Light theme

Blackwell Unbound review
by markbass69

Solid game. Doesn't quite reach moon logic or excessive inventory items but sometimes the puzzles still sit in that world where a  point-and-click games sith with "you have to read the developers' minds" solutions. Great characters, great aesthetic. The notebook is a good mechanic (actual deduction in a mystery game) that both should be taken further and explained a bit more.

Other reviews3

Translated by
Microsoft from French
Very similar to his predecessor, Blackwell legacy, Blackwell Unbound takes on the same elements, including his famous original asset: the puzzles based mainly on the words to combine in your notebook to make the protagonist think, create associations ideas and unlock new dialogues. The writing is still at the rendezvous, and everything works very well, apart from some irregularities in the sound level in the dialogues (quality of the recording). Otherwise it is at all good! In this episode, you will learn more about Rosa's family past as you will embody her famous aunt Lauren, who also at the time was medium and solved business with Joey's help. The cooperation with the Phantom is still in focus, and the new jazzy/black film atmosphere of the New York of the 70 years gives a very appreciable side to the whole. You will manage with the technology of the time, and will sometimes travel in familiar places, but more than 30 years ago! No illustrative portraits in the dialogues, but these remain sufficiently immersive. A bit of humor also. In short, a good mix for this little trip in the pleasant past, although too short (about 3 hours).
Translated by
Microsoft from French
Great discovery that this indie series of point and click, far from the canons of the genre. Dave Gilbert (the creator) has built a mid-urban mid-esoteric, jazzy and melancholic universe, between twin peaks and Daniel Clowes, between the incommunicability of beings and communication of spirits. It embodies Rosangela Blackwell, New York's thirties, neurasthenic journalist who inherits a bulky ghost from an old gangster movie with which she will have to compose to return to the afterlife the lost spirits. More than puzzles, the Games present themselves as a series of investigations whose mechanics evolve over the episodes (dialogues, Internet searches, switch between Rosangela and Joey-the phantom who can cross the doors but nothing catch). These investigations must lead to what constitutes the great project of these games which is to update an underground connection between these souls crushed by the city that have attempted in vain to resist its ruthless mechanisms and that cling to their illusion (the objective is to make the ghosts realize that they have died to direct them to the hereafter). It is of great humanity in writing and interpretation, fine and sensitive, which keeps itself from episode to episode (I miss the last, released this year, nonetheless). Really a little gem, perfective in its mechanics and its dressing but who knows how to make its characters exist without conceptual puffery and talk about the world humbly with great accuracy.
Read more...