Part 4: Blackwell Legacy - Update 3

It's never too early for speculation as far as I'm concerned - I'd love to see a lot more of it This thread could get boring real fast (not to mention image-heavy) if people refrain from commenting.

The nominal spooks will be along within a couple of updates. Actually this game (and the second game for that matter) is pretty short, it will probably only be 12 updates or so. The third and fourth games will be longer.



Alright, let's keep moving here.

Blackwell Legacy basically puts you through three big plot dumps, then lets you focus on actually starting to solve puzzles. Gilbert has since expressed remorse that he didn't find a less wordy and intrusive way to reveal the backstory, but it is what it is. The good news is once these three plot dumps are over, the rest of the series gets the pacing pretty much spot on. And the plot dumps themselves are fairly well written, which helps matters.

This update will cover the second (and shortest) of these plot dumps.

Update 3

Rosa's Theme



Rosa arrives back in her apartment, her mind filled with concerned thoughts about her conversation with Doc Quentin.



Immediately, she notices an envelope which has arrived, containing her deceased Auntie Lauren's personal effects.

Apparently this envelope had no trouble entering the building. Go figure.

Hahaha, I love this

Looks like it's from Bellevue.

Not Quite Right

Here comes the second plot dump, though it is done fairly well.



The envelope contains 25 pages of documents, mostly letters from Lauren's family. Rather than notate them, I will link the screenshots since the various handwriting/typewriting fonts add some flavour. There's a fair bit of text here but it's not too bad.



The first letter is from Lauren's mother, who is presumably the Patricia mentioned by Doctor Quentin. The doctor mentioned Patricia started showing signs of dementia at the age of 55, which is close to what you would expect to be her age around the time of this letter if her daughter was at college already.



The next letter is from Lauren's brother Jack. Unless there are multiple siblings, it's safe to assume Jack is Rosa's father. The little typo markers here are a charming touch.



This letter is a bit of filler, but nice.



Around a year after the previous letters, this one arrived, and it's clear that Patricia is starting to suffer the effects of early-onset dementia.



With a signoff like "Jacko" we can probably assume Lauren is the older sister.



Lauren apparently waited two months to check in with her mother, who is obviously still with it enough to pretend things are alright.



After visiting home, Lauren notices things are getting worse.



"Jack" now. Presumably he's grown up a bit. I guess having his mother slowly go crazy in front of him has forced that.



There's the first mention of 'Joey'. At this point I'm wondering if the doctors ever read this stuff.



Only six months after the first symptoms show up, Patricia is committed to an asylum.



This is all pretty stuff, actually.



The next letter comes three years later, after Lauren has graduated, and with Jack about to start college himself.



Lauren was a smoker, apparently.



30 months later, Jack sends another letter, about how he's falling in love with Maria. Judging by the amazing red hair, it's safe to assume Maria became Rosa's mother.



Three more years pass before the next letter. Patricia has died, and Lauren has since become distant from her family.



Only a week later, another letter from Jack, who has been trying to contact Lauren. Hearing her talking with a "Joey" is obviously of great concern to Jack given what happened to his mother.



Several months later, Jack is at his wit's end and hires a private detective to follow Lauren around, and she is acting very strange indeed.



I'm torn between feeling bad for Jack here, and feeling bad for Rosa who is apparently predisposed to this same condition.



The next letter is from Lauren herself, which she either never sent or somehow got back. She tells Jack that she's fine, and that their mother wasn't truly crazy at all.

Gotta say, Lauren had gorgeous handwriting.



This explains why Lauren has her own letter, Jack sent it back. He and Maria are now getting married and Lauren is invited.



Writing from his honeymoon (where he apparently still has his typewriter) Jack expresses his appreciation that Lauren made the wedding. This will actually be a minor plot point going forward.

There are some pictures stuck to the back of this letter.

We'll look at them soon.



Three years later, Jack writes to tell Lauren that he has had a daughter, Rosangela. These games were designed to be "in real time", so presumably Rosa is 30 years old at the time of this game.



This bittersweet message is immediately followed by...



A notification that Jack and Maria passed away five years into Rosa's life. Lauren, despite having remained distant from her family since their mother's death, agrees to take custody of Rosa.

With that suitably depressing set of letters finished, we can piece together Rosa's history a bit. Around the age of five her Auntie Lauren took custody of her, which explains the photo of a scared young Rosa. Shortly afterwards, Lauren was hospitalised at Bellevue and kept sedated for the next 25 years. Somehow Rosa was able to support herself and survived. In later games it is hinted that the Blackwell family has a lot of money so I guess various guardians were hired to take care of her.



