Today, and for the first time, I played Dave Gilbert’s The Blackwell Legacy.

There are many games that I wish I liked, and I wish I played. The Blackwell games fit into this mould very well. I fell out of love with point-and-click adventure games a long time ago due to the gameplay contrivences. Meanwhile, I had a lot of respect for the tone and approach of the Blackwell games that seemed as though they were games for people, and not just games for ‘fans of point-and-click games’.

I bought it several years ago when he was selling all the games in a bundle. At that time I had only played the Blackwell Unbound demo, but I was thoroughly impressed with the puzzle design, gameplay and writing.

Today, however, I got stuck on the very first puzzle. The game starts with an awful contrivence, the worst of point-and-click adventures, in the form of a person that won’t let you into the building because he doesn’t recognise you. I assume this is some sort of joke or reference to the genre itself, but I worked through the dialogue options and headed to the area that opened up.

I was then faced with a puzzle in which I simply didn’t know what to do. I had to talk to a woman playing a flute, so I needed to distract the crowd from watching her. I tried clicking on the nearby objects (a dog, a bin, no response). I tried clicking on all the interactive objects in the previous room, nothing. I checked my inventory, nothing.

Meanwhile, the tiny glimpses of gameplay and character that I’ve been exposed to have been excellent. I love that there aren’t dozens of redundent objects cluttering the scene, and I didn’t feel like I was ‘pixel hunting’ amongst clutter. The character’s anxiety about drawing attention to herself was charming and believable.

So, I’m faced with stopping playing. Disappointing, but I’ll try the game again when I’m willing to find an FAQ.

For now, Blackwell remains a title in my idiom, and I intend to download FAQs for all of the games before I play them further. Either that, or I’ll be wreckless and jump to the latest game; Blackwell Deception! Importantly, the game has always endeared me enough that I identify with the title, without even having played it. Much like any sort of art or fiction, if you can engage your audience on first sight it often doesn’t matter how strained the relationship can be.

Look what arrived in my life today! I already have a 3DS, so I’ll be transferring my save files and data over.

I’ve been on a bit of a break from game development recently, but I just started getting back into it. Juggling a few projects and trying to decide which one to focus on to completion. I’ll resume blog updates soon with some experiments I’ve been doing!

I’m back in the UK now! I had an amazing time at GDC, and it filled me with inspiration and passion for my work.  Sadly, I’ve been pretty sick for the week since GDC, and I’m very glad to have recovered. Thanks to everyone in San Francisco for making it such a fun event.

During my recovery I’ve been trying to avoid coding.  Being slightly more brain-dead than normal meant that I didn’t dare touch any of my existing code, and I wasn’t really fit for writing new code either. Instead I took a few days of break, and then messed around with artwork. I did a little bit of (unfinished) 3D art, and today I continued work on this project:

This is a sneak preview from an unannounced game. This has been floating around for a while, but the end is finally in sight.  As ever, I like to keep my cards to my chest, but I’ll be sure to let you know more about this game soon. It’s not a puzzle game, that much I promise!

I finally upgraded my operating systems! I’ve had these for a while, but I’ve been holding off on installing until Apple did proper Windows 7 support, and I wasn’t at a critical point in a project. I reformatted my iMac and I’m slowly putting things back on it.  It feels good to have a working Windows setup again, and I’m going to play some games on Steam tonight to celebrate. I almost never play PC games, so this should be interesting.

Some sad news, I’m no longer working on Minecraft. Markus and I have have been working together on this, but it just wasn’t coming together. I kept on running into technical problems with the export process, and Markus wasn’t used to having to wait for art assets. Markus is going to be doing the artwork on his own now. I’m still excited to see where Minecraft goes, and I know Markus will do a great job with it.

I’m settling into my new projects now, and next week will be busy-busy as I get prototypes going, and work on artwork too.  I hope to announce my next project within the next couple of weeks, so watch this space.

I’m still accepting donations to help send me to IGF next month! Please help out if you can. Thank-you to everyone that has donated so far – it’s looking promising that I’ll be able to go!

I think tonight I might play Dragon Age Origins. Markus seems to recommend it, and I’ve never played a Bioware game before. I’m a bit scared of the art and stats and menus, but I should push through it.

For a number of years now I’ve been cataloguing whenever I complete a game for the first time. I don’t complete games as often as I’d like, but I find it interesting to review.

• 16 Jan – Spelunky (PC)
• 17 Jan – Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia (DS)
• 13 Feb – Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Rings of Fate (DS)
• 22 Feb – Flower (PS3)
• 09 Aug – Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time (DS)
• 04 Oct – Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune (PS3)
• 15 Nov – Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (PS3)
• 28 Nov – Super Mario Bros. Wii (Wii)
• 19 Dec – Pixeljunk Shooter (PS3)

Only nine games!!  I think the most hours must have gone into the two Crystal Chronicles games, which I was lucky enough to play through with three other people.  I somewhat shunned Uncharted for a while, but I was really impressed when I finally gave it a proper shot.  I have a few Final Fantasy games I want to complete in 2010 (9, 12 and 13), and a few other titles on my list.

Do any of you keep track of which games you complete?