The Seance of Blake Manor
This was a random find for me that I was immediately drawn to. I loved Blue Prince and The Case of the Golden Idol and I really enjoyed The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow. Although this is not quite a mix of these games it certainly has very similar DNA so if you enjoyed any of these games then this may just be a game for you. The Seance of Blake Manor was released in October 2025 and is a game by Spooky Doorway (The Darkside Detective, another great game) and published by Raw Fury who have a reputation for finding and publishing great indie games. It is £16.75 on Steam and as of today 21st April it has a 30% discount and is included in a couple of ‘Detective Bundles’. Although I haven’t completed it yet I have almost 30hrs in the game, but it is worth noting I am the kind of person that looks in every corner to see what is there so many people may complete it quicker. According to How Long to Beat it can be completed in 15hrs.
The game is set in 1897 and starts with the protagonist, Private Investigator Decland Ward, receiving a letter while in his home town of Dublin in Ireland. The letter details how a young lady named Evelyn Dean disappeared from a hotel and asked for him to come to the hotel and investigate her disappearance. When Mr. Ward arrives at the hotel he discovers that there is to be a grand seance in two days' time and all the guests are there in order to take part. While discussing the disappearance of Evelyn with the hotel manager you become convinced that she has not left the hotel as the manager suggests, but rather that she had disappeared as the letter states.
The following morning you are introduced to the various other guests, each with a fully fleshed out character with their own, often hidden, reasons for being at the manor house. There are 24 other people at the manor hotel including 16 other guests, the medium running the seance, 5 staff members, the Lord of the manor and his son who is kept away from view in the private area of the hotel.
The game runs similar to Blue prince where there is a set time before the seance and every action you take has a time cost associated with it. Moving around the manor does not cost any of your time allotment (a good decision) but actions such as speaking to people, searching furniture or reading a document or books does. Many of the actions take a minute of your time to complete but in the vein of death by a thousand cuts, you can quickly find your hour disappearing while speaking to one individual or searching a room. There is plenty of time and there isn’t a serious time pressure but I am not sure you can complete absolutely everything in the entire games allotted time, but I may be wrong. The various other characters have a set schedule they stick to and every hour they move to their next allotted place within the manor. One of the first things to do for each character is find out their schedule for the weekend if you can as it makes finding them so much easier, especially later as it will save you a lot of time (personal time not game time) and you will not need to run around the manor looking for that one individual you need to complete the task you are currently working on.
This brings me onto the menus. There are four tabs in your journal, Mysteries, Records, Timetable and Map. The last two are self explanatory with the timetable detailing what is currently on within the manor (talks, dinner,the bar being open and so on) as well as where everyone is if you have found out those details. The map is of the manor and surrounding area and includes pins for the other people if you have their schedule or you have been to that area and have seen them there. The records tab includes all relevant information you have uncovered while investigating the guests and the manor. These detail everything you can speak to the other people about as well as who you can speak to about said information.
The main section is the Mysteries tab. Here they use a mind map style UI to break down the various mysteries you are focusing on. There is the main reason you are at the manor, The Culprit, which is focussed on if Miss Dean did not leave, who is responsible for her disappearance. There are also various side investigations that link to her disappearance. When you click on these you enter another mindmap that links all the information and deductions you have discovered that you use to solve that mystery. For instance the very first side investigation is to figure out if Miss Dean actually was kidnapped or if she did indeed leave as the manager suggested. During your investigation you create nodes within the mindmap that detail the information you have discovered and action you have taken. So there is a node for checking in, speaking to the manager, gaining access to the managers office and searching the office. Once you have gathered enough information, a ‘Think’ node appears. This is similar to the Case of the Golden Idol where you need to select from a collection of words on the mindmap to create a sentence that details your hypothesis of what happened. So in this case you discover that she has indeed disappeared and did not leave on her own in the middle of the night. Shocking, I know.
