To celebrate the upcoming festive season, the interactive character-driven narrative Blackwood Crossing will be on sale with 60% off as a part of Autumn sale event across Steam.
In Blackwood Crossing, every step you take leads you deeper down a dark and mysterious rabbit hole alongside orphaned siblings Finn and Scarlett. As an interactive narrative, you’ll slowly unravel a mystery as you move through an everyday train journey turned emotionally wrenching adventure.
From 20th until 26th November, you can pick up Blackwood Crossing for only €5.39 / $5.39 / £4.79 - keep your eyes out for more upcoming sales before Christmas
40% off Blackwood Crossing until 11th Feb
Unravel their story and discover the truth. Get it now here
60% off Blackwood Crossing until 1st November
Steam have launched their annual Halloween sale, and we couldn’t miss the chance to celebrate one of Scarlett and Finn’s favourite times of year with a SHOCKING 60% off. A haunting train ride, secrets hidden in the darkness and a strange, creepy little rabbit following you down a dark and churning path… what could be better for this spooky time of year?
Blackwood Crossing is better than half price for only a short while, so tell your friends and don’t miss out on our extra special seasonal sale!
Last chance - 50% off Blackwood Crossing until 6th September
The sale continues with Blackwood Crossing 50% off for only one more week!
In Blackwood Crossing, every step you take leads you deeper down a dark and mysterious rabbit hole alongside orphaned siblings Finn and Scarlett. As an interactive narrative, you’ll slowly unravel a mystery as you move through an everyday train journey turned emotionally wrenching adventure.
“Seriously, it puts Pixar to shame. Just wow. “ - Rock, Paper, Shotgun
“The truth Blackwood Crossing finds is unforgettable and emotionally wrenching. Its palette of feelings - love, loss, anger, belonging - are beyond the scope of all but the best narrative games, and Blackwood Crossing is one of the most beautiful and best I have ever played.” - Polygon
We have had a great reception to this sale so far, so if you’ve had Blackwood Crossing on your wishlist for a while - or even if you just discovered us - now is the time to pick up this unforgettable experience for half price.
Developed by indie studio Paper7, Blackwood Crossing is an interactive narrative adventure following the lives of orphaned siblings Finn and Scarlett. Surrounded by bizarre figures with identities hidden behind mysterious masks, you’ll be tasked with solving puzzles and using exceptional powers uniquely linked to your surroundings to discover the truth behind the unnatural and unusual train journey.
Playing as Scarlett, every step you take will lead you deeper down a rabbit hole of mystery, love and a creeping sense of fear as you come closer to revealing dark secrets and difficult truths linked to your past. Visit the treehouse, the island, the caves and more as you chase your younger brother Finn, and maybe even learn more about yourself than you wanted to know.
Blackwood Crossing is on sale with 50% off until 6th September, so don’t pass up the opportunity to become engrossed in a dark and haunting adventure for half price!
35% off Blackwood Crossing - Summer Sale
Fire up your PayPal accounts, Blackwood Crossing is 35% off in Steam’s annual Summer Sale!
It’s officially here and it’s the best time year round to snap up some bargains from our wishlists.
Safe to say, we’re hyped. If you’ve had your eye on Blackwood Crossing, now’s the perfect time.
Steam Summer Sale starts 22nd July from 6pm BST and ends on the 5th July.
Blackwood Crossing Nominated for Two Develop Awards!
We are so thrilled to have been nominated for not just one, but two Develop Awards for Blackwood Crossing, PaperSeven’s first PC / console game! The nominations, for Best Writing and Best Animation, represent two of the biggest learning curves for the team – which makes the nod even sweeter!
The story of Blackwood Crossing was written as a tragedy, and left many players in tears, yet there is a warmth and a truth to the narrative’s sentiment. When development started, titles like Gone Home, Stanley Parable and Ethan Carter were going from strength to strength, but we wanted our story to come to the fore even more and to create a stronger emotional attachment. We wanted a game that made players think and feel. Adult themes told through children’s eyes - a relationship players could relate to.
