Black & White
Description official descriptions
Spiritual descendant of the Populous games, Black & White is a 'god' game in which players take the role of a fledgling deity, called upon by people in need.
Entering the 3D world, players can manipulate objects, move people, and cast miracles. To assist the player, there also exists a creature with its own intelligence and personality. Both the players and their associated creature will evolve during the course of the game, becoming benevolent beings, cruel tyrants, or somewhere in between. As the player's characters develop, both their creature and the land itself will change, depending on their alignment.
Although the main purpose of the game is to work through the five lands of Eden and win the faith of as many of the tribes as possible, the game is somewhat open ended in its aspects of wandering, exploring, and developing the sidekick creature.
The creatures in the game feature their own artificial intelligence and will grow like a child, both physically and emotionally. They'll learn by example and put together their own moral codes based on what they witness and learn. Players can pet or scold their creature, nurture it, spoil it, or abuse it. In the end, Black & White is part strategy game, part role-playing game, part child rearing simulator, and part self-examination of the player's personality.
Spellings
- ブラック&ホワイト - Japanese spelling
- 黑与白 - Simplified Chinese spelling
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Credits (Windows version)
357 People (333 developers, 24 thanks) · View all
Dutch Localization (U-Trax Multi Media Localization B.V.) | |
Dutch Language Test | |
Dutch Recording Studio |
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Dutch Voice Actors | |
Concept and Design Lead | |
Programming | |
3D Programming | |
Artificial Intelligence | |
Art | |
[ full credits ] |
Reviews
Critics
Average score: 89% (based on 52 ratings)
Players
Average score: 3.7 out of 5 (based on 140 ratings with 13 reviews)
Nice in theory, bad in practice
The Good
The ideas behind the game are good and the game attempted to do something new, abolishing traditional interfaces in an attempt to make the game more absorbing, and making the world truely interactive and responsive. The graphics were fantastic and the game was a pleasure to watch, and the first hour drew you in and felt like you were playing something special.
The Bad
In short, it didn't work. Although all the ingredients seemed right, they didn't pull to a game. Instead you began to act as nanny to your people, occasionally throwing rocks around to impress people. There was little to it and the concept soon wore. In one level, fairly near the beginning, they take your creature. One of the central pillar of the game is removed, for a whole level. This makes all the petty and repetitive things come to the forefront, and you realise how little game there really is.
I wanted this to work, I really did, but unfortunately, despite being immediately fascinated and dragged in at the beginning, like a cheap MDF veneerer, the lack of interest behind the game couldn't stay hidden for long.
The Bottom Line
Beautiful in appearance, clever in principal and impressive in aims. Yet unfortunately completely failing to deliver on the one thing that counts, depth and interest. The developers clearly loved this game, but I think they forgot what they were designing, and instead created something closer to a piece of art than a functional and playable game.
Windows · by James Glover (34) · 2004
A grand experiment with user interfaces and AI - but nothing more.
The Good
The engine in this game blew me away. There are no icons or menus, and every task is performed by making gestures with your mouse. You can zoom far away, hundreds of feet above your island, or you can zoom in so closely that every colonist is in full detail. The physics system is also highly detailed - you can throw objects around, and your mouse movement in the "throwing" stage determines the arc, and how the object spins. Going "bowling" with a large boulder and several buildings was highly amusing (I played Evil, naturally).
The creatures can be very amusing, when they start learning. Some of the things they learn are so bizarre, you can't help but laugh and shake your head. For example, my Stupid Tiger(tm) learned that when he was thirsty, he could cast a Rain Miracle on himself. However, he also knows that if he happens to be on fire, he can cast the same Rain Miracle to save himself.
So what does he do, when thirsty?
He sets himself on fire with a Fireball, then casts the Rain Miracle. This moment of hilarious stupidity on the part of my creature bumped this game up several notches, in my opinion.
There is also a multiplayer capability, which seems to be the real meat of the game. A handful of players can connect to a host, and play with or against each other. In addition, the state of your creature is always persistent - that is to say, anything he learns in the multiplayer game will be carried over to any singleplayer game you load up later, and vice versa. If you find yourself doing poorly in multiplayer matches, just load up a single-player mission, and teach your creature some new tricks.
