Darkness Falls

Darkness Falls (DF) is the fifth game set in the Elsaverse. It represents a drastic change from previous games created by Tora Productions, as it was released in an episodic manner and not as a full game; also, although there is erotic content in Darkness Falls, the goal is not to build a romantic relationship with the main female character, but to solve crimes playing as a detective from the Sangrive Police Department. As developers stated, the elevator pitch for this game is, "CSI meets the X-Files in the Elsaverse."

Darkness Falls first season was produced in parallel with Coming to Grips with Christine, another game set in a different fictional universe, with each game releasing a chapter once every two months; the also episodic novella AAA was then added to this tight schedule, and this workload eventually led the team to suffer some light crunch issues near the end of the development cycle, although they achieved to deliver the three titles on their initially promised deadlines. DF first chapter was released on April 1, 2018, for Tora Productions' $10 patrons, going public a couple of weeks later; the first season was completed on December 1, 2018, after five chapters, and it was publicly released as a whole game on January 15, 2019, alongside with its complementary title AAA. Two exact months later, on March 15, 2019, the first chapter of the second season was released for $10 patrons, but then Tora Productions' writer, Tlaero, suddenly announced her retirement on April 19, 2019, and the game was put on hold; as the second chapter of this second session, and seventh overall, was already in an advanced state of production, it was released for patrons on May 15, 2019. All those seven episodes were released in Tora Productions' classic HTML format; the official Ren'Py port came out on July 28, 2021, and the whole Darkness Falls series is also included in the Elsaverse Omnibus Vol.1 bundle that was released on August 5, 2021.

Darkness Falls starts on a Saturday, one day after the incident covered in the short story FM: Alpha (2017), and its story gets intertwined with the games Redemption for Jessika (2016) and Finding Miranda (2016), as well as with the novella AAA, adding a whole new level of depth to the Elsaverse. This time setting, however, also constraints some of the investigations in the first season, as the canon was already set for some cases. The second season was totally free of those limitations, as there weren't any stories already written after the events on Saving Chloe (2018), but only two episodes were released before the game got canceled, with the short story Won: Darkness Within (2019) wrapping up one of the pivotal storylines of that second season.

Premise
The player takes the role of Nathaniel Blake, a hardened Sangrive police detective who has just been assigned a new partner: a young and brilliant female detective, called Michelle Won, who has a secret, turbulent past she's still not ready to share. Daily tensions of the job and the new work dynamics will be aggravated by some serious and apparently unrelated crimes with one thing in common: they seem humanly impossible to explain. And when the impossible becomes the only possible explanation, a very specific someone from Internal Affairs who seems to be in the know won't make things any easier for Blake.

Season 1
Darkness Falls first session consists of 4 cases that make for 5 chapters, with the last case being a double episode season finale. The story covers a three-week period from Michelle Won's first day at work to Blake's and Won's realization of powers's existence.

Case 1: Fire and Ice
Darkness Falls first episode starts with Blake daydreaming about his former partner, who was forced to leave his job due to his drug addiction. Blake is then summoned to the Captains's office to meet his new partner: Michelle Won, a young detective who has been transferred from another city, named Downriver, where her colleagues accused her of having caused the death of her former partner by not helping him during an ambush. Their first case is the identification of a woman's corpse who has been found naked, with an unusual grimace of terror on her face, and burnt fingerprints. They speak with the assistant pathologist, Jannike, a weird young woman with an obvious lack of social skills, who confirms that the victim was not raped, and died of a heart attack: looking at her face, Won conjectures that she actually died from a panic attack. Detectives go to a food court in a business park, where they think the woman may have eaten for the last time; it's the same food court where Miranda and Lucas had lunch the day before in the game Finding Miranda (2016). Blake and Won talk to Sylvia, who is there on duty, and the police officer confirms that the victim's name is Lucile: she was the woman that was threatened by a gunman, as it was seen in Finding Miranda and FM: Alpha (2017). Watching the incident's footage, Won takes an interest in Xara, as she finds it striking how that blind woman was able to move with such confidence and defuse the situation with the gunman.

This information, however, is not enough to solve the case, as the gunman was immediately arrested after the incident and wasn't involved in Lucile's death. When the detectives question him, Patrick Bower says that he only wanted to teach Lucile a lesson for ignoring his romantic advances, and confesses that he just did what a red-haired man, whose name he never asked, told him to do. Detective Won then shows him a picture of Charles Reyes she has on her phone, and Patrick confirms that he is the man who convinced him to shoot Lucile. However, the investigation comes to a dead end: at this point, no one has any information about Charles' actual identity, and Won only has this picture taken at Mayhem's concert that Gary, the prosecutor, has been moving around his contacts since last afternoon. As Lucile died of a natural cause, and there's no clue about who left her naked body abandoned, Blake files this case with the rest of his unsolved cases; Won, who was about to go home, sees this and offers to stay and go over some of those 30 other cases, as a sign of dedication, work ethics and goodwill towards her new partner.

