The Séance of Blake Manor review – An engaging gothic detective game steeped in mystery and menace | games

A A remote country house on the west coast of Ireland, an eccentric group of misfits and misfits, a dapper detective with secrets of his own. The Séance of Blake Manor looks like cozy entertainment on a Sunday evening. Fortunately, this folk horror drama offers much more than just a little fun for Agatha Christie fans.

It’s October 1897, and you play as private detective Declan Ward, who has been sent to the aforementioned mansion – now a grand hotel – to discover the whereabouts of one of its guests, Evelyn Deane, who has mysteriously disappeared. What she discovers is a gothic mansion filled with eccentrics: from a psychic researcher wielding a spiritual camera to a voodoo performer and a Brazilian woman tracing her family roots. They are here for the grand séance to be held on All Hallow’s Eve, when the illusory barrier between the worlds of the living and the dead is at its weakest. But as you discover as you wander through the ornate rooms and meticulously planned gardens in first-person perspective, each participant has a secret—some deadly, some tragic—and many know more about the young Miss Dean than they let on.

What follows is, in some ways, a typical detective adventure, told in the visual style of a graphic novel, art heavily inspired by the works of Mike Mignola (Hellboy) and Edoardo Risso (100 Bullets). She talks to suspects and witnesses, explores rooms looking for hidden clues and useful items, and slowly compiles a list of the culprits. At the same time, the game has an internal clock and timeline of events that your investigations must fit into. The clock only advances if you’re actively searching for a location or interrogating a guest, so you must make efficient use of your detective skills, always needing to make sure you’re in the right place at the right time to eavesdrop on secret meetings, or to attend enlightening conversations about spirituality, mythology, and the history of the palace taking place in the grand drawing room.

All of your findings can be examined and linked via a series of graphical inventory screens, which include an evolving mind map of clues and actions. It can be overwhelming at first, as all these systems suddenly come to life with every letter, key and clue you discover, but you gradually get the hang of things and realize that taking your own notes is a must. Although it’s not as structurally innovative as Blue Prince, the game has interesting ways to nudge you in certain directions, including a pun deduction system that has you generate hypotheses for motives and backstories through which you can confront suspects.

As your investigation unfolds, you begin to understand that this is not just a short, relaxing adventure. It is a game with a point to be achieved. The palace was built on a site of ancient historical and religious significance, turning it into a colonial symbol, while the affluence of the visitors contrasts with the poverty of the hotel staff in subtle and meaningful ways. It’s a game as much about social and cultural appropriation and destruction as it is about the disappearance of one character, and as we learn about folklore and paganism, we also come to understand what the mansion and its wealthy owners – the troubled Blake family – really represent. Incorporated into this is the theme of diaspora, as many guests arrive from colonial countries, seeking answers to complex family mysteries. Here too are tales of drug addiction, abuse and grief, all carefully woven into the central narrative. There are also some spine-tingling moments as apparitions appear at the edges of your vision and things collide in the night.

The result is a highly engaging detective story and a beautifully researched work of interactive folk horror to stand alongside modern alien relics and Wadjet Eye’s seminal book The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow. It fully immerses you in the world of clashing cultures and supernatural revenge, and manages to explore complex themes of colonial trauma, religion, and identity within the confines of a single place and event. You will rush to the bookstore or bookstore to read more about spirituality, folklore, and ancient Irish history.

The Séance of Blake Manor is certainly an autumnal delight filled with spooky scenes but it’s also the most exhilarating of discoveries: a game that challenges and delights, excites and educates in equal measure.