The Séance of Blake Manor

Great mystery game, would love to see more.

Time is too centric

One of the best point and click detective games on Steam. Story is captivating and soundtrack is great.

Such a great game. 10/10 would play again

I've been playing "The Seance of Blake Manor" over the last couple of weeks and I've really, really enjoyed it. It has flaws, but I really enjoyed it as a murder mystery puzzle game and interactive story. The setting is 1890s western Ireland where Blake Manor is preparing to host a seance. The claim is that at this seance they will not just conjure a spirit to speak through a medium, but the spirit will speak directly itself.  You have arrived at the manor as an investigator charged with uncovering the details of how one guest, Evelynn Deane, went missing. The hotel staff claim she simply left, but it doesn't add up. The gameplay involves exploring the rooms of the manor and conversing with the wide cast of characters. You have arrived Friday evening with the seance scheduled for Sunday night. Every action you take costs you time. For instance, asking a character about a piece of evidence or another character costs you a minute. Sitting through a meal with characters may cost 30 minutes, but you discover important information during the discussion. There is a timeline where, each hour, characters move locations and different elements become exposed. If you've played any of the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney games it has a somewhat similar vibe. As you acquire more information you build to where you can declare a hypothesis and then confront each character in the game. Most of the character interactions have voice acting and each has a unique voice, which is a nice touch. As far as flaws or drawbacks go, one major frustration is that some information is time gated where you pretty well know how to solve a mystery of a character but you can't get a critical piece of evidence until later in the timeline. It leads to a lot of backtracking and moving between topics just to fill time. There's also not much replay value. There are a handful of different endings, but you can save scum your way into getting them all pretty quickly. I missed a critical clue pretty early on which prevented me from solving a handful of characters. I might go back and replay just to unlock those to have the game 100% complete. I really enjoyed it as a relax and unwind game.

Very enjoyable mystery game with some horror vibes but not really scary. Music, gaphics and voice acting is good. Not too hard but you still get satisfaction for figuring things out, unlocking new clues and new areas of the manor. Played on steam deck and it worked perfectly witout issues.

故事设定非常好，我个人很喜欢时间段的布局，和调查消耗时间，实际给的时间还挺充裕。除了大家对侦探诚实到有点搞笑之外，时间表还是挺符合逻辑的，另外主角和xxxxx的结局非常好，喜欢了（

Really fun, well put-together mystery game! I had no expectations going in and so was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this game. The characters are all really interesting and the story keeps you guessing all the way to the end. I really loved the incorporation of mythology and folklore, especially from so many different cultures! It's just such a unique idea executed really well. The art style initially threw me off a little, but I came to find it very charming as I saw more and more of the map. My only real critiques are that, firstly, the culprit is pretty ridiculously easy to figure out-- while the idea of figuring out different facts about the culprit and comparing them with what you know of the suspects is a super fun idea, you only need maybe three or four facts to have a pretty sure idea who the culprit is, so you're spending the later half of the game just ticking off boxes instead. I think there's enough intrigue with the rest of the mystery to make up for it, but it still felt a little cheap to solve the central mystery so easily. Secondly, with regards to the endings, I really wish [spoiler]the "release" and "close" endings were actually different. I feel like "release" was really set up to be the "true" ending, especially since it requires more work to get, so I was a bit disappointed to discover that your choice between the two at the end changes absolutely nothing.[/spoiler] Overall, though, a really unique and fun mystery game!