Case 2: Dead Man's Switch
The second chapter takes place the following Tuesday. Blake and Won are ordered to go to a software company, where a coder has been found hanged after apparently committing suicide. However, the detectives soon detect that he was probably murdered, and Won thinks that the security guard who found the body is indeed the main suspect. On their way to interview the company's CEO, Won meets one of her informants, a young female hacker named Joan, who tells them that a colleague of hers is missing and has released some sensitive data, which could imply that he is dead. It seems obvious that this hacker is the same guy who died last night, and the released data contains a video of his CEO having sex with one of his assistants. When Blake interviews the CEO, he confirms that the dead man was blackmailing him with that video, but he was dealing with it in a reasonable way. The actual motive for the crime turns out to be a stupid argument the coder had with the security guard, who choked the victim and then tried to make it look like a suicide. The guard eventually confesses and, with the case solved, Blake takes Won to his favorite food truck, where they eat ramen without noticing a mysterious figure spying on them. In the AAA novella, it will be explained that this person is Anastasia Bertradino, who was trying to assess the detectives' worth.

Case 3: Bomb Track
The third episode of the first season of Darkness Falls shows how the Sangrive Police Department reacted to the bombing at the Mayoral rally that was narrated in Redemption for Jessika. That Thursday starts calm, with Won playing poker with Jannike, the weird assistant pathologist who seemed unable to interact normally with living people, and Blake flirting with Eve, the department's shy admin. When he comes to see his partner, Won tells Blake that she has found Xara and signed up for her martial arts lessons, as Won likes to be around the interesting people in the city. Then the bomb goes off, and when the Captain gives assignments to detectives and officers, Blake and Won don't receive any tasks. Surprised, Won protests and asks to help in any way she can; after Blake assures him that everything will be okay, the Captain reluctantly agrees to send them to the scene. When they arrive at the bombing site, the decorated detective leading the investigation, Karen Thorntree, seems concerned for Blake's well-being; when he insists he's okay, Detective Thorntree instructs them to interview the key witnesses of the attack, Jessica Springfield and Marc. Won realizes that the bombing is a sore spot for Blake and his old colleagues are trying to protect him, but she understands he's not ready to talk about it and acts supportively. Then, Won asks Jessica and Marc about the incident, and when they mention Charles Reyes, Blake suddenly remembers the still anonymous (for them) main suspect from their first case, although he doesn't understand why his mind has made that connection, as the Reyes family has never been investigated for any crime and he doesn't even know how Charles actually looks like. However, when Won shows Jessica the picture of the man who convinced Patrick Bower to shoot Lucile, Jessica confirms that he is indeed Charles. AAA will explain that Amanda Reid, who was near them disguised as a reporter, was trying to put Charles' image in Blake's mind.

After receiving their report, Detective Thorntree orders Blake and Won to go and talk to Charles' father, Morland Reyes, to do some digging. Morland denies all accusations about his son being related to the bombing, providing an alibi for Charles and stating that Jessica is not exactly a trustful witness; he also tries to make the detectives suspicious of his daughter Chloe and asks them to let him know about her current whereabouts, since he doesn't know where is she. During their conversation, it's revealed that Blake's daughter, Brenda, with whom he has a cold relationship, is also a police officer. The conclusions that Blake and Won get from the interview are that Morland could actually be the mastermind behind the bombing and that they should covertly look for Chloe, to get more information from her and protect her from her father.

Case 4.1: Fade Away
The first part of this double episode starts on a Friday, a couple of weeks after the bombing; up to that point, none of Blake and Won's inquiries have been successful to even link Morland to the attack, and the Sangrive Police Department as a whole has been unable to make any progress in their search for the actual perpetrators. Blake has taken the morning off to go to a graveyard, where he meets Miranda, who was already there, waiting for him. Although her presence is a bit of a surprise for Blake, they seem to have a friendly relationship since they met in some Blake's previous case, most likely the one that resulted in Miranda's coma. Miranda tells him that she is feeling better thanks to her new boyfriend, and asks Blake to talk to someone about his own problem. When Miranda leaves, it's revealed that the grave Blake has come to visit belongs to a woman called Samantha Blake, who died exactly two years ago.

Next, Detective Blake is ordered to go to a crime scene, where Won is already present: someone has just killed a street prostitute. The victim has been stabbed, but the wound is quite strange: although there is no longer a blade in her body, the skin is torn only inward, as if the weapon had never been removed from the victim's body. The only witness, another prostitute, affirms that a hooded man threw a knife at the victim's chest from some distance; then, the knife just vanished into thin air. Pathologists are equally baffled by the wound, and a visit to an armory to talk to a weapons expert only reveals that a guy who fits with the suspect's description wanted to buy a battle axe but eventually purchased a military knife that could cause a similar entry wound, when thrown. The problem is that it would be impossible to take the knife out of the body without causing a totally different wound. Blake and Won end the day with no meaningful progress, fearing that they might be dealing with a potential serial killer.

