A magazine about old school video games
Don't be a jerk Top level threads must be about old video games
Next up is @8bitgames@oldbytes.space‘s great new game Blackwood Manor. We play this on the #commodore #c16.
#retrogaming #interactivefiction
The setting is: you‘re a writer that moved from NY to the Scottish highlands. Into an old manor. It is shortly before Christmas.
In the lounge we fall asleep and have a weird nightmare. Waking up we wonder if this was someone else’s experience, from long ago.
After getting up from the sleep we enter the bedroom, called the solar. Cora is there. Conversations are menu driven in this game.
We further explore the house. In the bathroom we find an intricate Celtic knot with garnets.
Outside we find a dovecote. The same as we saw in our dream. There is a spot where something is buried but we don’t have a shovel.
Back in Blackwood Manor: We managed to find a spade and found a key in the spot we saw in our dreams!
#interactivefiction #blackwoodmanor
@root42@chaos.social great parser! I love the use of 'it' to refer to the last object used.
A little while later we find four silver plates, due to the key we found earlier. They depict four different saints. We have no idea yet what to make of those...
While we are pondering what we do, we remember that Rosie left us her number. We call her up and ask her about the man with the scar, from our dreams.
After Rosie gave us the hint, we search the portrait in question and find a kind of pocket…
#interactivefiction #blackwoodmanor
In the pocket we find a parchment that hints at another hidden place. There we find a statuette. The question is: what to do with the statuette?
The statuette fits perfectly in an indentation in the altar. This reveals a secret passage…
Underneath the sacristy we find the crypt. There we find four murals, which have recesses for the four plates we have. A bit of research shows which plate belongs to which mural and finally a hidden door opens, revealing an amulet.
#interactivefiction #blackwoodmanor
The amulet is a mystery to us. So where do we go for hints? Exactly!
After this we hear an eerie voice. It’s coming from the garden. Of course we immediately go there. It tells us to come to the village in the forest. But alas, we don’t know the path to the village!
Out of ideas we go back to check on Cora, who fell asleep. However her book looks interesting. It’s about witch hunts in the 16th century. In the book we find a map to the village.
And thus we have reached the end of Part I. Next up: Part II The Ritual.
We start off into part 2 of the game by following the forest parh. We end up at a graveyard where we hear the ghost again. Wearing the amulet makes us see the ghost.
#interactivefiction #blackwoodmanor
@root42@chaos.social What I like about this genre (and books in general) is how effective it is while consuming so little resources. The text adventures were well alive in the beginning of 1980s already and provide much more satisfying experience than 8-bit era graphics ever could. All you need is your imagination, and it's very powerful.
The ghost talks to us. Her name is Ysabella. It seems she is waiting for her son, who seems to be locked up in Blackwood Manor. She wants us to collect a bunch of things for a ritual: some bread, candles, linen and a drop of blood.
Let’s see if we can find the boy and the items…
#interactivefiction #blackwoodmanor
We go back to the manor to look for the boy. In the chapel we meet Rosie and Cora. Rosie has an idea what we are up to and begs to take Cora with her, as she thinks we might turn on her. In this scenario we will agree to this. I bet that this is one of the forms that leads to a different ending…
Back in the crypt we quickly find the secret tunnel that leads to the dungeon where the boy is kept. A line of salt keeps him from leaving. We collect the salt and the boy is free. Now we only need to collect all items for the ritual.
Okay, we were a bit dense: the blood can be wiped up after cutting oneself a bit.
I will skip the last steps to not spoil too much. But we managed to finish the game. With the bad ending!
Oops. We will try again later to figure out the good ending!
#interactivefiction
Next up we actually reached the neutral ending. I won‘t spoil the steps how to get there, but it should be rather obvious after you managed the bad ending. Quite intriguing…
#interactivefiction #blackwoodmanor
And after that we of course managed to find the good ending as well. All in all this was good game. It shows that it’s Stefan‘s third game and it’s arguably his best so far. It felt a bit short, but was motivating and very atmospheric all the time. I personally would have loved a bit of a larger map without purely decorative rooms, and maybe even a sort of progression where you move from one setting to another, but I guess the game works as it is. Two thumbs up! 👍