Part 68: Blackwell Epiphany - Update 1 (Part 1)

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The Blackwell Epiphany

At long last, we come to the final game in the series, The Blackwell Epiphany. Although Gilbert's initial plan was for there to be ten games in his Blackwell series, the final number ended up being five. When you take into account that two of the games - Unbound and Convergence - were originally slated to be just one, this number seems quite small. Why is it the case? The primary reason is cash. Gilbert initially created the concept of Rosa and Joey for a series of freeware games, and it was only the success of The Shivah that saw him try to release games commercially. Once he did, he quickly realised that while he had been well supported by fans of The Shivah, he would need to up the ante to continue to move products - he certainly couldn't coast by with nine more games of that quality without risking going bankrupt. The decision was made to combine several games worth of storyline into single products, with Convergence and Deception each touching on stories that were supposed to last several games. In his commentary, for example, Gilbert mentioned that just introducing Madeline as a character was supposed to be the primary focus on one game. Instead, she had her role trimmed a bit, and was used as a minor character in Convergence and Deception instead.

Even so, after Deception, Gilbert still had plans to release two more games to finish off the saga. It was only after his venture into games publishing proved so successful, primarily on the back of the success of two games - Gemini Rue and Resonance - that Gilbert realised that he was years away from putting out even one more game, let alone two. At the same time, he felt that one of those two remaining games (slated to be the first of the two) just didn't have a strong enough premise to hold up on it's own. Eventually, he made the decision to just cut the earlier of the two games, borrowing it's best ideas to pad out the remaining game, and trimming the rest. His hope was to allow the series to really go out with a bang, rather than crawling to a close, and I'd say that was quite an intelligent decision.

So how does Epiphany play? The simple answer from a gameplay perspective is, very much like Deception. The UI is identical, the clue combining mechanic is still around, the option to switch from Rosa to Joey and back again is still present, Rosa still organises everything on her phone, and everything feels immediately familiar. At the same time, there are a couple of useful innovations which I'll cover when I get there. On this front, it's clear that Gilbert felt he had a winning formula already and just decided to tweak things. And as for the setting and story? Well, you'll have to read on the find out, but I'll just say this: it's good. It's very, very good.

The first four Blackwell games each had their own lead artists, and Epiphany is no exception, with Gilbert this time taking advantage of the talents of Ben Chandler, who had provided the sprites but nothing more for Deception. This time around, Chandler does all the artwork, meaning that everything fits together a bit nicer than in Deception, where the spritework, portraits and background art were all done by different people and occasionally clashed somewhat. Chandler has a long history of producing indie games, mostly adventure games, and is a very talented artist. He has a very unique style and uses colour to great effect through Epiphany, as I will discuss. Although it's not quite as polished and shiny as Convergence, Epiphany looks fantastic, with loads of little animations and a few stunning locations. There's no question it's a massive upgrade on Deception. The portraits also look great, very much in the pixellated style of the Deception re-release.

Musically, Thomas Regin turns in yet another strong performance, with a large selection of extremely playable and emotional tunes, a few more "only good" ones, and of course a selection of the best pieces from Convergence and Deception. I feel like I've spent so much time singing his praises over the course of this LP that there's nothing left to say, but let's just leave it at this - if you loved the soundtrack in the previous three games, you'll love this one too. As in the previous LPs, I will link to the soundtrack files whenever possible, but since they're not on Youtube anymore, I can't make them automatically repeat, so it will be your job to make sure you keep the music playing while you read!

The voice acting is also excellent, with barely any mediocre performances. This is likely due to Gilbert actually bringing one of his voice actors - Shelly Shenoy, who had voiced Josie Park and Madison Haines in the previous two games - on as a casting director. Shelly is well entrenched in the voice-acting community and was able to help get around one of Gilbert's long-term problems: finding voice actors who weren't young white adults to play roles that weren't young white adults. The series staples of Rebecca Whittaker and Rosa and Abe Goldfarb as Joey are brilliant as always, but they're far from the obvious standouts they often were in previous games, purely because the quality of the rest of the cast has improved.

Epiphany is available on Steam, but Gilbert receives the most money if you purchase it from his webpage, where it's available for the same price - $15US, or$18US with the soundtrack. If you've purchased and played it already, you know that it's excellent. If you haven't - well, read it here first, then support Gilbert by purchasing it later!

Finally, let me sing the praises of Gilbert one last time, for being so awesome as to send me all of the portrait files for Epiphany, which will make this LP more attractive than when I was forced to just block-cut them in Photoshop with bits of background still attached like in Deception. You rock, Dave

And finally finally, let me just reiterate one final time - this LP is a NO-SPOILERS ZONE - which means no spoilers about Epiphany. No spoiler tags either, since everyone just reads them anyway. Don't worry, there will be plenty of opportunity to discuss events once they happen!



That's enough talk - let's get ourselves started!! This nice snowstorm/fog/smoke/whatever animation serves as a handy scene transition, and we're on our way!