On his way home, Blake sees Jannike, the assistant pathologist, walking in the rain, and he offers her a ride in his car. The young woman, who is attracted to him, is annoyed by other cops' comments about her social awkwardness and confesses to Blake that she is a nymphomaniac who only feels at ease among corpses, as that's the only moment when her sexual urges seem to recede. She then invites him to her apartment for a long sex session, and Blake experiences a strange sensation: every time he is about to climax, Jannike's body seems to give him a small electric shock that keeps him from orgasming, making the encounter last much longer than usual for him. Meanwhile, the murderer has killed again.

Case 4.2: Fade Away
The second part of this season finale starts the next morning, when Blake goes to a new crime scene: this time, three young girls have been murdered. Two of them have wounds similar to that of the prostitute that was killed the previous day, while the other has been beheaded, most likely with a battle axe. Checking the victims' identities, Won realizes that one of them is a neighbor of hers. Blake and Won bring the sad news to the victim's sister, who tells them that, the night before, the three friends went to a party at "El Cuerpo" nightclub. Detectives go there and talk to Serena, who was the DJ at last night's party, and the bouncer, Vince, who confirms that the three victims left the club with a shady, hooded guy in a rented limousine. Blake and Won visit the limo rental office, where a terrified driver first tries to run away from them. Won runs after him and the man clumsily trips and falls off; after being caught, he confesses that he drove his client to "El Cuerpo", waited for him until he picked up three girls at the club, and then left everyone at the crime scene still alive; however, the guy threatened to kill him if he told anyone about him.

Thanks to the credit card the suspect used to pay for the limo, and with the help of her hacker friend, Joan, Won gets the name of the serial killer, Brandon Henderson, and his address. As they wait for him to show up at home, Won seems uneasy, as if this waiting were reminding her of a past trauma, and Blake decides it's time to tell her about his own, as Miranda suggested. He explains that his wife, Samantha, cheated on him because he was not there enough due to his job; soon after they divorced, she ended up dying in a bizarre incident involving a bomb: to get the insurance money, someone planted an explosive device in the company next door to where she was working at, and she was a collateral victim of the explosion. Blake somehow feels guilty about it, as the divorce pushed Samantha to get that job, and he was the one who found her body. Won feels honored for him sharing his story with her, but at that same moment the suspect appears and the detectives run after him. They manage to corner Brandon and ask him to surrender, but he refuses to do so and drags out a knife, and both Blake and Won shoot him. However, the murderer, who is a young man who complains because pretty girls force him to be a virgin, disappears for a few instants, dodging the bullets: apparently, he has the power to dissipate himself for a short time. He then throws a knife at Blake, sticking it into his chest; almost magically, the knife vanishes into thin air and appears again in Brandon's hands. This is what he presumably did with the prostitute the day before; fortunately, Blake is wearing a vest under his shirt, as Won suggested to him that morning. But he is wounded nonetheless, and now Brandon is going to attack Won.

As the man is about to throw the knife at Won, an unknown woman shows up and seems to stop his arm with the power of her mind, though she fails to last it long. With Brandon ready to kill the newcomer, a blonde woman catches his attention and provokes him to throw the knife at her instead; surprisingly, she manages to dodge it. Losing energy on each try, Brandon throws and retrieves the knife several times without succeeding in hurting the blonde woman, who amazingly anticipates his every move. Finally, a third woman suddenly appears right next to Brandon and knocks him out with a crowbar. Shocked by what she has just witnessed, Won tries to talk to the three women, but the third one vanishes into thin air, and the other two ask the detective to let them escape before more cops appear, as they just wanted to help and are afraid of the consequences that they could face if their powers become of public knowledge. They promise to talk to her later and Won eventually agrees to let them go. In the AAA novella, it's revealed that these three mysterious women are Alexis, Amanda Reid, and Anastasia Bertradino, and that they have been secretly involved in other parts of the story.

After the clash with Brandon Henderson, Detective Blake is put on administration leave due to his injury. One afternoon, he is visited at home by Lara, the Internal Affairs officer who always investigates him, and whom he has a secret sexual affair with. Officially, she's there to assess whether he's fit for duty; however, her interest is not focused on Blake's wound but on his report. Blake and Won agreed to not mention on their reports the three mysterious girls that solved the situation, but both detectives stated the inexplicable things that Brandon was able to do; now, Lara says that she has already convinced Won to change her version, and asks Blake to do the same, as people shouldn't know about Brandon's unnatural abilities. Guessing that Lara knows much more than she lets on, Blake insists, and she tells him about Theresa, the waitress at the Delfinos restaurant, who can tell if someone is lying better than a lie detector. Implying that her bosses just don't want those powers to be known by the general public, Lara eventually convinces Blake to change his report too, assuring him that Won's career won't be affected, and promising to tell him something more in the future about what's going on. When Blake agrees, Lara starts to unbutton her shirt.

