I've played all the Blackwell games years ago so this was a replay for me, although it's been so long that I barely remember much of the specific scenes and puzzles of each game, and instead just the gist of the overall story plus some of the important key plot points from the later entries in the series.

Here are some of my thoughts after playing through this first game yesterday:

While the story is a bit of a slow burn at first I think it still does a good enough job hooking you in. The use of letters to deliver historical events could have been a good idea in principle to allow for less direct exposition that may have been delivered through dialogue or flashbacks (plus it's less expensive, an important bonus given this was an indie game), in practice I think there should have been far fewer letters/pages as having so many presented to the player at once is a bit much. I imagine many people may be tempted to skip through them and end up missing quite a bit of the back story behind the families history and foreshadowing Joey's role. Overall the story feels like a prologue to a larger game, but I guess that's because it kind of is with things continuing into the later games.

I thought the voice acting is pretty good all things considered. Given this was an indie game having voice actors at all was an outlier at the time and the cast doesn't sound like they are phoning it in to me. I think it works well enough.

The puzzles are fairly straight forward as long as you're aware how the notepad works. I liked the idea behind de-emphasising inventory puzzles although the implementation is a bit clumsy with items disappearing from selection if you try. This perhaps may be down to limitations with customising the AGS engine at the time and having some kind of better UX not being possible.

Playing through this again did make me want to continue to the next game but I'll hold off for now in case this series is continued for the next community playthrough.

I think community playthroughs should be more about users sharing their experiences and engaging with each other. It shouldn't be about us reading what is basically a walkthrough with the plot explained in full detail.

Thanks for the feedback, and I do agree. I'm going to try to write up the next post in a different way. (Today was a crazy day for me, so it'll be Tuesday) As said, trying to experiment with the format.

So, I'm curious: Why here played the game and series back in the day? Was anyone else eagerly awaiting the next part of the series to come out? I got into the series a bit after Unbound released, so I had about 1.5 years to wait until Convergence, 2 years until Deception, and then nearly 3 years until Epiphany.

Thankfully there were other games to bridge the wait, Wadjet released some other excellent games like Gemini Rue (an absolute favorite of mine!), Emerald City Confidential, or Resonance.

I really enjoy looking forward to a new game in a series I'm invested in.

I personally don't mind your format. But if you wanna change it, then be my guest.

---

Also, I am surprised how much of what I remember of this game. It's been 8 years since I played it!!! Loving every moment of it. Maybe I am blinded by nostalgia, but I don't care. No point in being analytical if it comes at the expense of enjoyment.

I like the format of this thread. I do read ahead to the "stopping point" before playing the game myself, but when I'm writing my thoughts the lite screenshot LP helps as a reminder.

Still, do what you want. No harm in experimenting either.

The scene of Rose facepalming with instrumental stings every time was unintentionally funny as fuck.

Joey doesn't quite have the right voice? Its not bad, but. He looks like and reads like he should have a stronger stereotypical classic detective voice but just sounds like some guy.

Sorry I keep saying mean things.. I am having fun. I like the note book.

Agree with Gary on only reading the stopping point and looking the pics. I read the whole thing after I play it

The notebook is a good mechanic.

I liked the night to daytime transition from day 1 to day 2.

[quote="Joe" pid='320' dateline='1759089717']
So, I'm curious: Why here played the game and series back in the day? Was anyone else eagerly awaiting the next part of the series to come out? I got into the series a bit after Unbound released, so I had about 1.5 years to wait until Convergence, 2 years until Deception, and then nearly 3 years until Epiphany.

I was all in on this. The succes of this game really opened the door for others who made their chops in the freeware scene. Gave them the chance to work with a budget and a crew of voice actors and fellow designers.

So, I'm curious: Why here played the game and series back in the day? Was anyone else eagerly awaiting the next part of the series to come out? I got into the series a bit after Unbound released, so I had about 1.5 years to wait until Convergence, 2 years until Deception, and then nearly 3 years until Epiphany.

I actually came to Wadjet Eye fairly late, and played this for the first time around 2012 (which is when I returned to PC gaming after my affair with the Xbox 360!), after there were already three games in the series released. I just got around to playing the final game last month, coincidentally.

