Summary: 3.0/5.0
Credit where credit is due. Blackwood Crossing is an ambitious game. It tells a heartbreaking story in a very abstract and minimalist way. Unfortunately, the mechanics make experiencing this story tedious.
WARNING: LIGHT SPOILERS BELOW
Storytelling
Throughout Blackwood Crossing, you unravel the heartbreaking story of two orphaned siblings -- Scarlett and her younger brother Finn. You play as Scarlett, and the game begins on a train, with Finn shouting for you urgently. You chase him throughout the train as he continues to laugh behind locked doors.
At first I thought the game was about observing Finn struggling to process his grief about the death of his parents, through the eyes of his older sister. However, as I continued to play, it became clear that Scarlett's inability to reach her brother was symbolic of something far more tragic. The way this story unravels is marvelously subtle and quietly sinks in as you play, which is a much more organic way to discover the story than copious amounts of text to read or expository dialogue to endure.
Characters
The cast of this game is small, but compelling. Aside from Scarlett and Finn, you'll encounter frozen representations of friends and family members, all adorned with paper masks. If you interact with them, they'll repeat a single line of dialogue and return to their frozen pose. This eerie delivery of information also serves as a puzzle mechanic, which I'll discuss later.
The strongest attribute of this cast of characters is that (other than Finn) they are almost never talking to Scarlett. No part of the story is explicitly explained to you. You must piece it together from how the other characters speak to each other. Again, this is far more organic than listening to Scarlett explain her situation to some oddly placed third party, there only for the player's benefit of understanding the story.
Gameplay
The mechanics in this game were really disappointing, and nearly caused me to give up. I finished the game with a pounding headache and nauseated from the motion of the camera. The target areas for interacting with items and people were so small that I often had to reposition myself several times just to get a flash of the button prompt.
The puzzles were not always intuitive and usually depended on some trial-and-error, but more often than not the challenge was in executing the desired task, rather than figuring out what the task was. I found this frustration to be immersion-breaking, unless I've missed some deliberate metaphor for immobilizing/debilitating grief manifesting in a clumsy child. I also struggled to understand the purpose of some puzzles in progressing the story-- they seemed to be puzzles for puzzles' sake, and only slowed the momentum of Scarlett's maddeningly slow pace.
Conclusion
If you're interested in innovative storytelling, this game is worth a playthrough, but you may want to wait until it goes on sale, or simply watch a playthrough. This is not a game that I would say requires playing it yourself to get the full experience. The trial-and-error puzzles and clumsy mechanics make complete immersion difficult and divert your focus from the game's message. Without the frustrations of movement and interaction, this could be an even more powerful story.