Season 1 Achievements
During the first season of Darkness Falls, players can get up to 7 achievements. Most of them are related to the detective skills shown by Blake, and players can get all of them in one single playthrough.


 * "Ep1": Find the two bonus points in chapter 1. One point is earned by visiting the right food court on the first try; the other one is achieved by getting all the info when questioning Patrick Bower.
 * "Ep2": Find the two bonus points in chapter 2. The first point is earned by finding all the evidence at the crime scene; for the second one, Blake must notice the dust on the CEO's desk.
 * "Ep3": Find the two bonus points in chapter 3. There's one point to be earned by flirting with Eve, and another one for getting on Morland's good side by acting politely and making him talk about Chloe.
 * "Ep4": Find the two bonus points in chapter 4. One point is earned by getting a statement from the prostitute; the other one is achieved by accepting Jannike's invitation.
 * "Ep5 Consistency": Most of Blake's answers to Won during the first 5 chapters must fall into one of the three possible categories: antagonistic, mysterious, or respectful towards her.
 * "Ep5 Detective": Treat Won's neighbor, "El Cuerpo's" manager, and the limo's driver with respect, as all of them are mere witnesses and not suspects.
 * "Ep5 End": Reach the end of the first season.

Bonus Scene
In the original HTML game, after getting all of the 7 achievements from the first season, a bonus scene was unlocked. In the Ren'Py version, though, with the two sessions presented as one single game, the bonus scene is unlocked by getting 7 out of the 10 total achievements. The scene itself is the continuation of the first season's last scene, depicting Blake's sexual encounter with Lara after her visit. During the scene, it's stated that they only started to get physical after Blake's divorce; although it's hinted that both of them have developed some feelings for each other, they know their relationship can't be anything else than a secret sex affair, due to their respective roles in the Police.

Sex Scenes
One of the main differences between Darkness Falls and the previous games in the Elsaverse is the low amount of explicitly erotic content. While Blake tends to fantasize about the women he meets, picturing them naked or involved in some sexual acts, those daydreaming moments are usually dealt with in just a single picture, not always explicit. Won, Lara, Jessica, Jannike, Serena, and the receptionist from the second case, are the protagonists in Blake's vivid imagination. There are only two actual sex scenes in DF: the first one, completely optional, takes place in the fourth episode when Jannike invites Detective Blake home; the second one is the bonus scene with Lara.

As Darkness Falls has no gallery of scenes, the bonus scene is the only one that can be replayed out of the regular game.

Season 2
Darkness Falls second season starts on a Tuesday, just two days after the final events of Saving Chloe (2018). A couple of weeks have passed since Blake's injuries during the first season's last episode; now, on his return to active duty, Blake and Won will have to solve new ordinary cases while being also assigned to any case that might involve unnatural powers. However, Tlaero's sudden retirement left the season unfinished after only two chapters that cover a couple of days of in-game time.

Case 6: Normalcy
The second season kicks off with Blake's return to active duty after recovering from the wound suffered in the previous episode's confrontation. He discusses Lara's visit with Won, and she lets him know about her meeting with the three women with powers that helped them, and who call themselves "Triple A". Then, the detectives go to talk to the Captain, who scolds them for lying in the rectified version of their reports. However, since he realizes there's something big going on, he tells them that, from then on, they will be assigned any paranormal-looking case, reporting exclusively to him; he'll then deal with Internal Affairs. Their first case of the week, however, seems like a simple one: a woman named Anju has been missing since last Friday night. After talking to the girl's grandmother, who claims that her dearest Anju is an accountant, Blake and Won discover that the missing girl is actually a stripper. When they visit her club, they meet another dancer, Cotton Candy, who seems to have a power: she can read people's body language and know what they are actually thinking and feeling. A mutual attraction seems to arise between the stripper and Won, who then confesses to Blake that she has no gender preferences when it comes to sex.

When they talk to the strip club's manager, the detectives learn that girls often prostitute themselves outside the club with some club clients, for which they first ask the manager to run a brief background check on the client. They discover that Anju left the club with one of those men after finishing her shift on Friday night, and that presumably that client was staying at El Rey Casino. Once at the casino, Blake and Won ask the receptionists for help; after a brief discussion, in which the receptionists mention that Morland has also been missing for a couple of days, one of them tells the detectives the suspect's room number. As they get to the room's door, Won hears muffled cries for help and bursts into the room, breaking down the door. The detectives manage to free the stripper, who had been kidnapped and abused for three days. The episode ends with Cotton Candy, or Candace, as that's her real name, showing up at the police station to congratulate Won and take her out.

