The Blackwell Legacy

[Dave Gilbert]

The Blackwell Legacy is the first case in a miniseries of games that stars a medium named Rosangela Blackwell and her spirit guide Joey Mallone. Their mission, it seems, is to assist tormented spirits and investigate supernatural goings on. They don’t understand why they are thrown together, but they do the best they can.

The duo’s first case will involve a series of suicides at a local university. Something unnatural has forced these students to kill themselves, and nobody knows why. Rosangela, who is just coming to terms with her new status as a medium, finds herself cast as the unwilling detective in this gruesome mystery.

Demo: FREE

Price: $14.99

Download demo HERE.

TRAILER ON YOUTUBE.

For more information, check out our new website at http://www.wadjeteyegames.com

Screenshots:


Explore haunted locales, in the heart of New York City


Old photographs and letters give clues to the Blackwell family's past


The first adventure game to include a begging Boston Terrier.  Revolutionary!


Just a normal day in the life of a medium


A visit to the family shrink provides little answers

The team:

Writer/coder - Dave Gilbert
Background art - Tom Scary (Dr. Scary) and Chris Femo (Joker)
Sprite art - Ian Schlaepfer (Big Brother)
Concept artist: Matt Gardner
Additional art: Eyal Jammer
Music - Peter Gresser

Enjoy!

[auriond]

It's done!!! But man, I don't know if I can afford that right now. I'll definitely buy it soon though Meanwhile, congrats on finishing it despite the problems with the backgrounds and everything!

[vict0r]

Congratulations! Looks like a great game!

Looks kinda pricy tho... Sure, it looks like a high quality game etc, but is there a particular reason people started putting a price tag on their ags game recently? What happened to making old school games for fun?

Not the time, nor place to start that discussion anyway! Good luck with your game! Looks great, but will probably not buy it.




(hope I didnt sound too mean-ish, as this was not intended )

[Mods]

Well done for completing it and I hope it sells well for you, it looks really nice

No free demo, though? I don't want to sound mean either, but sadly I won't be buying it, at least, not in the near future - or moreso, not without a demo to tantilise me...

Vict0r is right, it's probably not best to discuss this here, but as it'll probably be a little while until people give their feedback - how come this game is $10 more than Shivah?

[Dave Gilbert]

Demo is coming.  I need a break.

As for why this game is $10 more than Shivah, there are a few reasons.

- The graphics, music, and all-round quality is at a much higher level than Shivah.
- The game is at least 3x longer than Shivah
- Shivah was originally made for free, so I couldn't justify charging much money for it

Also, Shivah was more of an experiment for me than an actual business venture.  I thought of it as practice for the real thing, although I certainly didn't foresee how much Shivah would take off! 

[Gregjazz]

Beat it. Great job on the game, Dave!

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Dave, I'm SO buying this one, as you well know. And in the meantime I'll get Shivah too, while I'm at it. Just need some time to figure out how to do these things.

[Ali]

Just over £7 for an adventure game sounds like a pretty good deal to me! I couldn't find any information about payment options on the Wadjet Eye site. Is it only Paypal, or do you accept debit card payments?

[strazer]

Oh, there will be a boxed version? Sweet. Will it cost extra? If so, how much? Any details on shipping (overseas) yet?

[voh]

14.99 is an acceptable price, as I know from the Shivah that the game is well worth it.

I'll purchase some time after christmas, but good job anyway, guys!

[Dave Gilbert]

Oh, there will be a boxed version? Sweet. Will it cost extra? If so, how much? Any details on shipping (overseas) yet?

It will definitely be extra, although there will be a few different options.

"Blackwell Basic" will just be a burnt CD with a label written in sharpie marker and shipped out.  Perfect for those who don't care about frills but can't download the game for some reason.

"Blackwell Better" will be a pressed CD with label and jewel case.

"Blackwell Bonanza" will include a box, the soundtrack, and a print of the BL poster.

I'll sort out these prices after the New Year, as my brain is too frazzled to deal with thinking about this yet.

[lspace]

How much playtime in terms of hours can I expect from the game?  I recently bought an Indie game, paid $15 for it plus shipping and all I got was one hour of gaming goodness.  Needless to say, I am now more cautious.

[thewalrus]

     Yes, Dave, I am also curious to know what the payment options are.... Maybe I will take a better look around the site..... BTW, the game looks great from the screenshots..... And here's wishing that you make lots of sales!!!

[Privateer Puddin']

Thoroughly enjoying it so far Dave.

