The Séance of Blake Manor Review – Three Day Mystery

It’s Ireland, 1897, and in three days’ time, on All Hallow’s Eve, a séance will take place at Blake Manor when the veil between the living and the dead is at its thinnest. 17 people from all over the world have travelled to take part in the spectacle, among them was Miss Evelyn Deane. Private investigator Declan Ward receives an anonymous letter from someone at the hotel, claiming that Miss Deane left a note with the hotel staff to inform them she would be leaving early and missing the séance. The sender believes that Miss Deane has actually gone missing and the culprit is the one who left the letter.

In Spooky Doorway’s detective puzzle game, The Séance of Blake Manor, we play as Declan Ward as he travels to the hotel under the guise of a guest attending the séance weekend. As Declan, we are tasked with investigating Evelyn Deane’s disappearance and identifying the culprit. We have three days before the séance takes place at 9pm on the third day to complete our investigation.

The Séance of Blake Manor has some of the best mechanics that I have seen in a detective game as someone who appreciates when games within this genre give as much investigative freedom as possible to the player to make them truly feel like a detective. While ColePowered Games’ Shadows of Doubt had the right idea in having crimes randomly take place and the player being able to use its incredibly interactive world to solve the case on their own, the procedural generation of its cases left much to be desired in terms of narrative enjoyment. Meanwhile, EQ Studios’ The Painscreek Killings offers an assortment of intriguing characters, plotlines and an entire town to unlock and explore, but the lack of NPCs to question (all character stories are revealed through notes, journals and newspaper clippings) removes a large chunk out of the traditional detective story format. Last year, DigiTales Interactive’s Between Horizons found a great balance between this. However, The Séance of Blake Manor has been the best middle ground that I have encountered so far of a detective game that provides investigative freedom, while also giving that experience of feeling as though you’re in an Agatha Christie story.

The investigation into Evelyn’s disappearance is split into ‘mysteries’ consisting of different parts of the puzzle which Declan must solve in order to learn one more clue about the culprit. The culprit’s mystery menu consists of every guest and member of staff in the hotel, along with the Marquess and his family, and a list of all the information we have collected so far on the culprit, which we can use to eliminate suspects if any of the clues gathered don’t apply to them. Each suspect also has their own mystery for Declan to solve, which will aid him in learning more about them in order to see if they fit our culprit’s profile or not, and will also protect them from whatever will happen when the séance takes place.

To investigate each mystery, Declan must gather evidence by searching the manor, including each suspect’s room, analyzing people’s appearance, solving puzzles, and asking questions based on the information and evidence he has gathered. All the private areas of the hotel are locked off, so a large part of the game consists of finding the keys to each room and section of the manor so that Declan can uncover all the evidence he needs.

Suspects all have their own schedule of where they will be on the map during certain hours of the day. Declan can ask them for their plans for the weekend which will mark them on the map during the times they share and some guests will also have schedules in their rooms. If Declan doesn’t know their schedule for specific times of day, then they won’t appear on the map unless he sees them in a room he walks into.

Each mystery has a mind map of information showing all the evidence collected and how it links together. With enough information, Declan can form a lead which will hint to the player what they need to do or find next. Once Declan has pieced together enough evidence, the game will give the player the option to form a hypothesis. Here, they must fill in the gaps of the statement describing the secret that Declan has uncovered using keywords from the information in the mind map. This reminded me a lot of how cases are solved in The Case of the Golden Idol, and it’s a great way to ensure that the player fully understands the mystery they have uncovered.

The level of depth that The Séance of Blake Manor puts into its investigations is remarkable and it does an amazing job of giving the player as much freedom over the investigation as possible while also providing great stories and characters, and fun puzzles to solve to keep the player’s attention throughout.

