The Trappings

This evening I completed an indie adventure game called The Blackwell Convergence.  It’s the third part in the Blackwell series and over the past 48 hours I’ve finished all three.  Before purchasing the games (as a complete set from the Wadjet Eye Games website) I read a number of reviews focusing on each of them individually.  Since I’ve polished them off successively in a short space of time I’ve decided to write a review of the trilogy as a whole.

The Blackwell Legacy kicks off the trilogy.

I’ll begin by talking a little about why I picked up the games in the first place.  Last weekend was the Jewish spiritual holiday Yom Kippur.  As recognition of the holiday a small Indie games developer called Wadjet Eye Games released their point and click adventure game, The Shivah, for free.  Free being the right price for a risk I decided to try it out and was pleasantly surprised.  The story is engaging, the writing interesting and importantly for a talkie adventure game the voice actors are believable.  Afterwards I was left wanting more and having experienced the quality of a Wadjet Eye Games production I was also willing to pay for another fix.  So I checked out their back catalogue and decided to give The Blackwell Trilogy a try.

The story of the Blackwell games centres around a family of mediums and their friendly sidekick spirit guide, Joey.  In the first and last games you play as Rosangela Blackwell and in the second you play as her aunt, Lauren.  The narratives of the three games are linked quite tightly and it certainly pays to play them in the order they were made.  As plot points unfurl over the course of the games you begin to develop a genuine affection for the recurring characters.  This is not uncommon in other types of media, whether it be series of books, television shows or films, but to have such well fleshed out characters and to have them develop in meaningful ways in a computer game is uncommon and makes playing the games a real pleasure.  Much like The Shivah, the actors hired to voice the various characters in The Blackwell Trilogy are all exceptional – even the slightly more amateurish efforts in the first game come off as well-read and easy on the ear.

The writing of the games is really their major strength and it certainly held my attention throughout the series, motivating me to continue playing at all times.  It’s worth pointing out that, unlike traditional adventure games, The Blackwell Trilogy rarely relies on inventory-based puzzles.  In fact the number of occasions where a collected item needs to be used in a way other than to be looked at can be counted on one hand.  Instead, the games rely on the combination of ideas, explored by combining notes in Rosa’s and Lauren’s notebooks, and by progressing dialogue with other characters in the story.  The games are very much a narrative experience, that is, they are pushed ever forward by the player’s ability to dig deeper into the presented mysteries through observation, conversation and some excellent characterisation.  To some this may trigger an instant rebuttal; surely a game is only worth playing if it taxes a reflex or requires a puzzle to be solved in order to progress?  Partly I would agree with this broad-strokes view of gaming yet I found myself enjoying The Blackwell Trilogy simply because the plot develops so well.

Given the “tried and true” narrative beginnings of the trilogy, Gilbert has managed to eke a considerable amount out of already well-mined story ideas and, although nothing about the plot is hugely innovative in the grand scheme of storytelling, the yarns spun are gripping and well told.  I paid £19.99 for all three games and nothing about them leads me to regret spending the money.

The Blackwell Convergence is incredibly well drawn.

I’ve read a lot recently about games being able to provide us with experiences other than outright exhilaration and fun.  Ideas have been floated of games being intense, draining, horrific, distasteful or otherwise provocative.  Well, these three independents provide a different spin on that train of thought. Instead of being exhilarating roller coaster rides they are instead captivating in their execution and completely engrossing due solely to the quality of their writing.  In the same way that I would look forward to reading The Weirdstone of Brisingamen at bedtime with my mum when I was a kid or listen to the BBC’s radio adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as I was falling asleep, so I looked forward to each instalment of The Blackwell Trilogy as a chapter in a story I wanted to see completed.

From my perspective, this is as close to a well-written radio play as a computer game has come and a very enjoyable way to spend four or five hours.  If you’re not sold on the idea of a traditional ghost story then I would highly recommend The Shivah as an alternative – it’s far shorter than the three games reviewed here but the pacing is rock solid and the plot completely engrossing from start to finish.  My experiences so far have compelled me to continue my exploration of Wadjet Eye Games’ catalogue and so the next game I am diving into is Emerald City Confidential.  More words when I’ve completed that one as well.