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What a great series..
Im really not sure what i thought of the ending. But i loved the games.
About the ending: I dont think i really like the wishing joey back to life and recreating his body out of thin air.. it makes me say.. why should i believe rosa is really gone? Apparently theres a way to magic her body back into existence. That makes the whole thing feel less final.
Also i feel like the plot of the “vampires” dissipated a little.. and thats okay, it was never the total focus.. what benjiro had to say was very interesting and made things fit pretty well. But didnt one of the games suggest the police comissioner was involved? whatever happened to her?

First of all, just want to say I can’t remember the last time I’ve been on these forums! Hi everyone!

I’ve finished Epiphany last night. Just want to echo everyone else and say how brilliant I thought it was. It’s left me with a few questions. About Gavin’s relationship with Madeleine, and whether and how she arranged the deaths of the Grace group members. George and Jeffrey seemed like arranged hits but Heather and Peter seemed like genuine accidents. I don’t know how many of these are answered in the commentary, which I intend to play later.

Also agree that the vampire thing could have had more airtime. Maybe they’ll explore that later. I think Gilbert(or someone) has said they’re finished with Blackwell to start something new, but he hasn’t said it wouldn’t be in the same universe.

I’ve finally got through the first two Blackwell games and just started the third.  I enjoyed them both very much but I really enjoyed the second game much more than the first.  I like Lauren as a character much more than Roseangela.  Not quite sure why but I do.  I also really enjoyed the 70’s environments more as well.

adfegg - 05 May 2014 07:56 AM

First of all, just want to say I can’t remember the last time I’ve been on these forums! Hi everyone!

I’ve finished Epiphany last night. Just want to echo everyone else and say how brilliant I thought it was. It’s left me with a few questions. About Gavin’s relationship with Madeleine, and whether and how she arranged the deaths of the Grace group members. George and Jeffrey seemed like arranged hits but Heather and Peter seemed like genuine accidents. I don’t know how many of these are answered in the commentary, which I intend to play later.

i think madeline was not in collaboration with gavin or the other vampires, she just sensed the weakening souls and took advantage of it.

zane - 04 May 2014 04:11 PM

What a great series..
Im really not sure what i thought of the ending. But i loved the games.
About the ending: I dont think i really like the wishing joey back to life and recreating his body out of thin air.. it makes me say.. why should i believe rosa is really gone? Apparently theres a way to magic her body back into existence. That makes the whole thing feel less final.
Also i feel like the plot of the “vampires” dissipated a little.. and thats okay, it was never the total focus.. what benjiro had to say was very interesting and made things fit pretty well. But didnt one of the games suggest the police comissioner was involved? whatever happened to her?

The Blackwell Deception has a post-credits scene with the Police Commissioner announcing that she intends to track down whoever was responsible for the deaths of Lisa and Gavin; she seems to have the same voice as whoever Gavin was speaking to during Rosa’s capture, so the implication is definitely there. The inclusion of the giant Commissioner’s picture in the Police Dept. lobby suggests it’s a thread that was either dropped or a red herring… or both.

noknowncure - 05 May 2014 02:15 PM

The Blackwell Deception has a post-credits scene with the Police Commissioner announcing that she intends to track down whoever was responsible for the deaths of Lisa and Gavin; she seems to have the same voice as whoever Gavin was speaking to during Rosa’s capture, so the implication is definitely there. The inclusion of the giant Commissioner’s picture in the Police Dept. lobby suggests it’s a thread that was either dropped or a red herring… or both.

Hmm, yeah, i wanted to see more with that. I suppose it really wasnt needed since things were so vague.. but still cant help but feel like theres a conspiracy of energy-vampires still running around unchallenged.

Im not sure why but i didnt really like joey’s portrait in epiphany very much. I loved rosa’s though… so it balances out.

millenia - 07 May 2014 02:06 PM

I have to add that I loved the new portraits, or well, it was more like going back to Covergence I think. I didn’t really enjoy the cartoony portraits of Deception.

Funny, Dave didn’t either, so he had them redone! Blackwell Deception was updated with new character portraits last fall. You can see them here.

It might depend on where you bought it, but in theory you should be able to redownload the game from whatever store you got it from and get access to the version with new character portraits.

fov - 07 May 2014 06:33 PM

Funny, Dave didn’t either, so he had them redone! Blackwell Deception was updated with new character portraits last fall. You can see them here.

It might depend on where you bought it, but in theory you should be able to redownload the game from whatever store you got it from and get access to the version with new character portraits.

hm i recently downloaded and played the gog version, and it was the old portraits. Yeah those newer portraits look better.
EDIT: just noticed theres a gog patch i never ran, tried running it and the patcher failed. Hm.
EDIT2: got the patch to work, and it does indeed update to the better portraits.

I think every element in the series reached its peak here. Well, maybe The Convergence thematic was my personal favorite with all that Joe Gould story but Epiphany is right behind it and compensated with depth and dramatic weight. I forced myself to stretch my playthrough in 6-7 sessions and found the length quite satisfying. What suits me the most is the feeling that the puzzles are there not because the game has to have puzzles. They are so well integrated into the world so they feel like real obstacles you’d encounter in a real life experience. That’s why I didn’t mind the difficulty or the small amount of inventory puzzles. At the same time the game didn’t feel like riding on a roller coaster through every event. There were some stuck moments but a perfectly logical solution was always waiting nearby. I just hate it when I see a redundant puzzle in an adventure game just for the sake of it. I’m really happy that there was nothing redundant in this case.

Both characters and faces were at its best imo. The faces felt like a significant part of the background. So much better than those in Deception, which where at the least… awkward. Joey indeed resembles the Convergence’s Joey ( also a decent Joey ) As for Rose, that’s the way I always thought she’d look. Very close to her character.

I won’t go into details about the ending. I found it a bit over-dramatic and with a bigger scale than I expected. But on the other hand it really touched me in a way. I grew sympathy for these characters and I cared for them. And it’s a really difficult task that needs a lot of balance to create a believable setting with such fleshed-out characters. Bravo Dave Gilbert. Can’t wait to replay all the games with commentary.

Finally had the time to finish Blackwell Epiphany today. Great game, best in the series—congrats to Wadjet Eye

The length, the number of environments, the art, the sound…everything was a big step up from previous installments. I found the end satisfying, though I tend to agree with others here, that the plethora of cosmic rules introduced during the climax of the game didn’t really feel earned or justified. It all seemed a bit last minute, for the sake of drama and convenience, but I was happy to go along with it.

Can’t wait for the next project!