There are two pictures in the envelope as well. This is from Jack and Maria's wedding. Rosa can look at each of the three individually.

That's definitely Auntie Lauren. She's looking at something off camera. I wonder what it was?
I assume that's my mother. She sort of looks like me, I guess. Other than that, she's a total stranger.
Is that my... dad? He looks so young. I always pictured my dad as being older.

Judging by the dates of the letters, Jack was probably around 24 at this point. He and Maria are very cute together



The second picture gets no commentary from Rosa, but appears to be a photo of a young Jack and Lauren with a rather concerned looking Patricia. Presumably this photo is from the Thanksgiving that Jack mentioned in his letter, unless Lauren also came back for Christmas that year as well.

Rosa's Theme



After that kind of eerie and depressing set of letters, Rosa's thoughts are again interrupted by her phone ringing.

Voice: RosANGelina. Hi.
Hi Bob.
Voice: Thanks SO much for submitting your last review on time. For once.
Yeah.
Voice: I got a LITTLE assignment for you today.
Assignment?
Voice: Human interest, Blackwell. Suicide. A college girl named JoAnn Sherman.

This guy sounds like a gigantic tool.

That's awful, but -
Voice: You know the Brittany House? The NYU dorm?
Yes, but -
Voice: Speak to some people on her floor. Get a word in with the roommate.
Listen-
Voice: Speak to the R.A., too. And hey, see if you can score a picture of the girl.
But I don't do that stuff! I write book reviews.
Voice: Versatility! Time to get out of your comfort zone. Jeremy's over at city hall covering that strike, so you're it. Get cracking.

This is our first in-game indication that Rosa is a journalist, other than Quentin's mention of her "little book reviews". Rosa has previously only written book reviews, but it looks like it's time for her to cover a suicide story, because that's what you want rookie reporters doing

The name Jeremy will show up again in later games, but for now he's just a fellow newspaper staffer we don't know much about.



Is freelancing for that stupid paper even worth it? I guess it keeps me writing, but... Oh whatever. I'll just go over there and get it done. It's not like I don't have enough death in my life right now.

Yeah, this is a pretty rough deal for poor Rosa to deal with.



Still, she makes peace with it fairly quickly. Perhaps it will help to keep her mind off the procession of terrible news she has received today.

My old notepad should come in handy for this.



Here we are introduced to one of the stable gimmicks of this series, the notepad. When Rosa receives clues, she will write them on her notepad. She can also combine clues together to receive new (or more specific) clues, which becomes one of the major puzzle mechanics.

Gilbert has received a lot of praise for this gimmick, but he says he took the idea from one of the Discworld games. He was apparently never really happy with how the notepad system worked and would try to tweak it in the third game, but received enough complaints that he returned to original system in the fourth.



Here is an example of combining two clues together. We don't get a new clue, but we do get a comment from Rosa about their link. If two clues are unrelated entirely, Rosa will usually just give a standard "I don't see any link between those two clues" type of response.

So combining JoAnn and Photograph:

My boss asked me to find a photograph of JoAnn to put in the paper.

While combining JoAnn's Suicide and Photograph gets us:

That makes no sense.

In general I will show you the interesting combinations, but leave out those which have no link at all.



Feeling like she could use a friend right now, Rosa decides to take Nishanthi up on her offer to drop in before embarking to Brittany hall.

Come in!

Nishanthi's Theme

Nishanthi's theme is actually pretty decent. One of the better tracks in Legacy's soundtrack, anyway.



Come in. Come in. Don't mind the pooch. He's harmless.

Yes, we've met Moti already, Nishanthi.



Periodically, Moti will decide he is hungry and Nishanthi will feed him a doggy biscuit. Moti is pretty damn cute



Rosa starts up a conversation with Nishanthi. I like how Rosa can barge in then immediately ask for permission to leave

In order to make these dialogue sequences flow a bit better, I will try to combine the multiple options together when it makes sense to do so. It's not 100% faithful to the game, but it does give you a more rounded picture of things. I think this game was meant to be replayed several times to get a full picture of what's going on. In the later games, there are fewer instances of three dialogue choices where you can only choose one.

So... Um. How are you.
...
Oh, I'm just fine. Right Moti? Aren't we just fine?



Moti barks in response to hearing his name. Seriously, I love this dog.

I was just, you know, in the neighborhood... So I thought I'd drop by.
...
Sure. Sure. Anytime.
This is, um, a lovely place.
Thank you! Not the biggest place, but fine for Moti and me.

It's never really covered in-game in any of the four titles, but Nishanthi's backstory is supposed to be that she moved to New York as a young adult, eventually realised she had lost touch with her Indian heritage, is now trying to rediscover herself. All in all she's a very pleasant character, though underused throughout the series.