Horatio Street



Epiphany opens with Rosa and Joey waiting on Horatio Street, a grungy, dirty part of southern Manhattan near the southern border of Chelsea. Although it's not made immediately clear, around a year has passed since the events detailed in Deception.

I've tried to go out of my way to show off more detailed animated GIFs this time around, to really give a feel of the animations in the game which are very nice, although the bulk of the images will still be still JPEGs. Hopefully you guys will throw a few extra pity replies my way so the pages in this thread don't get too bogged down with 100MB of GIFs to load!

Your teeth are chattering.
No they're not.

Snow is coming thick thick and fast around them as Rosa struggles futilely to keep warm with her coffee, and her delightfully dorky blue earmuffs Much like Convergence, where pouring rain was theme running throughout, Epiphany is clearly set at a cold time of year, and our poor heroine will be dealing with the wintery weather a lot this game.



After waiting for a few moments, Rosa receives a call.

Detective Durkin? I'm here. Are you on your way?

If you recall, towards the end of Deception, Rosa called in a favour from Sam Durkin, who delivered, but claimed that Rosa now "owed him one." Looks like he's called on her for it.

Yeah. Sorry about that. I've got a lot of paperwork piled up. I won't be able to make it.
What? I've been waiting here a half hour!

Rosa is understandably pissed at having been stranded in the snow for half an hour, but Durkin is unflappable.

You're there? Good. Take a look around and let me know if you find anything.



You know the deal. I can't tell you.
...

"Deal?" Presumably this has happened more than once.

*sigh* Yeah. I know.
We'll pay you the usual rate. Talk to you soon.

Yep, looks like it. Rosa's even getting paid, now! Looks like she's moving up in the world, even if she is getting asked to look around filthy streets with no clue what she's supposed to find.

I guess that's not much different than normal for her, though!



As Rosa sulkily hangs up her phone, Joey reaffirms the obvious.

Yep.
Well. He's paying us to check out this dump, so let's get started.

With that, control is handed to the player. Gilbert has been a vocal critic of the way adventure games often start with large dialogue sequences, and he lives up to his own motto here - five pieces of information max, then it's the player's turn.

Rosa looks around the lit-up street, her eyes immediately settling on the nearby hotel.

A shame they don't have coffee to go. I'm running low.
That place is open? Pretty optimistic of them.



Next up, Rosa takes a moment to bitterly reflect on Joey's incorporeality. Joey doesn't fail to notice her glares, either.

Better get her inside before she's as blue as I am.



In what is quite a pretty touch, Rosa leaves footprints whenever she walks over snowy areas, though they disappear when she leaves the screen. Adorably, if Rosa makes too many footprints, Joey starts to get frustrated with her.

What on earth are you doing?
Um...
Focus, darling. You can play in the snow later.

Joey has something different to say depending on where Rosa does this, and there is actually an in-game achievement called "Snow Plow" for doing it on every available screen Although it's not that easy to achieve, because sometimes it needs to be done multiple times on one screen if circumstances change for that location..



What's going on?

With no real clue what to do, Rosa and Joey have a bit of a chat.



Dialogue functions exactly the same as in Deception - the "Chat with Joey" option is dependent on your location, and so there is something new for our protagonists to say whenever we reach a new area. In contrast, the "Plan your next move" option is dependent only on where you are up to in the story.

As usual, I'll do my best to combine the various conversations into something cohesive for this thread, though occasionally natural flow will need to be sacrificed for the sake of thorough exposition.

Cold, wet and tired. Just another day in the office, I guess.
The hours might be terrible, but look at all the interesting people you meet.
Well. Former people, anyway.

More so than the previous games, Gilbert plays fast and loose with the portraits to really convey emotions. Except to see lots of lines of dialogue interrupted by a change in portrait in this LP.

I don't see anyone around. Do you see anyone?
Nope. Nobody living, anyway. We're alone out here.
Good. I guess we're free to do... whatever it is we do.
That's us. Consummate professionals.

These two still have some very enjoyable banter

*Yawn* Sorry. Bit tired.
You'd think after all this time you'd be more of a night person.
Don't worry. I'll muddle through.



Somehow.

By "muddle through", I think Rosa means "drink gallons and gallons of coffee."

Let's get a move on. I'm running low on coffee.
Heaven forbid.

The two then turn their attention to the building in front of them.

This building isn't exactly solid, but that door sure is.
You know, one of these days you'll remember that a door isn't the obstacle it used to be.

Much like in Convergence and Deception, this initial case serves as a tutorial, helping to introduce new players to the mechanics and tropes of the series. Here we are reminded that Joey is able to float through doors.

What a dump. I wonder if it's as bad inside.
Feel free to find out, Joey. I'll wait here.

Another subtle hint, there.

So how much does shilling for the cops pay these days?
I don't know. Does it matter? It's not like we have a choice.
And I'm not shilling. I'm consulting.
Whatever looks good on the business card, sweetheart.

