You play as Oliver Metcalf, son of the late Dr. Malcom Metcalf, the esteemed last administrator of Blackstone Asylum. Oliver has been brought there by his father in order to allow Oliver to...rediscover his past as the Black Figure, an agent used by Malcom to seek revenge on those who stopped the groundbreaking work he did at Blackstone. Otherwise, Oliver's son, Joshua, will take over his role as the Black Figure. In the process, he must discover what truly went on at Blackstone during his father's time there. Of course, this could all be a dream, a delusion, or something worse....
This game contains examples of:
- Abandoned Hospital: Blackstone Asylum became this at the end of Malcom's administration; the Blackstone Asylum Historical Society aims to subvert this by restoring it. A few of its former patients and staff - as well as Malcom himself - linger thanks to their spirits' strong connection with the place.
- Affably Evil: Paul Becker, in spite of the fact that he seems like one of few genuinely-disturbed individuals Blackstone Asylum houses, can come across as this. He seems to genuinely believe he's doing some good as Blackstone's resident Torture Technician, and he seems quite embarrassed about his own Ax-Crazy past. Of course, given as he believes Dr. Malcom Metcalf's theory on pain, the 'affable' part may not be sincere.
- Artifact of Death: Those personal possessions the various patients need you to collect for them? They'll make you kill yourself when you collect them unless you act quickly.
- Adventure Game: Of the point-and-click variety with a dash of horror.
- Cold-Blooded Torture:
- The dead patients describe the various - and normally quite legitimate - therapy methods they were given as this. Given Malcom turned Blackstone Asylum into a sort of grotesque psychiatric lab during his administration, it's not surprising.
- Including the aforementioned abused therapy methods, Blackstone's patients are subjected to actual torture devices at the behest of Malcom in order to prove his theory that pain is the major factor in curing the mentally disturbed.
- Fetch Quest: Oliver must find the missing personal possessions of the patients in order to advance the plot and make them open up to him. Too bad all of the items compel those who possess them to kill themselves.
- Narrator: When Oliver isn't conversing with him, Malcom comments on many of the various things looks at and tells Oliver what he shouldn't take. When in their respective rooms, the former patients and staff do this as well.
- Hearing Voices: Oliver suffers from the Insane variant from the very beginning of the game - not only does he converse long-dead father, but also some of the patients who once lived at Blackstone Asylum! Revealed to be of both the Good and Evil variety as the game goes on - Oliver really is conversing with the dead thanks to a gift bestowed to him when he was born.
- Mad Doctor: Malcom Metcalf was this while living.
- Mistaken for Servant: Lavinia Willoughby mistakens Oliver for one of her servants. It doesn't help that she thinks she's Mary, Queen of Scots.
- The Mentally Disturbed:
- One Lavinia Willoughby is this (see Thoroughly Mistaken Identity).
- Possibly inverted with many of Blackstone Asylum's patients. While it seems most of the ones you encounter are revealed to be quite sane - with it being implied that many of the 'patients' are simply there because someone wealthy doesn't want them around - the game leaves these patients' sanity ambiguous.
- The beginning of the game pegs Oliver as this - what with him speaking to his dead father and equally-dead asylum patients. Subverted - his son really did get kidnapped and almost trained to be the new Black Figure, he really can hear the spirits of the dead, and he actually did kill the spirit of his dead father.
- Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: Are you rich? Do you have a son, daughter, husband, or wife you don't want around? Then you can work with Malcom Metcalf to have them sent to Blackstone Asylum for anything from being confused about what gender they are, being an unwed teen mother-to-be, being utterly insane, or for any other valid-sounding reason you can think of! As put by Mara 'Lorena' Martin:It's very easy to get someone committed voluntarily to a mental asylum! All it takes are two signatures and your rights are gone.
- Thoroughly Mistaken Identity: Lavinia Willoughby totally isn't Mary, Queen of Scots.
- Torture Cellar: Malcom had one built in a well-hidden spot during his administration.
- Torture Technician: Paul Becker, Malcom Metcalf's associate and a Blackstone Asylum patient obsessed with killing.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: In an unusual example for this trope, Abraham Wagner, the 5-year-old male patient who Malcom had dissected to test a quack psychiatrist's theory, is this because he innocently went along with his mother making him wear girls' dresses because she falsely claimed he was a she.
