Manage your time carefully and investigate each clue as you attempt to track down a missing woman at a hotel where everyone has a secret.
The Séance of Blake Manor
Developer: Spooky Doorway
Price: $20
Platform: PC
MonsterVine was provided a PC code for review.
The Séance of Blake Manor is a new supernatural detective mystery from Spooky Doorway, the developer of the comedy adventure game The Darkside Detective and its sequel. I loved both Darkside Detective games, so I was intrigued by what they would do in a more serious story. You play a private investigator called to Blake Manor, where a group of people have gathered to perform a special séance. One attendee has gone missing, and your goal is to secretly investigate her disappearance while pinpointing who the culprit might be.
Time Is of the Essence in The Séance of Blake Manor
It’s an adventure game in which you explore from a first-person perspective. You can examine things and talk to people in your search for clues, but your actions take time. Moving from place to place doesn’t cost anything, but actions such as investigating something in the environment or asking someone about a piece of evidence do. Common actions like these cost one minute, while lengthier events such as attending lunch take more time. You have until the night of the séance to find the answers you need, so you’ll want to learn the other characters’ plans and pay attention to scheduled events to make sure you don’t miss anything important.
Fortunately, the time limit isn’t as strict as it first appears. The early part of the game gives you strict deadlines to emphasize the importance of choosing your actions carefully, but after that, it opens up considerably and gives you the freedom to investigate as you wish, with much greater margin for error than you might first expect. It really just comes down to thinking carefully about your actions. You don’t want to examine every single item in a room, but if you inspect a few unimportant things, it won’t mean the end of the world. The one downside is that sometimes a conversation topic that seems inconsequential will yield important information when you ask the right character, so you can’t be too afraid to ask about conversation topics, either. Once again, it allows for more freedom than it first appears. I find time limits stressful in most games, but this one didn’t bother me. If you do end up hitting a point where you need to restart, you can restart from a save file to start from any previous hour.
As you gather information, you’ll be able to make connections between different clues and piece together the secrets that each character is hiding. Once you gather all the relevant clues about a specific lead, you can form a hypothesis by filling in the blanks. If your hypothesis is about a character, completing it lets you officially confront them with your newfound information, which leads to some great character moments and heartfelt scenes. Some characters’ stories are intertwined, so if you reach a dead end with one, you might need to investigate someone close to them. Together with the importance of watching characters’ schedules and paying attention to time, this approach to gameplay really makes it feel like you’re doing detective work.
It also has a great atmosphere for the supernatural side of things. I was surprised at first at how overt it is about the supernatural. It isn’t long before you learn that several people in attendance are practitioners of magic, and Irish mythology and folklore play an important role. There are ghost sightings, mysterious dreams, and ominous implications that something terrible might happen at the séance. On top of that, you’ll also take a direct role in the supernatural aspect of the game by solving puzzles where you have to trace magical sigils. The default controls for tracing the sigils are a little frustrating, but there’s an option in the settings that lets you click each point of the sigil instead of dragging the mouse from one to another.
I encountered a handful of small bugs, such as a safe where the camera zoomed out whenever I tried to enter the combination, making it impossible until I reloaded the game, but nothing that caused major problems. It also has a great visual presentation, solid voice acting, and a soundtrack that enhances the mood. There’s even optional lore to research in the library alongside the required information, if you’re interested in learning more about the historical and folkloric topics referenced. I enjoyed my time uncovering the secrets of Blake Manor, and overall, I found The Séance of Blake Manor to be a great game.
The Final Word
The Séance of Blake Manor is an intriguing supernatural mystery filled with interesting characters and secrets to discover. While the time management aspect might feel intimidating at first, it adds a sense of urgency and helps the player feel like a detective while offering enough freedom not to feel stifled. Overall, it’s an excellent game for fans of mysteries and the supernatural.
MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