The main investigation, The culprit, works slightly differently. In this are the 24 suspects within the manor. Each of these has their own mind map detailing all information you have on them and what you discover from conversations with them. When you first meet each person, you get to profile them and assess various factors about them. This is not overly difficult as you click on various sections of them and it details a little bit about the area you are assessing. You are also told how many assessments there are. For instance when meeting the manager for the first time you notice he has a cracked lens in his glasses, an unhappy expression and is holding his pocket watch. These details you notice then lead to questions you are able to ask, which may or may not lead to further information and this balloons out as you discover more information. What I like about this is when you ask about the information you have, Decland Ward is tactful and asks in a roundabout way, without giving away that this piece of information he is asking about was found in a locked chest in the person's private room that you snuck into. Some discoveries only make sense later when you have more information. Based on the various things you find out you have the option to eliminate each person as a suspect based on facts you discover about the culprit, such as whether they are able to write or not or the size of the culprit's shoes. There are various characteristics you discover about the culprit as you go along and you cross reference this against the other people and eliminate them accordingly.
Each person within the manor has their own agenda and while speaking to each you realise that the seance is a backdrop for their personal goals. As you work through the game you start to discover each person’s goal and you assist them to reach closure of that goal. This does not necessarily mean you help them achieve the goal as you can also thwart them while helping them come to terms with their failure. This works the same as the side investigations, where you collect information until you have enough to create a hypothesis and then solve a sentence to complete their ‘Think’ node. You then confront them with what you know and bring closure to their issue or goal. This is my favourite part of the game as there are 24 individual Mysteries to complete which lead to discoveries that will aid you in the main investigation. Many of these investigations are heartwarming or touching and it helps to flesh out the individuals you are spending so much time getting to know.
As there is a seance going on, it is unsurprising that there are otherworldly things going on. There are many strange occurrences that happen and the manor has a deep, long and sordid history, as it was the first manor built in when the area was initially conquered. The history of all the previous lords is detailed throughout the playthrough and it is incredibly personal to the manor and the people who lived there. The manor is in a very rural part of Ireland in the 19th Century, and as such there are still a large number of alternative religions outside of christianity. As part of your investigation, you discover facts about these different religions and how they play into daily lives of the people living there. Religion plays a huge part in the game as many of the guests practice alternate religions and the solution to much of the mystery is centred around magic and religion.
There are also various mini games such as deciphering codes to open chests or a set of signs that you need to trace in one long movement without going over the same piece twice. This can be a little fiddly, with a mouse at least, but this is a minor gripe.
I have immensely enjoyed this game. It is smart without being too smart, none of the puzzles are overly difficult but are fun to complete, the game usually has a way of telling you you are not quite there yet and need to find more (sometimes blatantly saying so) and the characters, story and discoveries are engaging. I looked forward to discovering each person's goal and then working to complete it. There is a small amount of handholding in the game as it often is forthright in what you need to do, often telling you outright but this is only in certain circumstances and it does save you hitting your head against the wall.
This brings me to a criticism. Often you will be completing a person's mindmap and you will feel you have done everything you can and asked every question you can and yet you cannot figure out how to trigger the ‘Think’ node in order to progress to the hypothesis section. I have spent a significant amount of time (personal not in game time necessarily) only for something I feel is insignificant to trigger it. Oftentimes this is something innocuous that has nothing to do with the train of thought that leads to the hypothesis but rather a small detail or insignificant question you haven't asked them. Although this is frustrating it isn’t a deal breaker or significant enough to detract from the game as a whole.
Another small annoyance is the fact that the whole game isn’t voice acted. There are certain bits that are fully voice acted, such as the cutscenes and significant conversations, but there are sections that are not voice acted seemingly for no reason, other than I imagine it was costing a decent amount of the budget. The frustration is that the voice acting is really good and the cast play their roles extremely well and this makes it a little more jarring when you move from voice acted section to none for no apparent reason. I really hope they have an opportunity to record the rest of the voice lines as it adds such a lot to the game’s immersion and its ability to draw you in.
The game is Steam Deck verified and controller friendly although I never played it on the Steam Deck or Xbox Ally and never used a controller so cannot speak to how good the implementation of this is.
This is genuinely a great game from a developer that made Darkside Detective. It is in a similar vein with complex puzzles and strong narrative that draws you in and makes you want to discover more about all the people, the manor and the weird occurrences that are happening around you. The mechanics are intuitive and aside from what feels like insignificant annoyances, the game is easy to navigate. I strongly suggest this to anyone who is interested in games of this ilk and would suggest anyone else at least give the demo a shot.