The Bad
Once you've played for a while, and get beyond the initial awe at the interface and engine, you quickly discover that there isn't an actual "game" here. It's essentially Populous - you build up villages, and the more villagers that believe in you, the more powerful you become. In addition, there are only five levels in this game - some of which recycle. Level 4 is the same map as Level 1 - with a very large environmental difference (it rains fire), but it's nothing "new".
And while funny at first, the pets become infuriating. My Stupid Tiger(tm) watched an enemy creature attacking my village with fireballs, and he learned that. No matter what I do, he'll always shoot fireballs at my village now. I have to keep him chained up at the temple, where he'll do no harm - he's essentially out of the game, unless I give him constant supervision and direction.
This game is also quite resource-intensive. This unfortunately makes it almost impossible to cast miracles with complex gestures - if your system starts hitting swap, and the action pauses even slightly, your gesture won't be recognized. It would be nice if there were keyboard shortcuts for miracles, but alas, there are only a couple of keys that actually serve any purpose, none of which are related to circumventing the gesture system.
The Bottom Line
A beautiful game world, and fans of Populous would love it. If that's not your thing, though, or you're looking for a good single-player experience, you might want to wait until it appears in the bargain bin.
Windows · by Dave Schenet (134) · 2001
One of the worst strategy game created lately
The Good
The game's general idea is very nice. Playing a God, "educating" your villagers and creature, choosing a moral path, etc. etc. Another neat option is the way you choose spells- each spell has an icon (for example, fireball looks like a spiral). If you want to cast a spell, you move your mouse according to the symbol, and then you can cast it- very efficient.
The Bad
The implementation. First of all, the game's interface is terrible. The designers wanted to simplify things, so your only way to control the game is by using the mouse, and placing various objects on various locations will immediately set them up to the appropriate role. Unfortunately, taking fifteen villagers and changing their job will require about forty mouse clicks... Which leads us to the next downfall- the game's micromanagement. Every little detail has to be managed by the omnipotent God, because the villagers are too stupid to take care of it themselves, so you'll find yourself delivering wood and food (the game's two resources) through a dozen villages instead of playing the actual game.
The Bottom Line
Good idea, but a terrible interface killed it. Don't buy it, rather save your money for WarCraftIII or Emperor.
Windows · by El-ad Amir (116) · 2001
Discussion
Subject | By | Date |
---|---|---|
Obscene Hermit | And Wan | Mar 18, 2009 |
HOW-TO: weather system | And Wan | Mar 3, 2009 |
Naming your Villagers from your email program | And Wan | Mar 2, 2009 |
Black & White Multiplayer Hints, Tips & Advice | And Wan | Mar 1, 2009 |
Creature Changer Crashing | And Wan | Mar 1, 2009 |
Trivia
1001 Video Games
Black & White appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Scrapped versions and plans
A version for Sony PlayStation was in development at one point by Bethesda, as well as for Sega Dreamcast probably by other developer - there were also plans to release this title for Game Boy Color and Game Boy Advance. Ports were eventually cancelled and plans never reached a development status.
April 1st
During the game on April 1st, the player's monster will leave smiley face foot prints in the ground instead of their regular foot prints. To do this, change your computer's date to April 1st.
Avatars
Originally the game was to include humanoid 'avatars', but the team eventually concluded that stroking and smacking around humans was a bit disturbing, hence the bipedal animal forms.
Death
If you ever wondered about that creepy female voice saying "Death" every once in a while, it means that someone in your village just died. There's a patch that let's you eliminate that voice if it's too spooky for your taste.
Gestures
One of the features in this game is "gesture recognition", allowing players to cast spells by drawing shapes on the landscape with the mouse and precluding the need for any icons on the screen. According to Molyneux, this is a direct reaction to the massive amount of icons present in his last game for Bullfrog, Dungeon Keeper. The icon interface for DK takes up a good third of the screen while playing.
In a beta version, signing Peter Molyneux's name as a "gesture" immediately gives you the most powerful spell in the game. Molyneux included this feature to give him an advantage in multiplayer. It is not known whether this made it into the final version.