[CosmoQueen]

That's really awesome. I wish I was able to get it *sighs*.

[Disco]

Cheers Dave Great job. The characters, especially Joey, are remarkably quotable. I finished last night and am going through the commentary now.

[nihilyst]

Looks absolutely excellent. Waiting for the demo ...

[Grundislav]

Dave has already received all the first-hand praise from me.  I'm officially a Gilbert Fanboy. 

Great game, looking forward to the rest of the series!

[Vince Twelve]

Congrats on finishing, Dave!  I've purchased both this and SJM to help me pass the time while I'm in the hospital for the next four days having and recovering from a Septoplasty!  (Mmmm septoplasty...)  I'll be writing up a review for each on my blog!  Congrats!  Looks great!

[YicklePigeon]

Well I certainly enjoyed playing it Dave, and I'll be going through the commentary shortly. 

For those that are still dithering, here's my review:-

Think back to the first Broken Sword (Circle of Blood to the redneck Americans).  The intro sequence.  Remember how it made you feel? I know how it made me feel, brilliant animation, music soaring as the wee bird flies towards the Eiffel Tower...

I knew I was in for an adventure.

That same feeling came back as far as The Blackwell Legacy is concerned, the overall feel brought everything back and I knew I was in for something special.

In the beginning...

As we should all know by now, if you all have kept up with the previews or played Bestowers of Eternity (the freeware taster of what was to come, released some years ago now), you'll know that the main characters are Rosangela Blackwell, a young New Yorker working as a freelance book reviewer and Joey Mallone, a ghost who has no idea why he can't leave the Blackwell women alone (apart from them possibly being physically attractive to him perhaps).

Without spoiling too much of the game, the basic premise is that Rosa and Joey act as a pair of ghost savers (as opposed to Ghostbusters), dealing with ghosts who have lost their way and moving on to the afterlife (whatever it might be).

It's Tetris Jim, but not as we know it...

Moving on, the inventory system and clues are handled much the same way as Dave Gilbert's previous release The Shivah.  Except this time, Rosa has a notebook to combine clues she gets and to talk about with others (which is nicely presented) plus there aren't any "use X inventory object on Y character" type puzzles - this makes the game alot easier in one way, as you're not manically using every inventory item on a person just to see if it'll work.

It also means the puzzles that are presented to the player are more conversational in nature, and it also means actual sleuthing is required.  Allow me to explain...

In your average adventure game, puzzles eventually become silly - something along the lines of "pick up worm, use worm 2 hours later in the game for fixing a warp drive".  With adventures such as The Blackwell Legacy, this never happens and everything is logical and straightforward.  As it should be.

To give a quick example: if you have a key labeled "F.B." and Rosa has already seen a fusebox that requires a key to open it, it's logical and straightforward that the key with "F.B." written on it would be the key to the fusebox.

Speech...the final frontier

How many adventure games have you played that are from a company such as Lucasarts or Revolution? Or even more scarce: Access Software? Usually, there's at least one slightly hokey voice in the game somewhere.

And this doesn't happen in The Blackwell Legacy.  All the characters - however minor - come across as right.  You're never thinking "Hmm, that wasn't quite right" - you just instantly accept it, and this is how voice acting should be.  You just accept it and you're not thinking about the voices until you're typing up a review such as this.

On screen!

The character portraits are quite nice too, the voices match the character portraits - and they animate appropriately.  The backgrounds are detailed yet not overly so.  The character sprites are nigh-on perfect.  For comparison sake, it's somewhere between The Dig and Broken Sword 1 quality and that means, for an independent game, it's very special indeed.

The final countdown...

And if you think you're only going to be getting a game that's going to last around 6-8 hours (depending on how good you are, I reason a skilled adventure gamer could do it within 4-6 hours) - think again.  There's an extensive blooper reel, full of humourous outtakes and adlibs and the Director's Commentary that extends the replayability.  For those of us who love DVD special features, these are things not to be missed.

This is one feature that really shines, you can go through the game with the Director's Commentary enabled, and Dave Gilbert's animated self will appear to discuss the part of the game that you're at throughout.

Score: 8.5/10
Price: $14.99 (£7.85 approx)
Difficulty: Moderate.

Also consider...: Sam & Max: Culture Shock - A far easier title and far shorter too, add to this the voice acting isn't that great.  Broken Sword 1 & 2 Compilation DVD - Available on the Sold-Out range for £4.99, buy this if you haven't played them already (and let's be honest, BS1 has been out for 10 years now...if you haven't played it by now - shame on you!).

With regards,

Yickle.