at any time.

Of course it's all very convoluted because we're playing a game on our computers -- a game in which we're playing as a character in another character's (Haddon's) game/simulation.

"Looking further than the here and now, Hadden strive to explore what lies ahead, before and beyond...." Mr. Hadden.

Hmmm...

When Nigel hacked into Lab D files, he downloaded two pictures. And it talked about a chasm. What if Nigel went through the chasm and everything he is experincing in Saxton is through that chasm. Also - everyone seems to know his name. Nanny know said he had been expected for sometime.

that Nigel went through that chasm. But Ivinia had a much better idea.
Seems a very good explanation to me, it explains the the time anomalies and the black-and-white-grafik of the game.

is the connection between two worlds: the normal every day world and the world of the Fenlaria (who can only walk at night and in the shadow – like ghosts). Only the crown (as stated in The Legend of Grindle and Ganwolf) holds the Fenlaria back in their world. Without the magic of the crown, the world will turn black and the Fenlaria are

Grindle offered the thief of the crown a chance to repent. But he refused. Nigel, too, got this chance. He took this opportunity. So he survived the stealing of the crown.
The last sentences of the Legend:
We see this folk at the end of the game: they surround Nigel, when he restores the crown. It took me a while to notice that no Ager brother is amongst them.

I think that at the end Lucy was reviving him on the beach after he completed all the necessary tasks using the Hadden Industry tools - he released a lot of unhappy spirits from their haunts.

In Ulcombe Church next to where the mouse trap is, you can close in on a carved figure at the end of the pews & use something on it - the camera etc etc didn't work & I was expecting to have to go back to it & do something! I never did

but Mr. Hadden surely can see somehow every step Nigel takes.

It is my opinion that he was in an induced dream-state and visited the town of Saxton. Lucy was then needed to bring him out of this dream-state. I just can't figure why he could hear the telephone, lol.

It didn't occur to me that Nigel was an avatar of some sort himself, but I was thinking along the lines of him walking through a time warp when he broke into the files at Hadden and Saxton being some sort of world manipulated by Hadden. Coincidentally, I've been doing some reading on the soul's ability to exist in parallel universes and during the game I briefly wondered if Jonathan had done some similar research and maybe that was where the game was headed.

...the game was in black and white because Saxton was generated from old b&w photos and that's why those rips were by the two churches and the rusting/negative damage happened in the rain. I was thinking that the rips were an indication of a time shift but the rust-looking spots had me completely baffled.

I just happened to have set up a nifty new monitor this afternoon and I thought it was messing up the colors when the rust colored spots suddenly appeared. Then I thought maybe it was blood but Nigel walked through it, not over it like he would if it was a stain on the ground. I kept making Nigel walk through it, trying to figure it out and finally decided it was a mystery and to just carry on. I like the theory that it was photo negative damage due to the rain. And Jonathan has experience as a photographer, so it would make sense that he would go that route.

Discrepancies to do with Nigels's age, date of employment have already been mentioned.

Lucy has a student card to tell us that she is 'contemporary' between 2007 & 2010 yet her train ticket shows a 2 part return ticket from Sedgefield to Sedgefield? that seems to be stamped 30.10 05? She doesn't believe in ghosts but seems to believe in looking into the past & future. Her aim seems to be looking for the lost cats but later in the game she spoke on the phone (that wasn't connected)to Hadden - who told her to pull Nigel back when the time was ready?

Hadden Industries was obviously based in London - which seemed to be where Nigel caught the train from (or thought he did), also the telephone number on the back of his identity card has an inner London code. The website in one of the printouts he stole has a website address (not likely I would have thought in the year he would have stolen it!)- if you check out the website it is a virtual present day site advertising the exact equipment that was sent to Nigel - therefore he recieved from Hadden future equipment in the past, if that makes sense! Also Hadden Industries, according to the website, is now based in Saxton Harbour!

The train station (old advert) & station master are from a much earlier period in time - I'm sure, as much as we criticise our rail service, that there were no steam trains used except for the tourist industry! Once you step onto the 'decking' over the fens you are in a nature reserve created in 1973. I think it's probably much later in time than that as the picture of the crabs, & the poisonous flower are crossed through indicatiing that they are no longer features of the reserve - but you still see the flowers in colour!!!

The Saxton Snappers competition urges you to ..."grab your SLR or digital device" - 1990's at least?

The newspapers found in the cave between Saxton shore & beach are in good condition, do not mention a date but you can see by the adverts & the reference to 'radio listings' that they probably precede TV days?

I'm totally baffled by most of this but one theory I thought of is that Nigel was sent 'through the chasm' to ghosthunt & exorcise the 'spirits' to prevent them being inadvertantly dragged into the present world via the chasm - as according to Mr Hare's report. The chasm seemed to be opened by the spring tides - but as reported in the newspaper they flooded a graveyard & polluted the water with rotting corpses - were these the 'entities' seen in the photos Nigel stole?

her brother, who worked undercover to solve the mystery of the missing cats. You know him als Alex Spitmoor, the gruntly journalist. Alex thought, Danvers could be the catnapper, but Lucy told him by the tower that his innocent.

look at the date at which Lucys is recruited by hadden Industries (you can see it at the end of the game: she seems to live in our time.

everything might be some kind of alternate reality that may not follow traditional rules of reality.

I've got my own weird evidence I've not seen mentioned:
On the wall of photos in the room of death, two pics show Nigel and Lucy together at a carnival, with real mechanical rides all bedecked in colored lights, OBVIOUSLY not part of the Fayre. All I can say is: WTHeck?
The other bit of weird evidence is that the payphone has strange modem-like sounds instead of the normal dial-tone, same as the background music for the computer printouts. Evidence suggesting that the phone is either hacked into by Hadden, or is some kind of link from the 'dream-world' into the outside world via the Hadden company servers, which would explain why Hadden was able to simply connect to the disconnected phone in the Harbour Cottage.
Despite all the evidence though, I still stand back and concur that some of the main plot lines don't make sense, regardless of the scenarios painted out. First the people seem to be helping Nigel find the crown. In particular the ghosts deliberately hand Nigel clues. Then he is warned that all is not what it seems, but it IS what it turns out to be what it seems.
Morgan Mankle in particular is ill-fitted. She seems somewhat older than Lucy, who described her as a bully in school.
Hardacre is killed, supposedly because he possesses the crown. (how is one killed by a sickle and not shed any blood?) Then the crown is not where he died, but hidden away. Nigel, the thief himself, got all the way into town and hid the crown without harm. Maybe it took time for the guardians to manifest and by then the crown was in different hands. Personally I think ghosts are insubstantial, even in this game, and somebody alive killed him.
If Hadden is controlling everything though, all bets are off and anything illogical can be explained by his duex-ex-machina interference, which is why I do not prefer that angle.

Your remark about the photos is very interesting. I too noticed the modem-like sounds. This seems to hint in the direction of an alternative reality; meanwhile Nigel’s body never left the laboratory of Hadden Industries.
I was surprised about the people of Saxton who helped Nigel and later were angry. Perhaps they thought he would act different. The dreamlike sequence, in which Nigel is part of the painting of the Ager brothers seems to point in this direction.

I hadn't thought of the whole thing taking place in an alternate reality or computer simulation. I'll have to mull that over to see if it makes any sense to me.

the ghosts and the townspeople seem to help Nigel find the Crown, and in fact, are eager to help him do it. Nanny Noah says repeatedly, "He could be the one who could change everything," as if that would be a good thing. But then when Nigel does find the Crown, no one (with the exception of Bob Tawny and the Reubenses) will admit to knowing him or wants to have anything to do with him. What's up with that?

I also am not convinced it was really Gruel. Yeah, okay, he was a loon, but he didn't seem like a dangerous loon.

the vicar of Northfield?? he says the portrait on the wall behind him--which is clearly one of the Agers--was an ancestor of his from way back. I really expected that to have some significance but it never did. In fact, I expected to find out the vicar was the catnapper. Also, when we take the funeral announcement to Nanny Noah she says,"there's a new vicar already?" or something like that. Yet the Vicar says he's been there 30 years.

the whole thing was somewhat rushed from the time we took the crown (Wow, I would have liked a way NOT to do that!!). I really didn't like the Dea Ex Machina ending, myself. But the rapidity with which the ending occurred as well as the fact that all it took was Nigel's saying he wanted to put it back for that to transport him to the caverns does kind of point to the whole thing's being a simulation or experiment of some kind. I think.

when we were in the cavern putting the crown back, surrounded by ghostly figures, one of the ghostly figures was Lucy?

Maybe they wanted him to do something else -- like free the spirits that were trapped or defeat the Agers? Remember how at certain points in the game, after Nigel had accomplished something along those lines, that there was more color in the game. I noticed it mainly at two points -- in Nanny Noah's house, the second time Nigel was invited in, and when the blue sky appeared.

I suppose the theory of having different time periods existing simultaneously could explain the Agers as well (4 men of the same name always referred to as "brothers" yet clearly not of the same times). Yet for me it doesn't jibe with the story of Grindle and Granwulf, which gave the impression that you would have a bunch of incredibly long-lived people watching out for the Crown. That's what I thought the folk of Saxton were, not all ghosts.

DH has a problem with the Agers ultimately in that he thinks that having such evil men going about a task my such evil means watching over the Crown infers that their purpose is innately evil, which would mean the Crown was meant to be found. But I don;t know that I agree with that.

I also join those who do not believe Mr Greul was the cat killer.