The main plot is a fascinating and unique story, delving into various folklore, religions, supernatural themes and more. There’s even a library where the player can not only research for more information on evidence they’ve pulled together, but also learn more about various topics and themes the game covers. A lot of thought was clearly put into the game’s story and it’s great to have all of this research available to the player so that they can learn more about these intriguing subjects too.

The setting and concept reminded me a lot of Agatha Christie’s novels, which is a dream for any detective game fan. Various strangers meet together under one roof with large chunks of the plot revolving around their individual backstories and motives. There were plenty of surprising reveals and my lack of knowledge on a lot of the topics that the game covers meant that it remained heavily interesting throughout and I genuinely had no clue where the story would go next. The identity of the culprit is also well concealed under a collection of various motives and plots around other characters, and I only had an inkling of who it could be once I had pulled all my facts together right at the very end of the game.

Each character is really well written, with a fully fledged backstory and mystery to uncover. To begin with, I felt like 25 characters was too much as I struggled to keep track of them all on the first day and it didn’t initially feel as though they all had the same level of depth to them. However, by the third day I realized this was actually well balanced; as I unlocked more rooms I began to pick up more information on characters I knew very little about, and the number of characters meant there was always someone else to investigate while I waited for another to become available to speak to. And any time I felt like I didn’t have many subjects to discuss with someone, finding more evidence on them and other information would eventually open up more conversations and build an idea of their story.

There is a slight hurdle in that The Séance of Blake Manor does actually have a time limit. Declan has three days to solve the mystery. Every time he looks at an object, discusses a topic with someone, or does some research in order to gather more evidence, it costs one minute. Some actions, such as attending dinner, cost more minutes. While this was a great way of putting more pressure on the gameplay and presses the player to strategize their time, it can be annoying for those actually wanting to explore the lore more without having to reload a save or start a new playthrough to do so. You don’t need to discuss every topic available with every suspect, however some players may want to do so to experience all the lore the game has to offer (and there’s a lot of it) and hear what each character has to say on it. However, while it is possible to uncover every single mystery in the game within a single playthrough, it’s highly unlikely anyway unless you know how to strategize your time wisely from the get-go.

I quite enjoyed the time limit as it made the final third of the game more tense as I rushed to solve every mystery I could before the séance. However, the biggest obstacle I faced when trying to complete each mystery was always being unable to talk to or locate the person I needed to. I had taken the time to learn each person’s schedule early on in the game, so this problem would usually occur because the time slot I was in wasn’t covered in their schedule. And sometimes, even if I did know where they were, I wouldn’t be able to talk to them because they were either attending a talk, at dinner, or in their room. While attending a talk or being at dinner was something I could plan ahead for, it makes no sense that I wouldn’t be able to knock on their door to talk to them if they were back in their room. This was quite frustrating as some characters spent an awful lot of time in their room, meaning they were inaccessible to talk to for large chunks of time. This got especially annoying on the last day when I was quite tight on time for finishing up any mysteries I had left to wrap up before the séance.

Audio and visual-wise, The Séance of Blake Manor does an amazing job at creating a perfect gothic horror setting with a detective noir art style. The art style looks like a graphic novel, while cut scenes are actually drawn out with panels, showing off beautifully illustrated imagery. Every character is voice-acted, however, only their initial dialogue is given audio and the rest of the questioning is silent – which is fine as there is a lot of text to flick through when discussing the various topics available with a character and most players will be reading faster than the voice actor anyway in this case.

I finished my playthrough after 21 hours, having successfully identified the culprit, solved all the core mysteries bar one, and solved all the character mysteries aside from two as I was unable to complete the tasks required to finish off their quests in time before the séance. I would fully recommend The Séance of Blake Manor to any detective, mystery or puzzle game fan. It has the perfect balance of investigative freedom mixed with an Agatha Christie-style setting and a unique plot that stays interesting right until the very end. This is one of the best detective games I have ever played.

Jess reviewed The Séance of Blake Manor on PC with a provided review code. This review is based on the version of the game available at the time of writing and our score will not be changed.