''Blackwell'' is a series of five

graphic adventure video game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based me ...

s from

independent game developer An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. ...

Wadjet Eye Games Wadjet Eye Games is an American indie video game developer, voice casting/directing contractor/subcontractor and publisher which specialises in point-and-click adventure games. It was founded in 2006 by Dave Gilbert (game designer), Dave Gilb ...

, created by Dave Gilbert. The plots of the games generally focus on Rosangela Blackwell, a

spiritual medium Mediumship is the practice of purportedly mediating communication between familiar spirits or spirits of the dead and living human beings. Practitioners are known as "mediums" or "spirit mediums". There are different types of mediumship or spir ...

, and her

spirit guide A spirit guide, in Western spiritualism, is an entity that remains as a discarnate spirit to act as a guide or protector to a living incarnation, incarnated human being. Description In traditional African belief systems, well before the spre ...

Joey Mallone, who work to help

ghost A ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person or animal that is believed to be able to appear to the living. In ghostlore, descriptions of ghosts vary widely from an invisible presence to translucent or barely visible wispy shapes, to rea ...

s transition to the

afterlife The afterlife (also referred to as life after death) is a purported existence in which the essential part of an individual's identity or their stream of consciousness continues to live after the death of their physical body. The surviving ess ...

Gameplay

All five games are point-and-click

graphic adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus on story allows it to draw ...

Games

The Blackwell Legacy

The first game in the series, ''The Blackwell Legacy,'' was released on December 23, 2006. The protagonist of the game is Rosangela Blackwell (Rosa), who is a young

freelance ''Freelance'' (sometimes spelled ''free-lance'' or ''free lance''), ''freelancer'', or ''freelance worker'', are terms commonly used for a person who is self-employed and not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. Freelance w ...

writer living a solitary life in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Her only close relative, her aunt Lauren Blackwell, dies following years of being in a

coma A coma is a deep state of prolonged unconsciousness in which a person cannot be awakened, fails to respond normally to painful stimuli, light, or sound, lacks a normal wake-sleep cycle and does not initiate voluntary actions. Coma patients exhi ...

in the local hospital. Shortly afterward, Rosa is asked to write about a

suicide Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Mental disorders (including depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, personality disorders, anxiety disorders), physical disorders (such as chronic fatigue syndrome), and s ...

in a college dorm for a small newspaper. Rosa experiences headaches throughout the day culminating in a ghost named Joey Mallone appearing in her apartment. He explains that she is a "medium" like her aunt and that her job is to help ghosts stuck in the real world to "move on". Reluctantly she accepts the explanation and proceeds to solve a case about the girl whose ghost is now haunting a dog park. She discovers that the girl is one of three close friends, who summoned a

restless ghost In mythology and folklore, a vengeful ghost or vengeful spirit is said to be the spirit of a dead person who returns from the afterlife to seek revenge for a cruel, unnatural or unjust death. In certain cultures where funeral and burial or crema ...

with a

ouija board The ouija ( , ), also known as a spirit board or talking board, is a flat board marked with the letters of the Latin alphabet, the numbers 0–9, the words "yes", "no", occasionally "hello" and "goodbye", along with various symbols and grap ...

; two of the friends have already committed suicide. She learns how to help the ghost. The third girl also attempts to commit suicide but is taken to the hospital, where Rosa finds her and the restless ghost. She then helps the ghost move on as well. Afterwards, Rosa asks Joey why did Lauren stop being a medium. Joey says it is because Lauren wanted to raise Rosa after the latter's parents died in a car accident. Pondering this, and with her writing career going nowhere fast, Rosa decides to follow her aunt's footsteps and become a medium full time.

Blackwell Unbound

The Blackwell Convergence

The Blackwell Deception

The Blackwell Epiphany

Characters

Rosa Blackwell

The main

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

of the series, living in modern day New York City. Having been brought up in

foster care Foster care is a system in which a minor has been placed into a ward, group home (residential child care community, treatment center, etc.), or private home of a state-certified caregiver, referred to as a "foster parent" or with a family mem ...

after the early death of her parents and

Institutionalisation In sociology, institutionalisation (or institutionalization) is the process of embedding some conception (for example a belief, norm, social role, particular value or mode of behavior) within an organization, social system, or society as a who ...

of her aunt, Rosa is a reserved introvert who struggles with communication, though she is hardly interested in befriending others. She starts the series as a fledgling

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

and

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

, but quickly embraces her role as a medium. Over the course of the series, she becomes determined and fierce in her resolve to help ghosts move on, even accumulating multiple restraining orders over the course of her work. She is incredibly defiant at times, and can be dismissive of Joey, but always cares enough to do the right thing.

Joey Mallone

The spirit guide of the Blackwell family. Joey originally hails from the Roaring 20s, working in a tailor shop before being gunned down by

mobsters A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

. Through an interesting chain of events not fully disclosed, he ended up becoming tied to the Blackwell family, starting with Rosa's grandmother. Joey is dry and sarcastic, frequently lamenting over the eternal and thankless nature of his work as a spirit guide, and is unable to be more than 30 feet away from his medium at all times. He does, however, genuinely care for the Blackwell women that he is stuck with, and tries his best to protect them when they are in danger.

