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Day of the Dead

Dia de los Muertos figurine, photo by Merlina McGovern

It's the day after Halloween, and there's something mournful about taking our Halloween decorations down after the parade of tiny trick-or-treaters have all gone home. I traveled a bit this month, so didn't get to partake of a lot of fall fun, like apple picking, haunted hay rides, or visits to the Topsfield fair. Nothing especially spooky about Manila, which is where I was traveling, in October (well, that is, if you don't count the double whammy of landing just as super typhoon Lando was hitting and feeling the rolling tremors of an earthquake during a meeting).

But, with my collection of Dia de los Muertos figurines, there's always a bit of Halloween in the McGovern household, even after the ghosts have all flitted away. The photo in this post is a wedding set crafted by the same artist, Javier Benites, as a figurine highlighted in a previous post. They look so dapper in all their macabre finery, don't they?

I started off this Day of the Dead failing miserably at sleeping in for the end of daylight saving time. Instead, I woke up at 4am — no better time than the crack of dawn to play through a nice little Halloween game. I've been following Jonathan Boakes, an independent game dev, for a while now. He's put together some of the most atmospheric adventure horror games around. One of my absolute favorites is The Lost Crown, a third-person jaunt through the sleepy, but very spooky, town of Saxton.

It's a slow burn, but playing at night with my headphones on led to some of the biggest scares I've had playing any game. I've been waiting for years to play further games in this wonderfully imagined world set in a quaint fishing village off the coast of England. I knew that the next game in the series, Blackenrock was going to be released this year, but I was happily surprised to learn that a teaser game had made a Halloween appearance. The Last Crown, Midnight Horror, is a little amuse-bouche set in the same town as The Lost Crown, with many of the old familiar faces making an appearance, like the enigmatic Nanny Noah and the surly Morgan Mankle.

Screenshot of a full moon and the old Net Hut in Midnight Horror

It was a few hours of playing, and a tiny bit rough around the edges. But it was so wonderful to be exploring the mist-filled village again, bumping into old friends and ghostly figures. It's certainly gotten me super excited for the release of Blackenrock, which should be coming out this month. 

Blackenrock teaser trailer

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