Tag: Gaming

Two characters scheduled a meeting.

The scene pans and stops at Willie, a man giving off a vibe like drinking a bottle to its last drops.

Mr. Boris hurried to the gate only to find a Willie, the drunkard who dozed off asking for one more bottle to which Mr. Boris shuddered a resounding no.

You can talk to Willie before or after passing the small wooden gate.

Either way, Willie dozes off to his wonderland without answering Boris’ question on whether he noticed any passerby. Mr. Boris was probably referring to the one with whom he has the meeting.

He has four objectives before he can meet the (shady) person. He must leave his ID in his hotel room, go to the river down by the Trestle Trail bridge, turn off the light above the Trestle Trail sign as a signal that he arrived, and meet the person at the large entrance to the underground sewers.

Sounds detailed enough!

He does all these, only to become a victim of a crime.

Two agents who got assigned to the murder case came across each other wishing if only they worked alone.

The atmosphere grows interesting as the characters carry themselves off as lone wolves trying to sort this case by revealing nothing about themselves to each other.

It is how one agent revealed only a tiny detail about himself and stated that he answered as a “need-to-know,” a purely diplomatic expression.

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Graphics

Take away the wide-screen, and you will get the 80s and 90s style point-and-click adventure feel. It has a Monkey Island feel, too, except without the overwhelming humor that the other brings.

Gameplay

You hover the mouse over an object and use the command ‘Use’ or ‘Open’ to direct the character into action.

At first, you have the option to go through the casual mode or the hard mode. I would prefer you select the hard difficulty as the developer designed the game to play that way.

The casual mode also cuts out half of the puzzles and, thus, the gameplay.

My Impression

Ron Gilbert, the creator of the Monkey Island adventure, and Gary Winnick dedicated a lot of puzzle-solving delight to this game that has decent voice acting and breathes life into the five main characters.

However, this slight-comedy-based adventure game solves a typical problem of this genre: a To-Do list for every playable character. This feature could be time-saving for many people, especially those who have a busy work-life as I do.

The voice acting may not be up to the mark of a great Lucas Arts story; however, the game has many hundreds of puzzles to solve this crime mystery.

Hence, it’s a simple decision for us adventure gamers.

It feels great to see that the traditional point-and-click still thrives to this day! I love this game. And I believe so will you!

Below are two trailers you could check out:

If you would like to see some gameplay, here’s a link to a walkthrough:

References

IGN. (n.d.). Thimbleweed Park Review. Retrieved July 17, 2021, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-m-ETqve40

Rosa felt alone for some time now. One evening, after writing an article, she felt a pain in her head before thinking of taking some rest.

Her eyebrow raised out of anxiety as she kept throwing questions into the air about the why on whatever was happening around her. It did not take long before the pain stopped.

Rosa felt relieved but remained flustered to the core. Suddenly, she noticed the picture of her with her Auntie Lauren standing over the T.V. flashing.

Rosa peeked at it and saw a ghostly figure appearing beside them. Her eyebrows raised again, body goose-bumped, as she encountered the invisible man, Joey, albeit not from the Friends T.V. show.

Her world turned dark as she blacked out on the floor.

Right there, the game picked off a new atmosphere with Joey’s presence as Rosa woke up to have a brief conversation.

Rosa’s suspense-filled shock drained almost instantly as she shrugged the incident off like it was a tea date, to which she expected Joey to arrive someday, even though she was not inviting it.

Soon she found her purpose as she got along with her invisible partner as both started a journey of deciphering the investigation of two murdered college students.

An invisible man like Joey could frighten just about anyone, but he had a different effect on Rosa, except for the blacking out part to which Joey offered a pun, with the charming characteristics that he brings.

Story

The Blackwell Legacy shows us a young would-be writer Rosangela “Rosa” Blackwell as she was scattering the ashes of her last remaining family member off the Brooklyn Bridge.

What awaits her next is meeting the family ghost Joey Mallone who said that she could live a different life than her predecessors. This came as a relief to Rosa, who thought she would get the same hereditary dementia as her aunt.

However, she figures out a way to aspire for a better life, or according to what she heard from Joey.

Graphics

The game boasts the use of pixelated graphics, especially how it was used numerously around that time, somewhat resembling the VGA graphics used in the 90s.

Controls and Gameplay

The player can interact with the characters and objects in the environment by clicking on them. The left-click enables conversations or directs Rosa where to go, whereas the right-click lets you analyze items.

You can collect items in your inventory, all of which are useful for your investigation. Rosa also has a notepad where she writes down important keywords where she can connect two people or people with an object to complement her findings.

This game has great voice acting and the tone of characters make it a delight to invest in the conversations.

The Impression

This was developer Dave Gilbert’s second game after his previous release “The Shivah,” which was a hit. The Blackwell Legacy is the first in a series of five games as we follow Rosa and her journey with her invisible partner Joey.

This is a unique story and one of a kind, a premise we can rely on some delightful story with the traditional controls from a point-and-click adventure.

After trying out a human and ghost teaming up to solve crimes, I feel much more excited to follow the series as it has four more games following up.

Where to buy?

If you’re interested to try this out, please check this link on Steam. If you are still on the fence, this trailer might help:

Or try some gameplay videos to make a decision:

The dying woman got her wishes respected and rightfully by none other than the shabby-looking jacket-and-jeans-clothed Harper Pendrell, who is the lead character.

Indeed, this guy from Yelltown did not think his day would go about helping someone other than repairing laptops for his fellow citizens as a handyman, let alone stumbling upon and accepting a dying stranger’s request who’s struggling in a life-and-death situation.

Astoundingly, his concern grows much more as he figures out that she already caught the much-talked-about virus around Yelltown. The virus, namely the Yelltown fever, turned the neighborhood’s attitude by frightening even the friendliest of neighbors to open doors for people they know, let alone help, probably how we went through the beginning of the pandemic.

The Meaningful Encounter

Harper may not be the sharpest character in this wonderfully crafted game, but his heart is at the right place.

He decides on a person’s life-changing situation, and he wanted to stay on the right side of things; he went on to look for an honest reporter named Helliwell, as per the request of the ailing woman.

As he embarks on what we call an otherwise evil conspiracy, Harper faces many interesting characters that do not just go by but also stick to us as we play the game, making the characters’ presence respectful.

The Gameplay

The gameplay may seem like any traditional point-n-click adventure where you use the mouse and combine items to form something meaningful with the character’s inventory system.

The pen-n-ink-styled visual makes it even more remarkable to the eyes.

The character’s self-puns on the run would make it all a worthwhile and enjoyable treat, especially for people like me who tend to like talking to themselves.

The Impression

Backwoods Entertainment, the German developer, introduced a flashy game with the gloomy title ‘Unforeseen Incidents’ in a rather hand-sketched graphic-styled outlook.

I came upon this game during the pandemic and started enjoying this incredible hand-sketched adventure. This exciting graphical delicacy includes compelling characters as the game progresses.

We do not see that many as captivating as this game, the price of too stands at a mere $8.19 on Steam, thus giving us the chance to enjoy the atmosphere it brings to the world of us adventure game-seekers. I love this game!

Where to Buy

If you’re interested, you can buy it online from any store below. Please click to redirect to the site:
Steam, GOG, and Humble.

If you need some time to decide, please watch the trailer below: