Black & White Preview

Stories and Worlds

During his workshop speech at E3, Peter was very eager to stress out the importance of B&W's storyline. There is so much energy spent on describing the general ideas and basic gameplay concepts that the media has often overlooked the storyline. Peter definitely wants to now shift our attentions back to the story... Black and White's tale can be broken down into several different elements: the major storyline, the side-plot, and the tasks. Don't forget, it's still primarily a single player game --- you begin your life in a citadel, but someone, or something has actually thrown all the sorcerers on that particular world. And you're not necessarily fighting the bad guys either. There's no such thing in Black and White. Yes, you play God, but in no way are you God. It seems to me like that's the big catch of the single player story... Through implemented single player scripts that consist of numerous tasks testing your moral judgment, the plot slowly unfolds revealing the true reason of your presence in the world. On a side note, I've just remembered the little divine, and hellish characters sitting over your shoulders, and suggesting "the right course of action". The tasks and the way you handle the problems, combined with the way you bring up your creature largely decide your personality. The little angel and the devil, remind me of that classic Tom and Jerry dilemma, when Tom's got Jerry pinned down, but then he remembers how Jerry saved his butt from the bulldog that one time... After all, it's just a game, but it's still a game where even the story moulds to fit your personality. The completion of the tasks will sometimes depend upon your better "moral judgment". The trick for the developers of Black and White is not to simply immerse you into the Tamgochi syndrome, or The Sims mania. It is to take it one step further, and give it all meaning with a solid storyline.

Amongst so many other things, I also remember being thoroughly impressed with the spell system, and the way it's handled in-game. Totally intuitive, dependant on the force and the shape players create with their mice... Some of the spells may require a pentagram in order to produce more powerful effects. Pretty revolutionary in terms of interface. Also, the resulting 3D effects have great impact on the terrain, and in a way make the Black and White world more receptive to the players' touch... Don't forget, the world's configuration will reflect the ruler's personality... Black and White game world is like many other features in the game, a "responsive element". Something that makes B&W so unique.

Finally, just to remind everybody that B&W is now slated for a Nov. 10 PC release. DC version is pushed back to 2001, while I'm not really aware of what's going on with PSX2. Peter has opted to switch to next-gen consoles as the main platform for his next project, Dojo. Obviously, there are still technical issues that need some tweaking in the PC version of B&W. On the bright side though, the game should at least hit the shelves as a fairly finalized single-player product. Lionhead's principal head is no sales dummy either. We should expect Black and White to be very attractive to mass market consumers as well the rest of the gaming crowd... Similar to what we had with The Sims. Now, if only there were more game developers like Peter and Will...