Lauren Blackwell

Rosa's aunt on her father's side, and the protagonist of the second game. Lauren was a medium during the 70s in

. Though Lauren largely resigned to her life as a medium and resents it for separating her from her brother, she is still very amiable and, unlike Rosa, is able to charm info out of people more readily. Lauren would later adopt Rosa following her brother's untimely death, vowing to quit being a medium. However, she wound up being institutionalized for decades before finally dying at the beginning of the first game. She comically reveals in the final game that she had tried to prep Rosa for life as a medium by dressing up her prized teddy bear like Joey.

Nishanti Sharma

Rosa's next door neighbor within her apartment complex. Nishanti is an amiable extrovert, and is in many ways Rosa's polar opposite. Nishanti has a very high IQ and, despite not being a medium, is able to sense things many people cannot, often unwittingly pointing Rosa in the direction of more ghosts. She starts traveling in later games and during this time, communicates with Rosa only by email. She remains unaware of Rosa's nature as a spirit medium.

The Countess

The primary antagonist of the second and third games. The Countess was originally a spirit medium who lived during the

Roaring 20s The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the U ...

. Her real name is Jocelyn Contis. Unlike Rosa, Jocelyn resented her job as a medium, preferring to spend her nights dancing with her peers than with Madeline, her guide. Shortly after the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

hit, Jocelyn decided to sever her connection to Madeline, and in doing so, she would go mad looking for a new spirit guide, and began referring to herself as the Countess. She would attach herself to other humans and, in the process, create more ghosts rather than help them move on. She is killed by Lauren, but doesn't rest until Rosa helps her spirit move on several decades later.

Madeline

An ally turned antagonist. Madeline appears to be of royal lineage of some European monarchy from several centuries prior, though some of her dialogue suggests that the era she once lived in is much more recent. At first, she is kind and helpful, providing Rosa with the assistance necessary to deal with the Countess. However, it is revealed later that she is numb and

sociopathic Psychopathy, sometimes considered synonymous with sociopathy, is characterized by persistent antisocial behavior, impaired empathy and remorse, and bold, disinhibited, and egotistical traits. Different conceptions of psychopathy have been u ...

, brought about by her work as a spirit guide and is unable to pass on. Originally serving as the spirit guide of the Countess, Madeline was abandoned by her and stuck in

Limbo In Catholic theology, Limbo (Latin '' limbus'', edge or boundary, referring to the edge of Hell) is the afterlife condition of those who die in original sin without being assigned to the Hell of the Damned. Medieval theologians of Western Euro ...

before plotting to return to life so that she may eventually die properly. To that end, she tried to possess the other mediums of the Blackwell family and take their bodies, only to fail and cause them to go insane. Madeline would then try to forcibly destroy her spirit at the cost of everyone else's, only to be stopped by Rosa. She eventually passes on in peace thanks to the efforts of Rosa.

Sam Durkin

Rosa's only ally in the

NYPD The New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially the City of New York Police Department, established on May 23, 1845, is the primary municipal law enforcement agency within the City of New York, the largest and one of the oldest in ...

. Gruff and tough, Sam is a detective who, after meeting Rosa in the fourth game, regularly employs her as a

tipster A tipster is someone who regularly provides information (tips) on the likely outcomes of sporting events on internet sites or special betting places. History In the past tips were bartered for and traded but nowadays, thanks largely to the Inter ...

to generate leads on cold cases, giving Rosa a critical financial lifeline. By his own choice, he does not ask for details about the nature of Rosa's abilities and keeps his distance from her, but otherwise respects Rosa. He is also the detective who saved Rosa from her aunt's tantrum when Lauren went insane, and thus continues to look out for Rosa even when the latter keeps getting into trouble with the law working as a medium.

Reception

Adventure Gamers ''Adventure Gamers'' is a computer game website created by Marek Bronstring in March 1998 dedicated to the genre of adventure games. It publishes reviews and previews of adventure games, as well as opinion articles and interviews with game des ...

gave 3.5/5 to the first four games, and 4.5/5 to Epiphany. Gamezebo gave 3.5/5 stars to ''Legacy'' and ''Unbound'', 4/5 stars to ''Convergence'' and ''Epiphany'', and 4.5/5 stars to ''Deception''.

References

External links

Official website of ''The Blackwell Legacy''

Official website of ''Blackwell Unbound''

Official website of ''The Blackwell Convergence''

Official website of ''The Blackwell Deception''

Official website of ''The Blackwell Epiphany''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blackwell Series 2006 video games 2009 video games 2011 video games 2014 video games Android (operating system) games Adventure Game Studio games Video games about ghosts Indie video games IOS games Linux games MacOS games Point-and-click adventure games Video game franchises Video games developed in the United States Video games featuring female protagonists Video games set in New York City Video games with commentaries Video game franchises introduced in 2006 Windows games AGS Award winners