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First Three ‘Blackwell’ Adventure Games Coming to App Store July 10th

We’ve known since late last year that Wadjet Eye Games was in the process of porting its back catalogue to iOS, but the indie developer and publisher announced its latest crop of games today: the first three titles in the Blackwell series of point-and-click adventure games are coming to iOS next week. Blackwell Legacy, Blackwell Unbound, and Blackwell Convergence will all hit the App Store on July 10th, though there’s no pricing info available yet.

Like most (if not all) of designer Dave Gilbert’s games, the Blackwell series traffics in mystery, noir, and detective story tropes, with an added supernatural twist: the series follows a family of mediums and their sidekick ghost as they trawl through New York, solving crimes and soothing souls. Blackwell Legacy was originally released for PC back in 2006 and the fifth and final game in the series, Blackwell Epiphany, was released earlier this year to fan accalim.

I haven’t played any of the Blackwell games, but Gilbert has a knack—as both a publisher and designer—for sidestepping the annoying inventory management and obtuse logic that hobbles so many point-and-clicks, opting instead for patient detective work and a bit of deductive reasoning. Wadjet Eye’s previous body of work on iOS includes The Shivah ($1.99) and Joshua Nuernberger’s Gemini Rue ($4.99) (both excellent), so there’s every reason to hope the Blackwell games will be worthwhile.

While there’s no time table for the last two games in the Blackwell series, Wadjet Eye hopes to have Deception and Epiphany released “later this year," according to a statement. Hopefully, we’ll eventually see some of their other projects, especially Emerald City Confidential, Resonance, and Primordia, ported over as well. Unsurprisingly, the App Store continues to benefit from a boon in adventure games.

In the meantime, the Blackwell games are also coming to Mac, Linux, and Android soon, and if you have a PC, they’re currently dirt cheap until the end of the month as part of Steam’s Summer Sale.