The Blackwell Legacy is the second commercial adventure game by Dave Gilbert. The premise is based on his 2003 freeware adventure game Bestowers of Eternity. This game uses the same characters; the young writer Rosangela Blackwell and the ghost Joey Mallone, major parts of the storyline, but not the puzzles. Bestowers of Eternity was originally meant as the first part of the series, but never continued. This game can be considered a remake, but with a much broader scope. The Blackwell Legacy is the first in a series of episodic games, with standalone cases, similar to the 2006/2007 Sam & Max games.
Rosa is a freelance writer in New York. Her aunt, who took care of her when her parents died, until she was five, has just passed away. Her memory fails her for the exact events, but her aunt was hospitalized. She was kept sedated and didn’t utter a word for twenty-five years. When Rosa visits Dr. Quentin, the care physician at the hospital, she gets to know her aunt and her grandmother had a condition that drove them mad. They deliberately inflicted injuries upon their own bodies, were very aloof, and talked to themselves. While Rosa is worried about the hereditary traits and gets sudden headaches, she receives an assignment for the Village Eye, a local newspaper, to investigate a suicide in a student’s dorm. The game takes place in New York and the storyline covers two days.
Using the AGS engine, the game has a classic interface with the two mouse buttons for examining or using objects. You can strike up conversations and change the outcome based on your responses. Rosa carries around an inventory and a notebook where she jots down clues. You can combine clues to link events, and then use these new observations in conversations. Gameplay is largely based around the storytelling and dialogues, rather than complicated puzzles. All characters have full voice-acting, there is a complete soundtrack, and a director’s cut mode with an audio track where Dave Gilbert interferes regularly while playing to explain the design choices of the game.
After finishing the game, you receive a code to unlock the voice-acting bloopers.
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