“Every look Finn has is masterfully handcrafted to lend him all the vulnerability, warmth and innocence of a real person, making it impossible to dislike him even when he’s being a nuisance.” PCGamesN
Oliver Reid-Smith, our writer, had to juggle the responsibility of writing the story with leading the gameplay and the integration of the various sequences. It was a mammoth task – so I’m pleased that the game has been recognized as one with stand out writing! So much of the story – and Blackwood Crossing itself – hangs on the connection you make with your little brother, Finn.
"You'll remember Blackwood Crossing as one of the most memorable gaming experiences in recent years… it will summon vivid and palpable feelings; joy and sorrow so touching" IGN Italia
The character design and the animation were therefore hugely important. For the most part we had a single animator, Ross Stanton, producing the anims. When we set out to create the game, in order to be sensible we had planned to ‘hide’ Finn more, and for there to be a lot less direct interaction. But when the story was written we knew we had to invest a lot more heavily and creatively in order to do the complex relationship between Finn and Scarlett justice. This, alongside the fact we were developing systems from scratch, meant we underestimated the effort needed to nail it. Naturally, this gave us big budget and schedule headaches, but both the emotional qualitative payoffs were massive.
“Outstanding facial animations and voice-acting” Polygon
Animation was key to increasing the players’ empathy, understanding of and bond with Finn. It didn’t have to be much – the tiniest curled lip, the movement of an eyebrow, a clasp of hands – but these small, subtle articulations were the exact tools the team needed to help construct such a complex, relatable and emotionally responsive character.
An interesting contrast was our decision to not lip sync or fully animate the NPCs. Schedule pressures led to the idea of masks and their potential – bringing intrigue, conveying narrative, and also saving development time. But, as Blackwood Crossing really grew into its own, the masks became a centerpiece within the narrative, and even if you gave us another year of development, we wouldn’t take them off. We used a surrealist concept to provide a technical solution to a mechanical problem, proving that constraints can be so more inspiring than having limitless possibilities!
Since Blackwood Crossing’s release, we’ve noted several comments from players having framerate issues. We’ve been working hard to improve the overall experience for everyone, and today we’re pleased to have released a patch to the PC version.
Below is a summary of the improvements and changes we’ve made in this update:
Frame Rate - The game can now be set to sync to every vblank (rather than every other vblank), essentially uncapping the frame rate and allowing the game to run at the refresh rate of your monitor – usually 60Hz or 120Hz. The setting for this can be found in the Graphics Settings menu. NB if your machine is a lower spec you should leave this setting at its default of every other vblank.
Hardware Compatibility - Another issue raised by players was that the game didn’t run properly on 144Hz monitors, as well as monitors with variable refresh rates. This has now been fixed. It was making it feel like the frame rate was dropping, although it was actually the game camera that was being affected.
Mouse Lag - Mouse sensitivity sliders are now functioning properly, so players can alter it to suit their own playstyle.
We hope the above changes fix the issues some players have experienced. Keep us updated in the Steam discussion boards, or on Facebook and Twitter at @PaperSeven!
All the Pre Launch Feels
Find all Blackwood Crossing news as it happens at http://www.blackwoodcrossing.com/development-blog/
As my mind raced last night, I thought I’d scribble down some words, to share on Blackwood Crossing launch day! A studio head’s perspective …
OUR HEROES, SCARLETT AND FINN
It’s the night before launch and I’m thinking of nothing else but Blackwood Crossing. It’s consumed our lives for two years now, and it’s finally going to be out there in the public’s hands.
And it’s been dawning on me how much of a massive deal it is!
I know it sounds stupid to say, but development is so busy day to day, and the build up on the marketing front has been all-consuming. It’s easy to be too busy to take it in.
Now it’s the moment of truth.
Will people hear about it? Will it make it through an ever-crowded marketplace? And more importantly, Will people like it?!