Case 7: Promises
The second chapter of DF second season starts with Blake having dinner with Lara at the Delfinos. They are there for the detective to meet Theresa, the waitress who is a lie detector. In a conversation in which both officers show their mutual distrust, Theresa claims that Lara has always treated her well, and also that, when Lara says she wants to help Blake, she means it; however, when Lara asks Theresa if she knows more people with powers, she says no, and Blake gets the impression she is lying. But the most surprising event comes when Lara asks Blake that same question: he lies and says he doesn't know anyone else with powers, and Theresa covers him. The Internal Affairs investigator, however, seems to doubt her lie detector.

Back at the police station, the Captain assigns detectives Blake and Won which seems to be another ordinary case, although a very sensitive one: the son of some Anne Kruin's friends has been found dead in his fraternity house after a college party, and the Mayoral candidate, whose campaign is based on the police's inability to solve crimes like the bombing attack a few weeks ago, is demanding the boy's death to be investigated as a murder, although it doesn't seem likely. The mention of the case's political implications seems to seriously affect Won, and the Captain tries to support her, asking her to just do her job well, without worrying about the consequences. In their preliminary report, the pathologists indicate that the death was probably due to severe brain damage, which seems to put the murder hypothesis to rest, although they can't possibly understand what could have caused such an extensive damage. On their way to the university, Won mentions that, just like Morland, Xara is nowhere to be found and her lessons have been suddenly canceled, which seems odd, and she is willing to investigate it, although it can't be officially considered a case.

As soon as the detectives arrive at the fraternity house, all witnesses say that the victim, Brian Case, was in his room with a girl, whom they heard screaming before watching her leave in a hurry. Everything points to the boy suffering a seizure and the girl screaming in panic and running away; however, another witness, a girl named Brenda, mentions that the dead guy tricked her once to go up to his room, where she was nearly gang-raped by Brian and his roommate, a slightly retard friend of him nicknamed "Rollerblade". Blake and Won then go to this other boy's home, where his mother tries to prevent them from talking to him, claiming that he has the mentality of a small child. But Rollerblade bursts into the living room and explains that the girl they wanted "to have fun with" shrieked and then his friend died, not the other way around. Won understands that the mother is trying to cover her son's wrongdoings and asks if they have ever paid other girls for their silence, and the mother just throws Blake and Won out of the house.

With the vague description they have of the girl who was in the room that night, detectives return to the campus and interview a student who ends up confessing that she killed Brian Case: he lured her up to his room and, when she realized he was going to rape her with his friend, she screamed very loudly, blowing his brains out. The young woman, named Sarah Murray, claims that she didn't know she was capable of doing something like that, although she has always been able to convey a lot of coldness and disdain with her voice. Won tries to comfort her, and then discusses with Blake what to do: Sarah clearly has a power, so their duty is to hand her over to Lara, but Won thinks that maybe the "Triple A" could help Sarah better. The chapter ends with the player's decision on the issue.

Season 2 Achievements
In Darkness Falls second season, players can get up to three different achievements, that can be unlocked in one single playthrough.


 * "Ep6 Thorough": Find all of the clues in Aju's bedroom.
 * "Ep7 Attentive": Choose at first try the right student to question, according to the witnesses' descriptions.
 * "Ep7 Choice": Play till the end of episode 7, making the last choice.

In the 2021 Ren'Py version, these three achievements count against the 7 achievements needed to unlock the bonus scene.

Sex Scenes
Season 2 represents a slight change regarding erotic content, with more lewd pictures per chapter than in Season 1. In the first episode, Blake pictures the missing woman, Anju, in her stripper attire; later on, he daydreams about the other stripper, Cotton Candy, doing a lapdance for Won, and then about both girls making out. Also, Anju is naked when they rescue her, although those pics aren't intended to be erotic.

The second chapter is way more sexually charged.

Characters
Darkness Falls has a wide cast of characters, with a core of regular names that appear in most episodes, and many minor characters that are only featured in one single case. For a full profile on them, please check their respective character wiki page.

Main Characters

 * Nathaniel Blake is the player's character (PC). An expert detective from the Sangrive Police Department, he's in his late forties or early fifties and has a high percentage of solved cases on his record: 371 out of 403 at the start of the story. Blake has a vivid imagination and tends to daydream about different situations he faces, especially if they are of a lewd nature but he is grounded and knows how to do his job. His previous partner has just been forced to retire because of a drug addiction that Blake tried to cover, and now he has just been assigned a new, young partner. It is up to the player to decide whether Blake will treat her respectfully, bluntly, or detachedly; either way, Blake will eventually admit that he's impressed by Won's skills and care for people, which reminds him of his own attitude when he was younger. He has a daughter, Brenda, who is also a police officer, but their relationship seems cold and distant, which probably has something to do with the death of his ex-wife, Samantha, in a tragic accident that still haunts Blake. Other than that, not much is known about his life and hobbies, except that he likes Japanese food from a particular street food truck, reading, listening to jazz music, and women: in the game he's seen flirting with Eve, having sex with Jannike and Lara, and seems to be known in the precinct for his romance skills, although he draws the line on his colleagues.