Thanks again for helping me out earlier. I'd probably be sleeping in a hotel tonight if it weren't for you.
Oh, you didn't hear?



Ahahahahahahahahahaha.

...
Really.
It only lasted a few hours, according to the report on the radio.
I suppose that's irony.
I suppose so.

Rosa tries to get to know Nishanthi a bit better.

So you play the flute, huh?
Yes, I play the flute. It's called a bansuri. What about you? Do you play an instrument?
Me? No. I can hardly play the kazoo.
Let's see. You strike me as being creatively inclined. Are you a painter? A writer?



I knew it! Anything published?
Nothing really. Aside from book reviews in the Village Eye.
Village Eye? You mean that little paper they sell at the stand?
You've read it?
I've seen it around, but I've never actually read it. Perhaps I will, the next time I see it.

Again, this becomes a minor plot point in a later game. This series is pretty good at tying things together from previous games.



Moti? He's spoiled rotten, but he'd good company. He's taken quite a shine to YOU, that's for sure.
Heh. Yeah. Usually I'm not good with animals.
You never had a childhood pet?
A pet? No. I... had a teddy bear.

Not just any teddy bear, Rosa, it's Griff, the P.I. Bear!!

Hah. Well, you probably had the right idea. Moti's a little thing, but you wouldn't know it from the amount he eats.
He's very... active, it seems.
Yes, that probably explains it. See that box of biscuits? I buy a new one every two days.

Maybe that's because you keep feeding him every damn minute?



Haha. Of course, Nishanthi doesn't seem that bothered by Moti's stomach, as she immediately follows that up with:

Feel free to give him one, if you like.

We'll take Nishanthi up on her offer soon, but Rosa is still busy making small talk.

You have a very nice apartment.
Thank you. A bit small, but that's New York for you.
You seem very... friendly... with the people in this building.
Well, I didn't grow up here. I didn't realize it was taboo to chat with neighbors.
It's not taboo, exactly. It's just...
Oh, I know. Just one of those unspoken things. I've found that most people are pretty friendly though, once you take the first step. People have their defences up, most of the time. You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah. Yeah, I do.



Hahaha, no wonder people have their defences up around here. "What's with the wacky flute, sister?"

It's a place to go, I suppose. I was walking there one day, and I had the bansuri with me, so I started playing. Next thing I knew I had a bunch of people around me. So I go there as often as I can now. It gets me out of this stuffy apartment, and I admit I like the attention. Plus Moti loves the dog run there. Well, he did until they closed it down.
Why did they close down the dog run? It seemed OK to me.
Nobody really knows. It started about a week ago. Dogs started howling, running around like maniacs, acting strange.



That's a bit... weird. We saw Moti barking at the dog park earlier.

They SAY it's some kind of high frequency wave that's caused by electric cables, or something. Some high pitched sound that the dogs can hear, but we can't. But I know better.
You... know better?
Definitely. I notice these things. I could tell that things weren't quite right. Something... in the air. It's not a high-pitched noise. That would only cause a dog pain. This was more than pain. The dogs were... scared.
What was there to be scared of?
I have no idea. But I know what I sensed.



Me?
You sensed it. Don't think I didn't notice.
I didn't sense anything.
Well, perhaps. Maybe I'm just spouting nonsense.

Actually, my memory of it is the only thing Rosa sensed was an oncoming migraine.

Could I try feeding the dog?
Sure! Here, take one. I have plenty. Go ahead and feed him. He's always hungry.



Let's give this a go!

Hi, um... dog?
His name is MOTI.
Right. Moti.



Rosa feeds the dog. I love the way she then bids the dog farewell afterwards



LET'S DO THAT AGAIN

Sure! Here, take another. I have plenty.

However, this time we pocket the doggy biscuit. Because this is an adventure game, and you always have to take anything not nailed down.

Actually, unlike other adventure games, this one doesn't allow you to combine objects together. Now, on the surface, this is a good thing, as the "cram every single object together until it fits" puzzle mechanic is pretty painful. However, it does cause a problem later on when one particular object actually can (and must) be combined with another, without any warning. But we'll cover that later.

Well, I'd better go.
Take care, Rosa. Come back whenever you'd like.



On that unusually pleasant note, we'll finish up for today. Tomorrow Rosa will go and play reporter at the Brittany hall dorm, and the day after that, our final plot dump will hit us and the game proper will finally begin!



Again, I strongly encourage any comments, speculation or other input. These screenshot LPs can become horribly clogged up if nobody responds, and pretty boring if it's just one update after another, so the more discussion the better this thread is going to be