I do hope so!
The game’s enabled us to build an awesome team. It’s great to reflect on the fact we’ve grown from 8 people to 13 since the project began. I’m surrounded by a brilliantly talented bunch, and am very thankful for the support of Standfast Interactive and Vision Games in helping make our dreams for Blackwood Crossing a reality.
However painful some of the development has been – and it’s had its moments 😉 I’m so proud of what we’ve created.
THE PAPERSEVEN TEAM
Blackwood Crossing is PaperSeven’s first foray into PC and console development, and our first fully-blown interactive narrative. We have learned SO much along the way. And it’s so exciting to think about how we’ll build on it for the future.
Indeed most of the team are already working on a new project. Development works like that. There’s a period 2-3 months before release where the artists and designers come off the title, and the coders have a few weeks working almost exclusively on their own. (Never as long as they’d like I’d hasten to add!) And then there’s about a month of submissions etc before it hits the stores.
Quickly a studio moves on to the next phase.
We’ve carried out post mortems of Blackwood Crossing. The process teams use to identify what they did well, and where they want or need to improve.
We’ve dared to look at what’s next!
But it’s important to take a step back, and enjoy today, and the weeks ahead. Celebrate our achievements!
We’re not a known entity. But we hope Blackwood Crossing is our stepping stone to becoming one.
I read a Polygon interview with one of the heroes of our genre, Sean Vanaman, yesterday, and I loved how he views Firewatch a year on:
“I see flaws in it, but I also look at it and I’m really happy. Like, ‘Yeah man. Look at the fucking thing we made.’”
Blackwood Crossing may not be perfect. But it’s pretty damn special.
THE MYSTERIES RUN DEEP
The Sibling Bond
Read this - and other development insights - on the Blackwood Crossing Developer Blog [www.blackwoodcrossing.com]
THE SIBLING BOND
At the core of Blackwood Crossing is the relationship of siblings Finn and Scarlett.
It’s been absolutely crucial for us to create a connection that’s believable and engaging. And thankfully everyone who’s experienced the game has felt it, and say they’re enchanted by how real the connection is.
Here we examine their bond in more detail.
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF SIBLINGS
Being siblings, we had to look at Finn and Scarlett’s relationship through our own eyes.
Most of the PaperSeven development team have brothers and sisters. We didn’t necessarily realise it at the time, but we started to craft Scarlett and Finn’s relationship based, in part, on our own experiences.
Younger brothers are, almost by definition, a pain in the butt! But they’re also loveable, and we yearn to protect them. Their character is defined by being the second child and having to fight for attention from an early age, giving them a confidence that is both appealing and attractive.
We were keen for Finn to exude a 10-year-old’s confidence and charm. So, you love him…but sometimes, just sometimes…!
The voice actors realised this balancing act of emotions brilliantly….but more to come on that later!
KINGS OF ALL THEY SURVEY
Ever noticed how children, especially boys, are possibly the most over confident and precocious mammals on the planet when they get to the end of primary school?! There’s a good reason for that. When you’re the biggest fish in the pond you are the King of all you survey.
The trouble is that your next stop is secondary school, and you’re bumped down the pecking order so that you end up a much, much smaller fish in a veritable ocean. This is where Scarlett’s been the last couple of years.
As is natural at that age, she’s making new connections, discovering boys and taking steps into an ever wilder world. And it’s these changes that have seen them grow apart.
The strain of this separation is something that players will be able to relate to. It forms the very heart of Blackwood Crossing’s sibling relationship.
THEIR SPECIAL BOND
Having been orphaned as young children the bond between Finn and Scarlett has always been stronger than you would normally expect. Special.
Finn always looked to Scarlett as more than just a big sister. She’s his connection to their parents, and his roots. It’s a connection he can’t remember as their parents died when he was very young.
So, as Scarlett has become more distant, Finn’s sense of loss runs ever deeper.
Our hope is that players really ‘feel’ this – increasing the emotional connection with the game…