I discovered this game 8 years ago. They were on android. At least the first 3 games. Had to wait a while before playing the 4th one on pc. Unfortunately, these android versions can't be found both legally and illegally.

Finish the first day and talked to Joey !

I'm actually intrigued now, and I like Joey no nonsense attitude, you kinda feel he's a victim of circumstances too. I want to know more about him (and I feel like Rosangela and him will be buddies in no time)
I like the fact that Rosangela need a bit of time to accept the situation (even if 'accepting' is a big word right now).
Love the notebook ! It remind me of the mind map you can find in Hercule Poirot games, except its less visual.

Like it so far

Okay, it's been a few days, but here we are again with Day Two. We've scattered our aunt's ashes, had to get a neighbor vouch for us so that we could get home, developed a massive headache, finally met Joey, the spirit that has been haunting our aunt Lauren and our grandmother Patricia. We've also investigated a suicide by a NYU student for a news article, and we discovered that there is a spirit haunting the dog park.

So, Rosa's day has been almost as bad as mine was when I encountered tequila for the first time. Almost. Still not as bad as one of Jack Bauer's days though. (Sidenote, it's a tragedy that 24 never got an adventure game. This would be the PERFECT franchise for someone like Telltale, but the only video game in that franchise is a third person shooter)

Unfortunately for Rosa, it wasn't just a bad dream. Joey is real, and still here. And gives us another small exposition dump. Our grandmother refused to accept that Joey was real, and got institutialized within months. Aunt Lauren did... make a mistake, but Joey refuses to elaborate. Instead, he asks us to pull his... tie. Which is the only part of him that Rosa can touch. For reasons. Doing so pulls us to the doorway of infinity. A doorway to infinity? At this time of the year? Located entirely in Rosa's head? Can I see it? Actually yes, yes we can.

   

So we now know our mission: Convince the Ghost in the park to be transferred to the next world by us. But that only works if they accept their death and are ready and willing to move on. Unfortunately for Joey though, he cannot simply move on. We're stuck with him, and he doesn't know why either. At least he has the decency to turn his back when we're in the shower. Or so he says, at least.

We can talk to Joey in our apartment, and ask him about our Aunt and Grandmother. Throughout the game, we can keep asking him and he offers more and more insight, but then closes with "ask me later". After doing certain actions, we can ask him again and he offers a bit more. Finally, we learn that he has the ability to lightly blow on things.

Our immediate task is to find out who the ghost is. Conveniently, the photo we got yesterday from JoAnn also shows the ghost, the blonde girl in the middle. Time to find out who she is, but before I do that, I choose to check in with Nishanti. We learn that her dog Moti can sense Joey, which also serves an explanation of why the dog park is closed: The presence of the ghost turns those dogs crazy. I do like that the game brings this up, in an attempt to keep some kind of internal logic and consistency. Nishanti also allows us to feed Moti a treat, because his stomach is a black hole for snacks. I don't know what to do with this yet, but I do leave the place with a dog biscuit in my inventory.

   

We can also learn some more about Nishanti, which helps flesh her out as a real character. She's the supportive sidekick character. She notices things, and even though she appears very non-judgemental, she definitely knows that something is up with Rosa. I don't actually remember if she shows up again in later games, but she's definitely a grounding rod for Rosa in this game.

Okay, so the beginning of Day Two is just a massive info dump. It does soften up the character of Joey a bit (he's still not a nice guy, but we can have some sympathy because he also doesn't want to be in this situation), it sheds some more light into our family history, we get to confirm that the people in the photos are indeed our parents, aunt, and grandmother, and we learn about the mechanics of bring spirits over to the next world. But that's all been dialogue to click through and sit through. It's one of the weak points of the game, and could have been straightened out a bit (e.g., we don't really need to know about the tie and gateway yet, this could be combined with the later puzzle of actually sending the ghost in the dog park).

I think that the writing and voice acting is overall doing a pleasant job though, which makes sitting through the dialogue not a chore for me. Asking Joey about some notebook items and hearing him talk about Adrian or Kelly is pretty fun, in a messed up way. No, the voice acting is not perfect and perhaps not even great for technical reasons, and Joey sounds a bit too young in this. But personally, I'm entertained by it.