 * Michelle Won is the female protagonist, although she is not a love interest for Blake. She is a newcomer to Sangrive, after requesting a transfer from her former assignment in Downriver, where her colleagues accused her of having abandoned her partner, who was killed in an ambush; she claims that she just told him not to go there and wait for backup, but he didn't listen. Internal Affairs eventually cleared her of any wrongdoing, but she chose to move away from that place. Energetic and intuitive, she seems a bit hot-tempered and prone to jump to conclusions, but she is also reflexive and resourceful, as well as a hard worker; she cares for people and is open to learning from her new, expert partner, while also being a great fan of famous Detective Karen Thorntree. During the story it is hinted that she has a turbulent and traumatic past, somehow related to politics; it seems clear that she has been in the army, and she also reveals that she is sexually attracted to both men and women, as she just sees the person, not the gender: Won is depicted starting a relationship with a stripper named Candace. Following her motto of keeping close to interesting people, she finds her way to befriend Jannike, and signs up for Xara's martial arts lessons; she is also acting as a motherly figure for Joan, a young hacker she already knew before moving to Sangrive.

Also starring

 * Captain is Blake's and Won's boss. His real name is never disclosed. He's been serving in that role for several years, and his usually scowled face reflects his grumpy attitude. However, he's quite sensitive and empathic with his subordinates, as he shows when Won seems deeply affected by the political implications of the last case. Even though he doesn't seem willing to accept the powers' existence due to their supernatural origin, the Captain is positive they actually exist, as he is sure that Blake and Won wouldn't lie on their reports; for that reason, he decides to assign every potential power-related case to both detectives, asking them to keep reporting directly to him.


 * Jannike is the assistant pathologist. She's a young and brilliant professional, but with an absolute lack of social skills. Among her many quirks, she seems to interact with corpses in a much more natural way than with living people. Apparently attracted to both Blake and Won, she calls them "Ice Man" and "Fire Lady" due to their respective personalities; they are two of the few people who treat her with respect, as most officers tend to cruelly joke about her weirdness. Won tries to befriend her, using poker to help Jannike read people's faces and intentions; however, Jannike is more experienced in social interactions than Detective Won imagines, as she is a nymphomaniac: for instance, the weapon expert from episode 4 seems to know her, and not only professionally. As Jannike confesses to Blake, her sexual urges only disappear when she deals with corpses, which is why she voluntarily distances herself from people, and also the reason why she can act so naturally with the dead, as she's not distracted by those urges. During her sexual encounter with Blake, it's hinted that she has a power of some kind, as she seems able to send electric shocks to her sex partners to delay their orgasms.


 * Lara is the Internal Affairs investigator who always takes care of Blake's incidents. She's a classy middle-aged woman, and quite good at her job, according to Blake. After Blake's divorce, they started a furtive relationship of a sexual nature, as their jobs don't allow them to establish a public and romantic one. Surprisingly, Lara is more than aware of the powers' existence, as she is sent to make Won and Blake change their initial reports on Brandon Henderson. During her conversations with Blake, Lara implies that powers are known for some higher ranks she's not allowed to disclose, who want to keep the secret hidden from the general population. To make Blake trust her on this, she brings him to the Delfinos restaurant to meet Theresa, the waitress who can detect lies. Lara assures that she has Theresa's best interests at heart and has never mistreated her, and Theresa agrees with that; however, when Blake states that he doesn't know any other people with powers, Theresa says he is not lying, and Lara doesn't seem to believe her.


 * Eve is the Captain's admin. She is a shy girl who seems to pass her iddle time fantasizing about Blake, who likes to flirt with her. This flirtation has slowly made Eve a little more daring, to the point of even flirting back. In Episode 3, she admits that she likes to be oggled by Blake and that she looks to him too.


 * Charlotte is the Head Medical Examiner, and Jannike's boss. At the start of Darkness Falls, she is on medical leave after breaking a leg. She appears for the first time in Episode 4, still with crutches, and is introduced as extremely protective of Jannike, which is why Won starts to call her "Momma Bear", much for Jannike's enjoyment.


 * Velasquez is a police officer who works as a beat cop. He shows up several times, either at the police station or at some crime scenes. He seems to like joking around, and oggling women.

Other minor characters
This is a detailed list of other characters that, unless some minor exceptions, appear or are mentioned exclusively in one episode.