I believe Morgan threw Jemima in the fire after some sort of conflict with Greul.

I think I should point out that not all Saxton residents cheer Nigel on on his search for the crown. Except for the ghosts that provide the actual clues, most of the townspeople expressed misgivings if not outright hostility towards the crown being found and removed.

I clearly remember Nanny Noah tell Nigel that things that are lost sometimes should remain that way, Lucy argue against him that it was not his to take and Professor Oogle also discouraging Nigel from searching for it, though he seems to have a change of heart during the fair.

I noticed the tears but thought them a visual clue that something is wrong with the time, and never noticed the discoloration other describe after the crown is found . Now that it has been mentioned though (hi Ivinia, nik2008ofs from JAF here ), I really like the idea of Saxton being a computer-generated reconstruction using old photos, though it doesn't explain everything. Surely such a virtual world could and would smooth certain discrepancies over automatically, like the date on the package Hadden sends to Nigel, who himself thinks he lives in our time?

Btw, I thought that the whole cast being around the tomb in ghostly form before Nigel returns the crown meant that the power behind it (Grindel? the old kings? perhaps even Hadden?) somehow held their spirits/souls/consciousness/whatever captive, and that was the reason they didn't recognize Nigel, not simple refusal to acknowledge him out of anger or disappointment. And the fact that Lucy finally breaks the silence and helps is because Nigel tells her, and through her the power behind the mess that he wants to return the crown.

Hadden Industries found a way to access the spiritual world using computer generated virtual worlds. Then one of 2 possibilities – they send someone in as an experiment to see what happens, or they know about the Lost Crown, and want to find it for themselves.
I believe that Nigel, Lucy, Alex and possibly a few others (Morgan, Professor Oogle and Rys) are contempory people. Nigel and Lucy work for Hadden and are friends (hence the pictures of them) . Nigel is sent into the virtual computer world of Saxton as an avatar, and is given a new life history (1978, stole documents, being persued). Saxton is virtual world based on information that Hadden gets from Hardacre. Prior to Nigel going into Saxton, they sent in Hardacre as the first experiment. I think he dies in the process. That’s why he appears in the game as both an avatar and a spirit.
Saxton is populated by both spirits and avatars of people made up by Hadden, possible based on people they used to get information to create Saxton in the first place. The non-spirit avatars – Alex, Morgan, etc.- have preprogrammed behavior. Only Nigel ( and Lucy to some extent on an off and on basis) is able to change events, and act independently
While Nigel is in Saxton, he communes with the spirit world. He also develops the desire to find the Lost Crown for himself. While interacting with the spirits, he is able to help a few, thus sending them to rest. Some he cannot help – Rose and Bob’s grief over their lost son, Gruel’s dementia from losing Jemima. He also encounters evil spirits, the Agers. As he exposes their crimes, their evil influence disappears. When he actually has the Lost Crown in his possession, he has a dream of what happened to Hardacre when he had the Lost Crown. That dream becomes a virtual reality the next day. Because of the attitude of the inhabitants and his belief that the power of the Crown protects Saxton (perhaps even being the power source that allows he spirits to roam), he has second thoughts. Hadden then wants to pull him back using Lucy. Perhaps they want Nigel to bring out the Crown, or they feel Nigel’s life was in danger like Hardacre’s.
Nigel goes back to return the Crown, and is supported in his endeavor by Saxton’s residents. He is returned to the present successfully.

who was the ghost in the crypt that kept throwing stones at Nigel even after all the other ghosts had been exorcised? He seemed to be a very tortured soul - mark the way he appears in contrast to other ghosts; this one seems to be in pain while the others stand still for most of the time. I still haven't figured out who that might have been.

some people Nigel meets are ghosts - the couple at Ager House, for example, or Nanny Noah. I thought that was quite obvious; however, I was a little puzzled by Hardacre - in the first night, he seems to fade while on the next day, he can't remember a thing about having talked to Nigel. This, of course, would be evidence for there being different time shifts - makes sense to me.

the black mist. I know Nigel exorcised at least three of the Agers - what about the fourth one? Which one or what manifested himself/itself as that black mist? I can't figure that one out.

the painting of the crow tree in the musuem? I thought it was really important since both Nigel and Prof. Oogle talked about it, hinting that there might be some clues hidden in the painting. But then I never got to go back to the painting, it just slipped from the game...

Hardacre seems to disappear in the first night, when Nigel follows him - he looks ghostlike and warns Nigel about the crown. Since later in the game Hardacre is killed because he got his hands on the crown, this could be actually his ghost, visiting from the future to warn Nigel. That would also explain why Hardacre doesn't remember anything about it the next day.

What was up with the six Hardacres towards the end of the game? Why six identical ghosts of the same person? You should think that one ghost should be sufficient when it comes to guiding Nigel to the cellar.