The Blackwell Trilogy

The Blackwell Trilogy
is comprised of the first – at the time of this writing –
three games in an episodic adventure series. The series was recently
made available as a collection at a discounted price, and as part
of the promotion I was offered a complimentary press copy. The games
follow spirit guide Joey Malone and his medium, Rosa Blackwell, while
they try to help lost souls cross over to whatever is next.

The Blackwell Legacy

The
Blackwell Legacy is the first game in the trilogy. It is a remake
of Bestowers
of Eternity, a freeware game. At the start of the game, Rosa
is dumping the ashes of her aunt off the Brooklyn Bridge. On her way
home, she discovers that she is locked out of her apartment because
the fill-in doorman won’t let her in and doesn’t know
her. She has to go find a neighbor she hasn’t met before to vouch
for her as a resident. In standard adventure game style, this involves
a puzzle.

Once she is in the apartment,
the game continues on. You’ll get an assignment from the newspaper
you write for and go visit the doctor of your aunt. She lived most
of her life in an asylum. Turns out she had the same symptoms as your
grandmother. The doctor is worried something similar may happen to
you. Rosa has been getting odd headaches.

Before
Rosa goes to bed, Joey appears. He explains that Rosa is a medium
and Joey is her spirit guide. It is their job to find lost spirits
and help them cross over to the other side. They do this using Joey’s
tie. One end is held by the ghost and then Rosa pulls it to enter
into her infinity doorway. Joey suggests they start looking for ghosts,
so off they go into the night. It turns out that the park Rosa visited
earlier is haunted by a ghost which somehow relates to the characters
in the story she wrote for her newspaper. You’ll pop back and
forth between multiple real locations looking for answers on how to
bring this ghost to rest. The first ghost’s story leads right
into the second ghost of the game, leaving you with a satisfying ending.

Blackwell Unbound

Blackwell
Unbound sets you back in time 30 years or so. You play Lauren’s
aunt who is already in league with Joey and going around rescuing
ghosts from themselves. This game follows much the same path as the
first game and acts as a nice backstory to the whole series. This
also introduces the game’s main protagonist, the Countess.

The Countess is someone
who must be reckoned with, and finding out about her is the game’s
most interesting plotline, cleverly woven among the puzzles related
to ghost-saving. This game also offers a different treat in that you
get to control Joey the ghost. Joey can’t do much to the environment
but he can walk through walls and talk to other ghosts, things that
are useful at times.

I
haven’t mentioned the notebook interface, something present
in all three games. As you get hints from talking to people, they
will show up in Rosa’s, or in this game Lauren’s, notebook.
You can use these items as talking points when talking to other people.
At certain times you have to examine your notebook, and then combine
two items to create another one. This is a very creative interface
element, using information as if it were an inventory item.

The Blackwell Convergence

The
Blackwell Convergence is the latest game in this series. We leave
Lauren in the past and Rosa is once again the lead heroine. This game
ties into the backstory of the previous one, and you start out with
a tutorial that allows you to discover and save a ghost. Beyond that,
we get into the meat of the story: going around and saving ghosts.
Slowly, part of the history from the Unbound game comes into
play and items from the past revisit Joey and Rosa as they find themselves
dealing with a artist, an actor, some corporate investors, and a return
of the Countess. A new spirit, I believe her name was Madeline, is
also introduced, with little explanation. I’m sure she’ll
show up in future titles. This entry in the series is more of the
same in terms of puzzles, but the continuing story is a thrill to
experience. The creator has a great knack for mixing puzzles with
the game play.

Obviously,
Rosa doesn’t know everything. Sometimes you have to search for
other information. In the first game you can search, using the computer,
for items in your notebook. The second game predates computers, but
lets you use a phone book. The phone book interface forces you to
type in things, so be sure you take notes as you go. Convergence
has a computer again, but forces you to search for items explicitly,
meaning you have to type in your search terms instead of referencing
them from the notebook. This is a great way to prevent the game from
forcing you into a point-and-click-until-something-works situation
common in the genre.

Commentary track

One of the coolest things
I’ve ever seen done in a game is to include a commentary track
about the game’s creation, and other bonus features. With commentary
on, at certain points the game’s creator, Dave Gilbert will
pop up and talk about certain aspects of the game’s locations,
the puzzles, the voice acting, and other aspects of creating a game.
It is a unique way to offer replay value, similar to the commentary
track of DVD.

Conclusions

None of the games took
me more than four hours to get through, and I only got help on the
first one. In Blackwell Unbound, you learn bits and pieces
of a bunch of dreams that Lauren has. Some of those are directly related
to events in The Blackwell Legacy and The Blackwell Convergence.
Could these events, or more details, show up a future game? There
is also some hinted at, unknown issue that affected both Aunt Lauren
and Rosa’s grandmother. What is it? Will this affect Rosa? These
are great fun if you love adventure games. Blackwell Convergence
alludes to the fact that Joey may be less innocent than he appears.
Will a future episode delve into Joey’s backstory? I’m
left wanting more.