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I never hurt you in anger (Blackstone Chronicles VLP) John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles: An Adventure in Terror is a point&click adventure game with a very long name. It was released in 1998 as the sequel to John Saul's serial novel Blackstone Chronicles published in six parts between 1996 and 1998. It's a forgettable book completely overshadowed by the game it spawned. John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles: An Adventure in Terror was designed and written by Bob Bates, who earlier worked on a number of late Infocom's and early Legend Entertainment's interactive fiction pieces, such as Gateway 1&2, Eric the Unready and Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels (the game where you can shoot Holmes dead less than a minute in).  John Saul's Blackstone Chronicles: An Adventure in Terror is horror game achieving its effect without the use of jump scares, buckets of blood or mass hysteria. It's a very chill and collected trip through the history of pre-neuroleptic psychiatric treatment, when healing the mind usually involved systematically hurting the body. I'm keeping my commentary to a minimum here because the game has lots of good but unsubtitled narration. THE UPDATES: 01.  The Villain.02.  The Temperature.03.  The Delusion.04.  The Shock.05.  The Table.06.  The Pain.07.  The Secret.The information terminal archive: I. quote:quote:quote:II. quote:quote:III. quote:quote:IV. quote:quote:V. quote:SelenicMartian fucked around with this message at 17:54 on Jun 18, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 14:51
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This looks pretty interesting. I'm always down for some subtle horror. Reminds me of Shivers, what with the player going through an unfinished museum and all. Shame about the animation, though. That is loving rough. Do you actually have a time limit, or is it just for story?
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May 30, 2016 16:22
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I'm playing with the Hi-Res animation option  TheMcD posted:Do you actually have a time limit, or is it just for story?
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May 30, 2016 16:39
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Ah poo poo thanks for this. I have a soft spot for 90's multimedia type PC adventure games and I always heard this game was good but it was really hard to run even if you had a computer running XP. It definitely has that 90's cheese but I like Malcolm's VA, the atmosphere is neat so far, and the puzzles so far aren't old school bullshit. Accordion Man fucked around with this message at 18:30 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 18:28
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Oh boy, I 1) love Bob Bates and Legend Ent's graphical text adventures to death (I even LP'ed Gateway on another site); 2) remember playing this in my early teens and being poo poo scared (yeah, I know), and not hearing or remembering anything about it since Basically, 
CrookedB fucked around with this message at 20:24 on May 30, 2016 |
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May 30, 2016 20:22
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gently caress You Ghost Dad. I missed out on most of these games in the 90s, being more inclined towards the Sierra/Lucasarts style, but this looks really good. Dareon fucked around with this message at 03:37 on May 31, 2016 |
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May 31, 2016 03:23
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Let's get this therapy session started for real. 02. The Temperature.quote:quote:
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May 31, 2016 17:52
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This game is tickling fears I never quite knew I had, and I'm not sure what to make of that.
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May 31, 2016 19:01
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I don't know, the weird slide show when he walks seems almost like an artistic choice of the game. As long as the sound runs good then whatevs.
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May 31, 2016 19:17
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This is very interesting so far, will definitely keep an eye on this.
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May 31, 2016 20:17
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I toured an old asylum (More modern than Blackstone, but still doing the whole museum thing) in Missouri when I was a teenager. I don't even remember which asylum it was, but the hydrotherapy rooms are still vivid for me. They had a much larger cold-water tub that looked to be set up for rapid immersion. Like a creepier carnival dunk tank.
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May 31, 2016 22:03
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Double post, but do the hint and answer options on the game over screen hurt anything? Like is there a score that's being tabulated and those apply a penalty? Or does Ghost Dad just smarm disappointedly at you?
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Jun 1, 2016 03:35
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Dareon posted:Double post, but do the hint and answer options on the game over screen hurt anything? Like is there a score that's being tabulated and those apply a penalty? Or does Ghost Dad just smarm disappointedly at you?