Joey doesn't seem any more trustful of cops in this game than he did in Deception, but hey, at least they're being paid by a professional body now! This is a pretty big step up from investigating haunted yachts at the request of anonymous skeptics, in my opinion.

You think you've had enough coffee? One more cup and you'll start vibrating.
This coffee is a medical necessity.
And what do you call the four packs of sugar?
I call it shut up.

I've missed you Rosa, and your cute little addictions



Rosa and Joey can also discuss the clues on Rosa's phone. At this point we only have two - the Karth House, which Durkin hired us to investigate, and Durkin himself.

I really hope we're not wasting our time here.
Why? Have you got something more important to do?
Yes. Not freezing to death.
So do you know anything about this place?
Just what I read on the internet, which isn't much.

It's hard to tell whether we're wasting our time here or not, since we don't even know what it is we're looking for.

I don't get it. Durkin's the one who hired me. Why is he being so cagey?
Plausible deniability, Red. What did you expect?
I don't know. A bit of courtesy?
Think about it. He can't let on that he's hired someone like you, can he? So he's gotta keep his distance. That way, if anybody asks, he doesn't have to lie.
Great. So I'm the NYPD's dirty little secret.
I knew you'd do me proud one day.

Hahahaha So it seems Durkin has started to use Rosa as a kind of unofficial fact-finder. Presumably Joey and her have been able to discover information that he wouldn't have gotten otherwise, though I can't imagine anything would have stood up in court. I guess she's good for pointing them in the right direction in terms of names or locations.



Well, we're here anyway. We might as well check the place out before calling it a wash.

Apparently Rosa does need the money now, so presumably she's spent the last of Patricia's savings in the past year.

Look, don't sweat the Durkin thing. Just focus on the job in front of you.
Well, he IS paying us, whether we find anything or not.
That's the spirit. There's always a bright side. Even on a night like this.

These two have plenty to say, for sure. Whittaker and Goldfarb definitely earned their pay here.



I'll try to spare you.
Come on. We're on the clock.
Yeah.

Finally running out of things to say, Rosa decides to try the obvious - opening the front door.



Naturally, it's locked. She isn't getting in that way.



Off to the side, there are some strange bricks with graffiti on them. It's a little hard to see, but they've got anarchy logos on them. Rosa looks at them and pokes them but there doesn't seem to be anything special about them. Joey, meanwhile, is far from impressed.

Reclaim what? I'm not quite sure I get the message here.
It says "Revolt." Against what, who can say?
Rebuke what, exactly? Stupid graffiti?
Reject is the word. What an eyesore.
Retaliate against what? If you've gotta have a message, at least make it clear.

This is all a bit out of place, but Gilbert claims that when he was designing this part of the game, the Occupy movement was quite big and it seemed topical. I guess that's the problem when your game has a development cycle of more than two years!



I'll do my best.

Finally, Joey decides to take a look inside. Hopefully, whatever Durkin was expecting us to find will be obvious.

Inside Karth House



Hm.

Geez, this place is a mess. Joey floats forward, looking for any signs of life, or death.

Hello? Anybody there?

Rosa calls to him from outside.

Anything?
Not yet. Lemme look around a bit. I'll get back to you.

Joey takes a look around the room, but it's all just junk.

That door's due for the scrapyard.
An old, rotting wooden board.
That desk is barely holding itself together.

This place is a disaster zone.



Joey is not impressed with the graffiti around here. He keeps looking around the room.

Full of food wrapper and old needles. Not much else.
It's coated with all sorts of stuff - none of it nice.

I can't help but notice that window is only barely boarded over. Rosa could probably force her way through there in a pinch, but we'll see if we can find a better way.



I can't touch it, but it's not like I know anything about fuses anyway.

I'm not so sure we would want to be messing around with fuses anyway, this place looks like it would be extremely damp.



Finally, Joey reads a piece of paper, which seems to indicate there is a key hidden somewhere. We'll want to be on the lookout for that.



Find anything that can get me inside?
Working on it.

Joey quickly ducks outside to confer with Rosa.

So what's it like inside?
It's just as well you can't get in. I only saw the lobby, but it's a disaster area.
What about the rest of the building?
Dunno. The lobby's all I saw.
Don't you think you should - oh, I don't know - explore some more?
What? And miss out on this scintillating conversation?
Just. Go.

Of course, this dialogue is again there primarily for tutorial purposes, but I must admit I do get a kick out of Rosa getting frustrated at Joey not taking the investigation seriously



Uh huh.

Let's see what else we can find here.



Heading further into the Karth House, Joey finds that an entire section of the roof has collapsed. There is also a box sitting here.

Looks like a box of old electrical junk.

Chandler uses green lighting quite effectively throughout this section, to give a real sense of dank and grime. In contrast, he'll use lots of washed-out blues and whites whenever he's trying to show off a more professional, or even just cleaner, part of Manhattan. It's a very nice contrast.

(continued next update...)