Structure and Paths
Darkness Falls is basically a linear game, as there isn't any non-canon path defined as such. Making wrong choices during investigations, or even refusing to look for clues in searching scenes, may delay the acquisition of some info, or set an alternative scenario where, for example, Blake and Won fail to link Charles Reyes to Lucile's incident in the first episode, but the cases end up being solved (or unsolved) anyway; at most, players may not get some achievements. The last episode before the game's sudden cancellation, however, could have changed this: a faulty interview at the frat house leaves the case unsolved, (although this is probably due to that episode being actually incomplete), while identifying the culprit offers a choice that could potentially open a branch. The short story Elsaverse: Transitions (2020-2021) set trusting Lara to protect Sarah Murray as canon, but it's unknown how trusting the Triple A instead would have played out in the long term.

Gameplay
There are three main gameplay mechanisms in DF. First, the conversational choices, whenever the player is presented with different options for Blake to address Won. This mechanism is extensively present in the first season, when players can choose between a blunt and antagonistic answer, a supportive and appreciative one, and something in between. As in the first games of the saga, the intention is for the player to shape a distinctive personality for Blake, this meaning that an achievement is unlocked for choosing a vast majority of answers from one category, practically neglecting the others. According to that characterization, Won will be referring to Blake as "Old Man", "Big Guy", or "Partner", and Blake will address her new partner as "Won" or "Michelle". This system is dropped in the second season, where Won keeps using the nickname "Partner" for Blake that is set as her canon expression in AAA, and Blake tends to call her "Won". In this second season, players can still shape Blake's character, but this time by making him more empathic towards people or a practical man in his job; the abrupt end of this second season doesn't let the planned long-term consequences of this characterization to be seen.

The second main mechanism of gameplay is present in the questioning and interrogation scenes. Again, conversational choices are used to drive those scenes towards the expected outcome, with players choosing how Blake conducts those interviews with some suspects and witnesses. Failing to get all the info from these people can delay the collection of some clues, if the case is designed to be solved, or close some investigations a bit earlier, if detectives are facing a case that is not expected to be solved either way, like the bombing one. The most important consequence that can be extracted from this gameplay mechanism is related to the game's achievements, as getting all of the possible clues from a questioning scene usually means getting an achievement.

Finally, the third mechanism is introduced in the searching scenes. There's one scene of this kind in each season, on episodes 2 and 6. Players can inspect a crime scene looking for different clues but are free to skip those sections without making any digging: they won't get the achievement, but those cases will be solved anyway. These scenes are designed as a "point&click" minigame with different clickable spots; in the first case, those spots must be clicked in a particular sequence for the clues to be revealed. There are minor point&click elements in other parts of the game too, sometimes related to story choices, such as offering to ride Jannike home or flirting with Eve, and sometimes related to other detective skills, like choosing the right food court in the first episode, noticing the drug residues on the CEO's desk in the second episode, or picking the right student to visit in the last case. All these point&click elements in Darkness Falls are translated into achievements and, unlike in previous titles, they were transferred to the 2021 Ren'Py version basically unchanged, remaining as clickable spots in the picture instead of being transformed into written menu options.

The creative and coding effort required to come up with a different case with different gameplay elements for each episode, without them feeling repetitive and, at the same time, allowing different types of players to keep advancing the storylines despite failing on their investigations, is one of the reasons why, after Tlaero's return to gaming creation, Darkness Falls has not been resumed in its original, episodic format.

Technical Aspects
The game was originally created with Tlaero's own software, "Adventure Creator", and released in HTML and episodic format from April 2018 to May 2019. Pictures could be displayed in 3 different sizes, according to the player's preferences, and rollback was not allowed. Ren'Py version (2021) incorporates this engine's usual mechanisms, like rollback and unlimited save slots (the original HTML version included 9 save slots plus a quicksave slot).

Visually, the screen is divided into three areas. Over a black background, the exposition text and dialogues appear in a classic narrative prose style, above the pics. Images take the screen's center, while the lower part of the screen is reserved for the player's choices. The game includes several animations, and not only in sexual scenes: they are especially relevant during the fight against Brian Henderson in the first season's last episode, to show his power.

For the first time in the saga, the game includes some sounds. The flash of a camera can be heard during Episode 2 crime scene investigation, but, most importantly, every episode's title header has a different melody played on an electric guitar, performed by Tora Productions' writer Tlaero herself. Sounds can be muted.

Related Stories
Darkness Falls first season runs in parallel with some other titles in the Elsaverse, often depicting the same events from a different perspective, or showing the aftermath of those events. For this reason, and while this game can be enjoyed as a standalone detective drama series, it's highly recommended to play and read all the titles previously released before getting into it. After DF first season, the novella AAA fills in most of the gaps that still remained a mystery. Lastly, after Darkness Falls the second season was put on hold, Tlaero felt the need to at least wrap up Won's personal story, which she did with the short story Won: Darkness Within.