References
- When Peter Molyneux presented Black & White in the German TV-Show GIGA GAMES (NBC Europe), he activated the "show names"-function of the villagers. Then he scrolled over the land, gave his creature some advices and finally picked up a villager called "Jörg Langer", threw him onto a huge mountain, Jörg fell down and landed in a forest nearby. Peter Molyneux just said: "So you have to chop wood for the rest of your life!". At the time, Jörg Langer was the Chief Editor of the German gaming magazine GameStar which wrote an unenthusiastic review of the game ("just" 84%).
- When you start the “boat-quest” to construct an ark (behind the wooden gates), you’ll hear some really annoying singing. Kill the middle on of the three singers and the others will go “Oh my God! You killed Kenneth!”, which is an obvious South Park reference. After constructing the ark, you’ll see two people reenact the famous Titanic scene as well.
Sailor Song
The famous Sailor Song was sung by the Lionhead staff in the English version.
Sales
In 2001, Black & White won both the Gold and Platinum awards from the German VUD (Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland - Entertainment Software Association Germany) for selling more then 100,000 units (Gold) and more then 200,000 units (Platinum) in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. As the Gold-Award is not counted into the Platinum award, both awards total in between 300,000 and 700,000 units sold.
Saving
Saved games for Black and White are a little unusual. When you save a game it records the status of the island, but not the status of you or your creature. Instead, the status of you and your creature are part of your profile which can't be restored once it changes. So if you save your game at level 1 with a good god and a small creature, proceed to level 5 with your creature becoming huge and your god becoming evil along the way, and restore the save file you'll end up with an evil god and a huge creature on level 1.
Soccer pitch
Lionhead released a patch allowing you to create your own soccer pitch for your people to play in. When you have installed the patch, you can build the pitch with eight scaffolds from your workshop. And when your people have nothing to do, they come to the pitch and play for a while.
Weather
There was an interesting feature included with the game. If you had registered your game at www.bwgame.com, the weather in-game would match the weather in your area.
Awards
- Gamespy
- 2001 – Strategy Game of the Year (Readers' Choice)
- 2001 – Best Articial Intelligence of the Year
- 2003 - Most Overrated Game of all Time
- PC Gamer
- June 2001 - Game of the Month
- October 2001 - #18 in the "Top 50 Best Games of All Time" list
- PC Powerplay (Germany)
- Issue 03/2005 - #2 Biggest Disappointment
- Issue 02/2006 - #2 Hype Disappointment
- Verband der Unterhaltungssoftware Deutschland
- 2001 - Platinum Award
- 2001 - Gold Award
Information also contributed by Alan Chan, Andrew Hartnett, Felix Knoke, Indra was here, Kartanym, Lumpi, PCGamer77, Sciere, Scott Monster, Ummagumma, Xoleras and Zack Greene.
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Related Sites +
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Black & White
Official website -
Official Game Site
The Official Site for Black & White, which includes links to other fan web sites and the ability to register to play online. -
Official Webpage (Mac)
The official product page for the Mac version of Black & White on the publisher's website, which provides a profile of the game, a rundown of its features, an overview of the game's creatures, and purchasing information, among other such things. -
Official WinAmp Plug-In
A little before the release of the game, Lionhead made a visualization plug-in for WinAmp. It uses the game's graphic engine to show the bear dancing along with your music. The day passes to night and disco lights will also appear in the display. -
Planet Black & White
A fan page that is updated at least daily with new stuff, including 'bonus' creatures and other downloads. -
The Final Hours of Black & White
GameSpot covered the wrap-up production of Black & White in this lengthy article in their "Behind the Games" series.
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Contributors to this Entry
Game added by Ray Soderlund.
Macintosh added by Kabushi.
Additional contributors: nullnullnull, Adam Baratz, Unicorn Lynx, JPaterson, Corn Popper, formercontrib, Zeppin, Patrick Bregger, Plok, yenruoj_tsegnol_eht (!!ihsoy), FatherJack, Danfer, R3dn3ck3r, Zhuzha, Đarks!đy ✔.
Game added April 3, 2001. Last modified November 24, 2024.