Blackwell (series)

As the first game in the series, it was released on December 23, 2006. The protagonist of the game is Rosangela Blackwell (Rosa), who is a young freelance writer living a solitary life in New York City. Soon after her only close relative, aunt Lauren Blackwell, dies following years of coma in the local hospital, she is asked to write about a suicide in a college dorm for a small online publication. Rosa experiences headaches throughout the day and it culminates in a ghost named Joey Mallone making an appearance in her apartment. He explains that she is a "medium" like her aunt and that her job is to help ghosts that are stuck in the real world "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 soon discovers that the girl is one of three close friends and that two of them have already committed suicide after they summoned a restless ghost with a ouija board. She learns how to and helps the ghost "move on". 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.[1] Afterwards, Rosa asks Joey why did Lauren stop being a medium. Joey says it's 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 in her aunt's footsteps and become a medium full-time.

The second game is a prequel to Legacy and follows the investigations of Rosa's aunt Lauren Blackwell and Joey back in the 70s. They investigate two ghosts – a murdered saxophone player and a murdered woman haunting a construction site of her old apartment building. While investigating the two seemingly unrelated incidents, Lauren discovers that both ghosts have been murdered by the same elderly, homeless woman that calls herself The Countess. She claims that she is a medium like Lauren and is also helping the people move on. But she is in fact mad and is killing them. The duo tries to catch her, but she escapes. Puzzled by The Countess' claims about being a medium, despite the obvious lack of a spirit guide following her, they discover that she is using New Yorker journalist Joseph Mitchell as a spirit guide substitute and kills whoever he writes about. Mitchell eventually made the connection himself, and stopped writing all together out of fear of getting anyone else killed. Lauren then convinces Mitchell to write about her to lure The Countess out of hiding. The plan works and she arrives at Lauren's place to kill her, where she is overpowered and Lauren is forced to kill her. At the end of the game, Lauren decides to get in touch with her brother again, despite Joey's misgivings about it.[2]

As with Legacy, Unbound uses the Adventure Game Studio engine. Unbound was originally supposed to be a flashback sequence in the next game, The Blackwell Convergence, but it grew so large that it became a game in its own right. The game was nominated for Best Story and won Best Music in the AGS Awards for games released in 2007.[3]

The story features a real person as a character: writer Joseph Mitchell of the New Yorker.

The game was released on September 4, 2007.

The third game takes place six months after the events in Legacy. While visiting a gallery viewing, Rosa starts to investigate a possible lead from a director at a film company. She soon finds out that an actor from their recent film has been murdered. Rosa also finds out about an old murder of a researcher whose work was stolen to benefit a rival corporation. Finally, on the gallery's opening night The Countess makes an appearance as a ghost and kills the artist whose paintings are on display. In all three cases, the companies were funded by the venture capitalist firm Meltzer Foundation and Rosa finds out that they benefited greatly from all three deaths. Rosa confronts them and also learns that it was The Countess who did the killings after forming a bond with Charles Meltzer, one of two brothers owning the Meltzer Foundation. He tries to kill Rosa as well, but The Countess' old guide Madeline interferes and Rosa helps her to break the bond between The Countess and Charles Meltzer. Freed from the bond, The Countess tries to take revenge on Charles, but is stopped by Rosa and Joey and Rosa helps her to move on. Rosa learns that The Countess broke her bond with her guide Madeline and soon lost her mind; she then bonded with Joe Gould, later Joseph Mitchell, and finally Charles Meltzer.[4]

This game was originally to be released sometime around June 2008, but was delayed for a variety of reasons. However, the game was released on July 22, 2009 to mostly positive reviews.

Two real people are included in the cast of characters: writer Joseph Mitchell returns, as well as New York eccentric Joe Gould.

