Blackwood Crossing Review |

Review Blackwood Crossing | Independent studio PaperSeven brings Blackwood Crossing, a story-driven first-person adventure game, looking to tell us an intriguing and emotive tale through their game. Let’s explore how that turned out.

THE GOOD

The voice acting is of unexpectedly high quality for a lower budget game.
The game seems aimed at one thing in particular, making you feel certain emotions as you play through the game. In my case I can say it succeeded in achieving that goal.
The story subject and the way it is presented, is interesting and rather original.
Offers puzzles that are maybe a bit too easy, but are really a part of the game’s story and you’ll be gaining insight into what is going on while solving them.

MIXED FEELINGS

While the game can look child friendly on some screenshots I would not necessarily recommend playing this with young children as there are some not so nice and colorful moments and the story subject could be a bit too much for them.
While the game does a good job of evoking emotions, they are mostly sad and I don’t particularly play games in order to feel down.
While I think I have a decent grasp of the story and what is going on, it isn’t exactly clear-cut and there is definite room for interpretation, which not everyone will enjoy.

THE BAD

Scarlett moves really slow, think of a casual stroll and then slow it down a little. She even does this in tense situations where a brisk jog would be the minimum sane speed.
Even with the slow movement, the game barely has 2 hours of gameplay. Granted you can take longer when you’re stuck at a puzzle or hunting collectibles, but in actual content, there is not much on offer.
The area of play is really small; don’t go in expecting to travel through several different environments.
The controls are a little unresponsive, it takes a while before you can click objects after walking up to them and the moving the camera left or right really feels delayed as well.

Score: 75% | Blackwood Crossing is a really interesting and rather unique game that is seriously hampered by its lack of content, both in physical size and playing time. Still, the production quality for an indie studio is undeniable and mostly due to the emotive tale I do feel that the whole is greater than just the sum of its parts.