THE BLIND PROPHET

Review

The coastal town of Rotbork was once prosperous due to its fishing industry, which was mostly owned by one family, the Marrows. But then strange events started hitting the town. The main one was the disappearance of sea life, which affected everyone who lived in Rotbork. The Marrow family business couldn’t sustain itself, and masses of people lost their jobs. Right in the middle of this crisis, a newcomer surfaced in Rotbork - a certain Mr Ra - and before you knew it, the town was under his control. Rotbork became dark and dangerous overnight, and that’s why an apostle named Bartholomeus was sent straight down from heaven to discover whether the town that used to be vibrant and full of happiness had succumbed to demons and their powers. This is The Blind Prophet!

The Blind Prophet is a point-and-click adventure, developed and self-published by ARS GOETIA (in conjunction with Plug In Digital and Maple Whispering Limited for the publication) and released on Steam on the 6^th of February 2020.

If you haven’t guessed by now, you’ll be playing the one-eyed apostle, Bartholomeus, who will arrive at Rotbork port standing firmly on a rowboat. (I was quite surprised to discover how an apostle makes his entrance into a coastal town. To be honest, I was expecting something slightly more extravagant, with a lot of lights, like a fully lit Christmas tree, falling from the sky. But this is apparently not the case, as apostles appear to be extremely conservative when making their appearance in coastal towns.)

Bartholomeus will arrive at the port precisely where a young lady is about to be attacked by a humungous guy with bright red eyes. Thankfully for the young lady, she will be saved by Barth and will become a point of call for Barth throughout the story, as she has excellent knowledge of Rotbork.

There are 99 hand-drawn panels or locations in Rotbork. Each of these locations can be explored for essential objects, with Barth’s hand, which is the cursor.  In some of the panels, there are a fair few objects to look at, and like me, you may miss one or two. But don’t worry, you can use the Stalker Eye Icon (red-eye Icon), which is just above the inventory icon on the left side of your screen. This will highlight objects and directions available to Barth, using red dots all over the screen with which you can interact in four ways: take, observe, use and discuss.  Interestingly, there are a lot of things to look at, but only a few to either pick up, use or combine to move forward through the story.

In terms of puzzles, most of them are straightforward, and a few present a good challenge. There are also a few minigames, which I really like as it adds a bit of variety.

Personally, I really like the way the story, the dark atmosphere and the illustrations are presented as an evolving comic book. It truly feels like an excellent book that you want to devour page after page. It’s brilliantly done!

I did have a few issues with the resolution. I play most of my games on 3840 X 2160 resolution on my 32” 4k monitor. It appears that on one launch, it will work perfectly, and on another, I have to lower the resolution for the game to show on my screen. Apart from that, it’s a good game.