The fourth game focuses on Rosa and Joey again and takes place some time after the third game. Rosa receives a call from a former co-worker asking to investigate a case for him. She soon finds out that he has been murdered while investigating a contact given by a psychic Lisa Tenzin. Rosa then proceeds to solve two more murder cases and finds out that Lisa had referred both to a man named Gavin. She confronts the psychic about their deaths and it turns out Gavin had brainwashed her into helping him. Gavin has in fact been "feeding" on their energy to remain immortal. Gavin then captures Rosa and kills Lisa who tries to escape. He brainwashes Rosa into trapping Joey and tries to feed on her. However, Joey escapes and manages to bring Rosa to her senses. As she breaks Gavin's ritual of feeding on her, she accidentally kills him. Since Gavin fed on a large number of Souls he tries to resurrect himself but Lisa's Ghost distracts him. Rosa takes advantage and drags him as well as Lisa's Soul to the Gates where someone unseen stops Gavin from moving on and, in order to punish Gavin for failing his mission, somehow destroys his Soul. After Lisa's departure Rosa, confused by her purpose, decides to track down the organization that was behind Gavin and found a full scale "Ghost Investigation" Agency.[5]

The game was released on October 12, 2011. An updated version was released on October 31, 2013. Notably, this version changed the character portraits from the original comic-style, to a more realistic style matching the other games in the series.

The Blackwell Epiphany is the fifth and final game in the series. It was released on April 24, 2014.[6] The game received critical acclaim, and won numerous awards from websites such as Adventure Game Studio and Adventure Gamers.[7][8]

The story starts off with Rosa investigating a condemned building. After freeing a soul, Rosa witnesses a man named George Ostin being shot dead. George's ghost pleads for Rosa's help, knowing that she's a legitimate spirit medium, but before Rosa can take any action, George's ghost is ripped apart by an unknown force.

Rosa investigates George's death and, through the trail of several other ghosts, uncovers the existence of a church-based self-help group known as the Grace Group. Every member is in danger of dying or already dead, and their ghosts are in danger of being torn apart by an unknown force instead of moving on. With the help of Madeline, the former spirit guide of the Countess, Rosa and Joey are able to protect most of the souls. Later, however, Madeline betrays everyone by revealing that she had been ripping the souls herself to absorb them and gain their life force, and that she had targeted the Grace Group because their souls were exceptionally weak. Madeline explains that she wants nothing more than to end her several centuries of thankless work as a spirit guide, and intends to return to life because she cannot pass on. She absorbs the souls of the remaining Grace Group members and possesses Rosa's body, effectively returning to life. Joey is able to extract Madeline from Rosa's body, but in doing so, Rosa's mind becomes overloaded with "the knowledge of the universe", and is driven insane the same way as her aunt and grandmother before her. Madeline reveals that she was responsible for driving the other Blackwell women insane by attempting to possess them, but failing due to her insufficient life force and the emotional weakness of the host. Madeline's occupancy then departure would cause the universe to fill the void left behind and overstimulate the mediums' senses.

Rosa is placed in solitary confinement at Bellevue Mental Hospital. With the help of Joey and the ghost of her late aunt, Rosa gains temporary control over her immense knowledge, and explains that Madeline is now threatening to wipe out all life in New York in an attempt to forcibly vaporize her own soul by drawing in the power of the universe through a portal. Rosa and Joey escape the hospital, and confront Madeline. Rosa takes control of the portal and subsequently allows every departed soul currently in the world to flow through her and pass on, Madeline and her aunt included. Joey, however, is still unable to pass on. The portal closes. Rosa, losing control of her mind again, decides to pass her life force to Joey with her remaining power. Joey's body becomes corporeal as he is properly alive again, and Rosa dies.

The end scene shows Joey spreading Rosa's ashes over the docks where Rosa had spread her aunt's ashes at the beginning of the series. Joey monologues about how he has tried to look for spirits to help since Rosa's death by investigating the scene of a recent highway accident following rumors of disembodied screams and cries, but finds that he is no longer able to hear and see ghosts like before. Uncertain of what to do now that he is just a regular human again, Joey merely concludes that "life is worth living", and promises to live it out fully to honor Rosa's sacrifice.