Redemption for Jessika
Redemption for Jessika (2016) is the second game ever released on the Elsaverse. The canon path climax scene is the bombing at the Mayoral rally, with Jessica Springfield overcoming her fears and insecurities about her power to save hundreds of lives. Darkness Falls episode 3 shows a part that was missing in RfJ: the moment in which Jessica and her boyfriend Marc talk to the police investigators as the key witnesses of the incident.

FM: Alpha
FM: Alpha (2017) is a visual short story focused on the food court incident that is mentioned in Darkness Falls first episode. The day before her body was found naked in a warehouse, Lucile was threatened by a gunman, who resulted to be Patrick Bower; however, Xara was there and was able to defuse the situation, as detectives can see when they check the footage at the police substation. FM: Alpha tells how Charles Reyes convinced Patrick to shoot Lucile; it also shows Morland deciding that his cruel assassin Crow will deal with Lucile after this first attempt was foiled by Xara: Crow's maniac personality and her power to create visual illusions can perfectly explain the look in Lucile's face and his sudden heart attack, but this info remains unknown for the detectives when investigating her death.

AAA
AAA (2018) is a text-only novella that was released in an episodic manner along with Darkness Falls first season. In its ten chapters, AAA tells the story of the "Triple A", the group of friends formed by Alexis, Amanda Reid, and Anastasia Bertradino, who started to use their powers to help their friend Jessica Springfield after her ex-boyfriend, Charles, provoked a mortal riot at Jessica's concert. The three friends do their best to point him out to the authorities: first, they contact Joan, the hacker, to find some footage of Charles at the concert, leaving a picture of him at the prosecutor's office, which leads to Won having that picture on her phone; meanwhile, they try to evaluate Blake and Won skills before deciding to help them out; later on, they secretly cooperate during Jessica's interview after the bombing, to make Blake think on Charles; finally, they also help them to chase down Brandon Henderson before appearing at the last moment to save Won and knock him out. AAA last chapter also includes the meeting between these three women and Won, in which they explain their powers to her and agree to stay in contact.

Won: Darkness Within
Won: Darkness Within (2019) is a text short story, with just 5 pictures on it, that was released after the sudden cancellation of DF second season. One of the main storylines of that unfinished season was to reveal part of Won's traumatic past, which was already hinted at in the last episode. In this story, Won has to face Chein-ming, almost a brother for her, who is in Sangrive as the leader of a resistance group that was created by Won's father to oppose the tyrannical government of their home country, but that resorts to criminal activities to fund their fight. Won ran away from all of that when she was still a teenager, following her father's last wish, and now works for the police, which Chein-ming sees as a betrayal to all for what her father fought. However, Cheing-min has gone way beyond the limits imposed by Won's father, as he's selling women from their own people as sex slaves. After discovering his shady deals, Won takes part in the SWAT operation that finally brings Chein-ming down and frees the women, showing her military training. On the personal side of life, Won seems to be in a happy and prosperous relationship with Candace, the stripper she met in Darkness Falls second season.

Other related stories
The most recent titles after Tlaero's return incorporate Blake, Won, and other characters from Darkness Falls into their storylines, to keep expanding the fictional universe more organically.
 * Elsaverse: Transitions (2020-2021) is a visual short story that links Darkness Falls to Chasing Beth (2021), the next game in the saga. A vigilante has started to act in Sangrive, and it's fair to assume he has a power; for that reason, Lara's mysterious bosses intend to minimize the shock this could cause in the population, by feeding the media with controlled info that would keep the focus away from the vigilante's unnatural skills. Blake, who has a casual sex relationship with Hanne, the chief editor of the Sangrive Times, is assigned to use that connection to start paving the ground for the vigilante's story. Meanwhile, Won, who suspects that the vigilante is actually a woman, has ended her relationship with Candace.


 * Chasing Beth (2021) is the sixth game set in the Elsaverse. It tells the story of Beth Lagrange, the vigilante who was mentioned in Elsaverse: Transitions, and how Joel Dresden, the journalist Hanne tasks with the mission of covering the vigilante's story, tries to get to her, for his own personal reasons.

Miscellaneous

 * Darkness Falls wasn't originally planned to take place in the Elsaverse, as the dev team's first idea was to create a detective game in a new setting. But after taking a look at Mortze's first concept art for the main characters, Tlaero quickly imagined a twist in the original plot to include Elsaverse's supernatural elements on it, and DF was already introduced as the new Elsaverse game in Saving Chloe credits scene.


 * DF is the first game in the Elsaverse in which the name Sangrive is mentioned. Until March 2018, when the AAA novella's first chapter was released, the city's name never appeared in any title.


 * In Episode 2, Won reflects on how the internet is an unfriendly place, especially for women, which is why both Joan and herself use male names for their online profiles. This is inspired by Tlaero's own online experience, as she hid her gender for years under a neutral nickname to avoid harassment.


 * In Episode 3, Jessica's boyfriend, Marc, reveals his last name, Anderson, for the first time in the saga.