A creepy and ominous detective game set in 17th Century Ireland. A woman has gone missing, and it’s your job to find out what happened to her.
Blake Manor is a hotel in the middle of nowhere West Ireland. Owned by William Blake, but managed by his staff, and is the host to an event and packed full of guests from all over Ireland and beyond. However, one of our esteemed guests, Miss Deane, has disappeared. Nobody knows where she went and the manager tells you she left a few days ago. The suspicion is that she definitely did not, and you’ll get chance to confirm that suspicion very early on. The real question is not whether she vanished, but why, how, and why now.
You see, a Seance is happening in two days, on Samhain, the day when the veil between the world of the living and that of the spirit is at its weakest. Nowadays we know it as Halloween, the Catholics know it as All Hallow’s Eve, but here, in Blake Manor, it’s Samhain. So spooky things are already starting to take hold. Ghosts showing up in the corner of your vision, things moving around when you’re not looking, it’s all so incredibly tense and well handled.
This is a horror game. Kind of… It’s gothic horror. Nothing out here is trying to kill you (though if you’re anything like me, you’re going to get yourself evicted on the tutorial night, so do be mindful there,) but oh I’d be lying if I said this game doesn’t keep you on edge for its runtime. After all, the best part of a horror game isn’t the scare, it’s the suspense. When you start engaging on the game’s terms, you start to recognise what the spooks are trying to tell you. Some of them are there to just put you on edge, sure, but ultimately, this is a game about Irish folklore. The preparation for the seance is just as spiritual as it is technical, and the energies in the manor are drawing forth all sorts of fey and maladies.
But, this is a detective game. You’re not here for the seance, you’re here to find Miss Deane, and it’s your job as Mister Ward to interrogate the guests at the manor, snoop around in places you don’t belong, piece together evidence, and find the person behind the kidnapping. As you explore more and interrogate people, you’ll discover clues and talking points that get recorded in your journal, and you can then talk to the guests and staff about your new findings. Eventually you’ll learn what you need to solve the case, and maybe even to figure out what’s going on. Once you uncover enough information about a character or mystery, you’ll be able to ponder what the deal is with them, confront them about this revelation, and help them complete their task. Lots of people are hiding skeletons in their closets, and you’ve gotta try and untangle what’s really going on here. Don’t fall into the trap of making assumptions.
Most critically though, this is a time management game. The seance is happening at 9pm on day 3. Day 1 is basically a tutorial and ends the moment you find what the game is trying to tell you, so that leaves you with 2 days to solve the case. Every meaningful interaction you can take uses up 1 minute, and all the NPCs move around on the hour every hour during a loading screen. Within any given hour, none of the guests move, so if you can confirm a room as empty, it’ll stay that way until the next hour. You really do need to spend your time wisely, don’t ask guests about things you don’t need to know about, don’t look at stuff that doesn’t need to be looked at, but also don’t stress too much about the time limit. I was by no means ultra conservative about the actions I took, and was still left with 2 and a half hours (about 150 interactions) after solving everything the game had to offer and the start of the seance. Be frugal, but don’t be afraid to explore. And really really make sure you aren’t in a guest’s room when the hour ticks over.
The actual detective puzzle elements aren’t nearly as complicated as they are in The Case of the Golden Idol or The Return of the Obra Dinn, nor are they as obtuse to stumble into (in most cases) as some of the information you’d need in a game such as The Roottrees Are Dead, so the real challenge is time management, understanding of the stories and characters, and being able to find enough of the clues needed to narrow down the suspect, but there are a few time sensitive tasks you need to complete in order to not softlock yourself. Important note: When loading a save file, you can press Tab to timetravel to a previous hour of your save file, though you will lose any information that you skipped back over. This did come in handy though when I accidentally missed an important time sensitive event.
A lot of important dialogue, including initial meetings, conflicts and resolutions, greetings, etc are all fully voice acted, which isn’t something I expected to see in a game like this, but in a game with names and vocabulary such as “Fidah Callaghan”, “Bean Draoi”, “Oweynagat”, and “Babd”, it’s very handy to have actual Irish voice actors read these words aloud to give you an idea of how they are pronunced. The thing that impressed me though is that the French, American, Brazilian, and Egyptian characters are voiced by people from the corresponding countries, which just adds even more authenticity to the characters in the story.
Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1395520 £16.75 (Demo Available)
Humble Bundle: https://www.humblebundle.com/store/the-seance-of-blake-manor £16.75
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