Enough time wasting, time to talk to Kelly, who is sitting in her room. Looking at her and her room, I'm kinda wondering if Kathy Rain took some inspiration here. Arguably, "rebellious punk rock girl with some hidden depth" isn't something that Blackwell Legacy invented, so perhaps I'm just connecting the two games I've recently played with a character like her.

   

Kelly tells us that the blonde girl is Alli, and the asian girl is Susan. No last names though. At the other end of the room (JoAnn's side), we see a photograph that tells us that Susan will be the "future Mrs. Davenport", which adds another term to our notebook.

I think this is a good time to talk about the character artwork for a bit. I think that the character sprites and portraits are pretty great. They have personality, they have detail, and I think they're relatively well drawn for what was a pretty small indie project. But I can't neccessarily say the same about the big closeups. There's just something cartoonish about the photos of JoAnn, Alli, and Susan. And even the photo of Lauren on the brooklyn bridge has her with an almost comical grin, as if she's maybe tried a few drugs. It's definitely something that stands out a bit in the game. Sure, there's some other issues with for example the backgrounds (mostly the scale of certain elements), but they all seem pretty cohesive with the tone of the game. But those close up photos seem a bit out of place, as if they belong in a game with a different tone.

   

Speaking of notebooks, JoAnn's notebook is on the desk, but Kelly refuses to let us have it. Time to do what every respectable adventure game protagonist does, and use a trick to steal it!

Whenever we try to talk to Joey, he makes it very clear that we shouldn't do so when people are around. But this room conveniently has a telephone, so we can "call" Joey and ask him to work his "magic" on the papers on the desk. Blowing off the papers from Kelly's desk distracts her, so we can... "liberate" JoAnn's notebook. It's for the greater good!

In it, we find a note that describes JoAnn's crazed state of mind, describing how "he" won't leave her alone, and how "he" made Allison and Susan go away. The other part of the notebook is a doodle that shows Susan with someone named Alexander. I can now combine "Alexander" and "Davenport" to "Alexander Davenport". We can now use our computer in Rosa's apartment to research that Alexander Daveport is a hockey player at NYU.

That doesn't help us yet, but I want to point out the increased puzzle complexity. We're trying to find out who the girl in the dog park is, and we're doing it by finding out who another girl (Susan) is that is friends with the ghost, and we're discovering Susan's boyfriend in the process.

There's nothing more we can do in the dorm for now, time to talk to Alli's Ghost and see if we can coax out something useful. And we can! She waxes a lot of poetry, and we learn about "Quiet Susan, Little Lady Lee, always neat and always fair", which gives us Susan Lee's full name. Alli Montego ("She kisses the boys, but not for long") is the full name of the ghost. Nothing much to say about "Crazy Kelly, made of ice jelly", or "Alexander the great", or "Adrian, the man with the plan".

Most importantly, we learn about The Deacon. Who is The Deacon? Why, he's the bass player of Queen and a rock legend, of course! Oh, wait, we're not talking about that Deacon in this game. Nope, Alli tells us that the Deacon is the Deacon, who came to them when they called him. He's in Alli's head, he's diseased, and he made her diseased as well.

Alrighty, we got the full names of Susan Lee and Alli Montego now, time to fire up Rosa's computer once again and googling for them. Apparently, Alli was gullible enough to sign up to a spiritual board with her real name, so we know she looked up Ouija boards. And if I learned anything about fiction, calling spirits with Ouija boards is always a good time.

Looking up Susan Lee informs us that she was admitted to Bellevue hospital last week after a suicide attempt. So, the next step is to try to visit her and get some more information out of here. I'll leave that for the next posting because next up are two pretty bad puzzles.

I know that Blackwell Legacy was a short game, but I forgot how much of it is just pure exposition and info dump. There's only a few locations and NPCs in the game, and the puzzles are definitely on the simplistic side. I played this and the next game (Blackwell Unbound) back-to-back initially, so that's why I have fonder memories of Legacy than it probably deserves. But I will say that I find the setup intriguing, and I like Rosangela as a protagonist, she's pretty relatable. Looking at just this so far, Joey is very unlikable, even though I can sympathize with his plight. Blackwell Legacy so far plants some seeds, and back then we of course didn't know if those seeds would sprout into anything good. With the power of hindsight, I think the game is great and important, but by itself, it's got issues. Most of which will become apparent at this point in the game.