The Séance of Blake Manor

Overall, I liked it. There were some really good things and there were some things that just didn't work for me. The voice acting that is present is amazing. It's a bit jarring to have main scripted moments with characters and to not hear them speak when presenting them with specific evidence, though. I like the comic art style. The manor design is nice. In general, my high points are the atmosphere, the lore, and most of the main and side stories. Also, as Declan Ward, you have a good sense of who your character is. The way he interacts with others and himself provided more than adequate characterization. I appreciate this! On the other hand, I found the back-and-forth over the manor grounds got annoying towards the end. I'm glad that I was able to load saves to get the final few achievements instead of having to do another playthrough, because if I'd had to play again I wouldn't have. The time system is something that was nice in theory but in practice I found that I really wanted to discuss everything with everybody and wasn't able to due to time constraints. So, if you're the kind of player who struggles to not look at everything, talk to everyone, and look at every nook and cranny in a game, you might feel the same way I do about not exploring every inch of what's possible to explore. It does make sense in this environment and with the story, but it feels like there was too much lore for the constraints given. The one thing that got me that kept me from getting really into the game for a while is the gameplay itself. Your introduction mystery is good, but I initially didn't want to actually ask the suspect anything because, well, it seemed common sense to not go up to someone and say "tell me about this thing i found in your room," even if it's done in a roundabout way. If I'm asking you about a very specific ritual I found in your room, I could do it under whatever pretense I wanted, it just doesn't feel like good detective work. It's also insane to go up to someone an "confront" them by saying something like, "[spoiler]You want to steal this person's magical power by killing them and eating their heart!"[/spoiler] and for that person to be like "you got me" in response feels silly. Suspension of disbelief and all that, but then you do that for every person in the manor and 80% of the guests have some weird screwed-up thing they're trying to do. It's unintentionally funny to me, which made the game less scary. One final thing, I really wish there had been a way to interact with people if they were in their rooms. I time skipped occasionally because I'd get locked out of progressing literally anything I had going on until people decided to come out and go to a place I could also get to. I did have to systemically hunt for certain characters too because their schedules aren't set in stone. None of the above complaints are dealbreakers for me, and I did enjoy the game to the point I got all of the achievements. I thought the story was good overall and it was easy enough to narrow down suspects. If this game dev puts out another mystery game like this I would buy and play.

Super fun mystery!

Ein wirklich sehr interessantes Detektiv Spiel mit frischen Ideen. Sehr empfehlenswert.

Genuinely one of the best puzzle games I've ever had the joy of playing :) 10/10 - would wait for the guests to leave their rooms for three hours in a row again

This is one of the best mystery games I've played in ages. I found the lore behind the mystery to be very compelling.

This is some of the most fun I've had in a puzzle game! I really wish I could replay it again.

The mystery didn’t hook me as much as I thought it would. In fact, I found myself getting pushed away the more I played. Specifically, the mere presence of a time limit hurt my eagerness to explore, learn, and discuss. It’s uncomfortable that almost all of the interactions with anything cost time, a resource that the game makes a big deal about. Basic observations such as “look in desk” largely lead to a useless “nothing of note in here”. So why build a resource system around these bread and butter interactions? There’s also just a lot of information to sift through and having the game consider the time spent with unimportant conversation or red herrings to be wasted time considerably disincentivizes inquisitiveness. The manor is needlessly sprawling and there are too many submenus (a feature which comes across as a crutch for the overcomplicated, unintuitive puzzles). The characters all seem like oddly generic archetypes, the visuals are generally quite bland, and the mouse sensitivity is messed up. I don’t think I’ll be finishing this one.

прекрасная игра, понравились истории персонажей, тайны и внезапные их раскрытия. прекрасная озвучка, очень круто обыгран ирландский фольклор, главный злодей вообще не очевиден. жаль Валтера - впрочем, вероятно, правильнее сказать, что жаль Джонатана. было бы круто приехать погостить в таком особняке :)