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Jun 1, 2016 15:48
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I'm so disappointed that the forums no longer have the "No You Shut The gently caress Up Dad" thread tag. The quality of the writing and the voice acting on this is blowing me away. For something released in 1998 it's astonishing, better than most VA today. I guess it helps that the medium they're working in -- the voiceover rather than showing the character talking -- is so well suited to the level of the technology they're working with.
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Jun 1, 2016 19:07
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Whybird posted:I'm so disappointed that the forums no longer have the "No You Shut The gently caress Up Dad" thread tag. It's a shame that this isn't on GOG, I would have loved to go into this blind because its just as really good as I heard, but better to experience it through this LP then not at all.
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Jun 1, 2016 20:02
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03. The Delusion.quote:quote:
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Jun 3, 2016 18:37
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Yeah, this is hitting all the right buttons. Things like wrongful committment and old medical procedures, particularly on the psychiatric end, are some of those fairly specific things that are frightening to me on a different level than what standard horror covers. This game being really well made helps a lot.
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Jun 3, 2016 19:30
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This is an interesting read. It is from 1887 but if you are interested in the history of mental care you will like it. Ten days in a Madhouse By Nellie Bly.
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Jun 3, 2016 20:33
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04. The Shock.quote:quote:
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Jun 6, 2016 18:21
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Goodnight Malcolm!
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Jun 6, 2016 19:25
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I'm hoping that the ghosts are real and that Ollie didn't just kill his son and bury him in the asylum basement and the whole game is him having a huge mental breakdown because that would be a bit too obvious. The game seems to have better writing than that.
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Jun 6, 2016 19:45
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Oh, do I gots me a lovin' for Legend adventures! Better yet, I hadn't actually heard of this one before, so I'll be  ing this thread to kingdom come
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Jun 6, 2016 21:49
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Holy poo poo, the treatments mentioned in the video actually existed  Yeah, that's a lot more horrifying than any number of ghosties and ghoulies you can name.
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Jun 6, 2016 22:15
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inscrutable horse posted:Oh, do I gots me a lovin' for Legend adventures! Better yet, I hadn't actually heard of this one before, so I'll be
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Jun 6, 2016 22:22
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Oh yeah, a countdown to brain damage at best and death at worst. That's just amazing. And by "amazing", I mean "probably a fixture in my nightmares from now on".
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Jun 6, 2016 22:48
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Man, the history of mental health care is fascinating to me. Brutality done with the best intentions is such a Victorian mindset it seems completely alien to me. Excellent work with the LP so far - Gateway was one of the very first video games I ever played as a child and I've had a soft spot for Legend games ever since.
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Jun 7, 2016 05:03
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I have been waiting for a chance to go into depth about these things since the history of mental care and asylums is one of my big interests, especially during the late Victorian era, but so far the game has done a better job describing the methods accurately than I ever could. The creepiest thing in this game to me is the museum descriptions of things, insisting on portraying even the most horrific treatments in a positive light. For example, one side effect of hydro therapy was the patients skin actually sloughing off because they were left in the water for so long. (My last post started out with me meaning to elaborate and ended with me just linking ten days in a madhouse instead.) Thesaya fucked around with this message at 18:04 on Jun 7, 2016 |
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Jun 7, 2016 18:02
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Accordion Man posted:It was actually their last one. That's a crying shame  As far as adventure games go, they were always massively eclipsed by basically anything by Lucasarts or Sierra, and you could (but I won't) argue that it was deserved, but I always felt Legend were consistently better at building up an atmosphere, particularly in their sci-fi adventures. The aforementioned Gateway games, and Mission Critical as well, remain my favourite adventures to this day.
