How good are these compared to the Dark Fall games? I didn't like The Lost Crown very much except for the soundtrack.
Still would like to see it come to GoG as well.

The Barrow Hill and Dark fall Games are similar in gameplay, in engine and in spirit, sound, attention to details... Probably because Boakes (Dark Fall) took part in some aspects of this game. In fact both developers used to collaborate themselves in their respective games. The similarities are not casual.

Mostly off-topic, just wondering:
What does the developer get in a 75% off sale, 5%?

For games that are 14 years old and almost 4 years old, this is still a profit, albeit small. In addition, with minimal effort (games are already ready, the developer only needed to build a GOG build and upload it).
In addition, everyone who wanted to buy these games in Steam already did it, so local sales are in any case ADDITIONAL sales.
Simply put: it's easy money. Not big money, but easy.

Many developers and large publishers could get such an extra profit from their old games here, but many are too stubborn and stupid to use it. They prefer to languish over their DRMed games (like a dragon over treasures), but not get extra money from these games.

Thanks for the thread link. Looks interesting. Marked.

Greetings

wow, Curse of the Ancient Circle is quite old, didn't realize that.

Interesting sales model:

Buy one, total cost $3.99.

Buy both, total cost $3.98

Thank you, GOG!

I would assume that splits between developer/publisher and store are calculated after any sale discount, so that a discount is taken out of the share of both rather the one or the other.

So, a "standard" 70/30 split would yield 17.5% of the full price for the developer/publisher.
Assuming share of the sale discount is split evenly.

Just another bump for those interested: (Contest ends on April 15th at around noon, EST. Entrants must follow the rules posted[which are very easy and allow most to enter], answer the thread question, and say which game[s] they are entering for to enter)

Do these games have a more cohesive narrative compared to Dark Fall? I found it kind of annoying that I met and started solving puzzles before getting an explanation on why I was doing so, and getting tons and tons of notes that had very little to do with the larger picture (rather than decades old gossip and vices of people that were only marginally related to the main events), was hardly engaging, to the point that I stopped playing the game.

I'd say it is some more cohesive. But the idea of gossips, notes and information in a non linear way is very similar. To me it is not a bad thing. I always enjoyed constructing my idea of the story with partial information found during the gameplay. It is a kind of open endedness approach in an adventure I loved.
But I think yes. It can be some more cohesive in story and puzzles. But if yo disliked Dark fall for the reasons noted, probably you will find he same design/intention in this game.

I just finished the first one and you will collect a few items of which you don't know why you even should collect them - however the story and your quest will become quite clear pretty early in the game. The notes and books around are mostly about that quest but some also are meant to deepen the historic background and make things feel more real. Not one puzzle was illogical to me but sometimes I simply failes to see some items or did not notice certain hotspots. The atmosphere was great (reminded me a bit of "The Fog") but I never even saw the evil (should happen randomly but it never did for me). Can't say much about the second because I haven't played it yet :)

did somebody run a bot to "high rated" some of these posts, or are some people just so excited they're high-fiving everyone? ;)

Now that you are saying it ... many posts are high rated. Then again - better all high than all down - at least it is a positive signal :)