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Jun 7, 2016 18:36
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Just caught up with this thread. Holy Cripes, I never knew this game existed. Or course, Selenic, you're pleasant voice is always appreciated, but the voice acting in this game is surprisingly good. (except for the boy's. child actors: not even once) The voice of the father, Malcom Metcalf, sounded incredibly familiar. I thought I pinned down Tony Jay, who voiced the Elder God in the Legacy of Kain series. Nope. Some guy I never heard of called Henry Strozier, silver screen and flat-screen actor and man about town. CommissarMega posted:Holy poo poo, the treatments mentioned in the video actually existed In High-school, I got to take a class in psychology and for about a month Mrs. Carney went through all these types of treatments, what alienists THOUGHT they were doing, and why these methods were brutally misguided. By far, the worse is/was lobotomy. *shiver* Hope we don't go there.
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Jun 7, 2016 23:20
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Grimwit posted:
If we do, I'm throwing a drinking fountain through a window and getting out of here.
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Jun 8, 2016 00:18
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Man the voice acting in this is fun. I love how much they put in.
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Jun 8, 2016 04:45
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Grimwit posted:By far, the worse is/was lobotomy. *shiver* Well the first transorbital lobotomy was performed in 1947 in the US, and the asylum is known for being forward thinking so it is well within the time frame. Lobotomy was horribly prevalent in Scandinavia by the way. From Wikipedia: quote:Scandinavian hospitals lobotomized 2.5 times as many people per capita as hospitals in the US. Sweden lobotomized at least 4,500 people between 1944 and 1966, mainly women. This figure includes young children. In Norway, there were 2,500 known lobotomies. In Denmark, there were 4,500 known lobotomies, mainly young women, as well as mentally retarded children. There is a great documentary about it called "Det Vita Snittet", I'd reccomend it to anyone who knows Swedish or can find a subtitled version.
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Jun 8, 2016 11:17
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Thesaya posted:There is a great documentary about it called "Det Vita Snittet", I'd reccomend it to anyone who knows Swedish or can find a subtitled version. I have this bad fear of lobotomy. To lobotomize, you are removing one's agency of thought. That is NIGHTMARISH! I can only hope they won't know how to depict a lobotomized ghost. I take comfort in such thoughts.
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Jun 9, 2016 03:50
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So you think lobotomy is bad... 05. The Table.quote:
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Jun 9, 2016 19:52
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Why bother writing horror fiction when you already have history?  Jesus gently caress that got dark...
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Jun 9, 2016 21:54
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inscrutable horse posted:Why bother writing horror fiction when you already have history? No poo poo This stuff's scarier than any amount of Outlasts, Amnesias and the like.EDIT: Yeah, so I was still somewhat in disbelief about the practices mentioned in the video, but a cursory Google and Wikipedia search shows that they really did exist  CommissarMega fucked around with this message at 22:27 on Jun 9, 2016 |
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Jun 9, 2016 22:11
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It's like this game is just constantly looking for a new line to cross. I'm not sure I want to know if it still has an ace up its sleeve.
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Jun 9, 2016 22:28
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The thing is, the lines it crosses? Were actual practices in real life. poo poo, given a choice between talking to people who aren't there and being lobotomized or put through psychosurgery, you don't have to be crazy to prefer the former.
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Jun 9, 2016 22:32
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CommissarMega posted:The thing is, the lines it crosses? Were actual practices in real life. poo poo, given a choice between talking to people who aren't there and being lobotomized or put through psychosurgery, you don't have to be crazy to prefer the former. Yeah, the astonishing thing is that the game is basically just that one professor that makes all the first semester med students puke by telling stories and bringing out particularly wonderful specimens, but it just pulls it off really, really well. Top marks for execution.
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Jun 9, 2016 22:36
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The most chilling thing I've seen in these videos is how pops coldly and clinically explains to you how he is killing you. Or you're killing yourself. Or ghosts are killing you. I'm not 100% clear on what's going on. Late edit: Aaaah, THERE'S the cartoonish supervillainy Skippy Granola fucked around with this message at 06:55 on Jun 10, 2016 |
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Jun 9, 2016 23:59
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