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Black And White Screenshot Jamboree
Niceguy writes: "Lionhead Studios released 51 screenshots for your viewing pleasure, which you can see at Liongames.com. Although not being released until February of next year, now is a good time to start salivating and putting aside that spare change. All Bow Before Peter!"
Black and White is a freeform god game. There is no interface to speak of, you do everything through the "Hand of God". (By the way, these are all my terms and interpretations. Things may have changed since I've looked at B&W.)
Lionhead coded hand gesture recognition technology. You do things by making gestures with your hand/cursor. For example, let's say you wanted to light a village on fire. You would cast the fire spell by doing a certain set of motions. The fireball would come blazing out, severity varying depending on how accurate you did the spell. (For example, if the casting shape was a circle and you made a really bad rounded rectangle, you could expect a very weak spell).
As a god, you are neutral. You can deal with a situation any way you wish. So, you can impose your own will upon the people in the game. In a bad mood? Toss the child into the ocean to teach the mother a lesson for not paying closer attention. Feeling generous? Cast a growing spell on the village's crops. The availability of the spells depends on whether you lean toward the good/bad side. Almost like Star Wars.
The objective of the game is to gather as many followers as possible. Your followers will erect places of worship toward you, and you gain more power from it. There are other gods, too, though. You have to try and convert as many people to your following, though.
Another aspect is the avatar that you control. These are in the form of an ape, tiger, or some other creature. He/she/it represents your will. You will raise this creature and he will learn from you. For example, if you cast a fire spell a few times, it will eventually learn it and can cast the spell on its own. The attitude and look of your avatar changes depending on your goodness/evilness. If you're an angry god, your avatar will take on an evil disposition. If you are a peaceful god, your avatar will be angelic. Likewise for the environment. Dark clouds if you're bad. Sunlight if you're good.
There is another aspect of the game that deals with multiplayer. I think it is called "The Gathering" and you can bring your avatar/creature online and converse with other player's creatures. They can do battle with each other or just talk. The singleplayer/multiplayer creatures may be interchangeable (e.g. a spell you learn online can then be used offline).
The top five anticipated add-ons to B&W are as follows...
:)
5. Quake 1 Pack - As with every other game, now Quake I levels and weapons are available!
4. Satin - Actually a virus, this will go to the altar of all gods (where they hang out when the game is not being played) and kill everyone else's player. Expected to spread like wildfire or Melissa/ILoveYou.
3. Command & Conquer-like add-on - Now you can have two more buildings and six new textures on the main menu for only $40.00 more!
2. Atheist Mission Pak - Hey, the US schools wanted this game! Complete with no god, you can roam around the beautiful landscape if you have nothing to do.
Drum roll please... 1. The Nudity Patch - As featured in the Sims, the Quake series, and just about every other game with a character, you can see the god and their worshippers walk around completely naked! Includes an option to turn the blurring near innapropiate parts off!
If anyone doesn't think that these add-ons are going to come out, please e-mail me. I'll teach ya
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Tonight on Fox: Deadliest Executions Part XVII
A direct link to the LionGames.com gallery page: Liongames.com - Media: Screenshots.
Likewise, the Lionhead Studios website.
I've been following this game for a while now. It seems real interesting, as the player apparently has the choice to do anything he wants to approach the problem, which is a sharp departure from the open door, push button games that are standard fare today. Even Half-Life was structured with a certain path through the level.
However, B&W allows you to solve a certain problem by using good powers (such as whisking a lost villager back home) or bad powers (just heaving a large tree at the villager would put an end to the problem as well).
1) b&w will be open-sourced. I remeber reading about this a few months ago, and the developer said it'd be free for other open-sourced games...interesting nonetheless
2) a. The weather in the game is equal to the weather of where you live.
b. Creatures dancing to random music.
c. Realtime Weather-effects.
d. Day and night cycles.
3) it will not only be released for Windows, but also BeOS, Linux, and Windows, Dreamcast, PlayStation and Gameboy Color (although, with some sytems there will obviously be a loss of features)
wonder if this will be the next Doom?
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As a god you, over time, become either good or evil. You are presented with quests to help you define yourself. One example is that of a missing boy, his father asks you to help him find the boy, you could either bring the boy to the father, or do something evil like kill the boy, drop him in front of the father, and then kill the father for asking.
The interface is especially interesting, as spells will be cast with mouse movements. By shaking the mouse over the screen you can create a fireball to hurl at your opponents and there are many variations on every movement to make the spell weaker/stronger or have a diffrent effect. This game will support multiplayer, but your character will be perserved from single player; You can play SP till you feel comfortable with your character/famaliar, then jump into the swarming masses and show your hand.
The AI is what is most impressive about this game, Lionhead has taken games to a new level by having you teach a famaliar who takes the shape of an animal in the game ranging from a cow to possibly a dragon (there are secrect titans hidden throughout the game) and the animal, infused with a bit of your power, becomes a titan. The way you treat your Titan and what you teach him to do, and how you do it, will help form what kind of titan it becomes. If you teach it to eat your villagers when it gets hungry, then your villagers will learn to run away when they see it coming, and your Titan will become evil in the process. The teaching system isn't a matter of making a few simple decisions and then your Titan becomes exactly what you want him to be, it is a test of your patience, and endurance, and of your personality, putting a little bit of you into the game.
Unfortunatly, Neutraliaty isn't really an option in the game, as the really powerfull spells/abilities come from being truly as good or evil as possible. Also, you have no direct control over the units in the game, you have to persuade them to do things for you, like make the villagers worship you by showing them a bit of your power and encouraging them, or encouraging them in a diffrent way by making an example of someone who doesn't worship.
As for the graphics, it looks quite a bit like the recently released game Sacrifice which is a third person role playing real time strategy game, which doesn't look bad at all (and plays nice). As long as the game doesn't look like something I might play on an Atari, who cares? While Black & White might be a good topic for a thread, why use the screenshots to bring it up?
More info on B&W can be found at BWVault, one of the oldest BW Fansites that didn't bottom out.
about this game is not really the graphics (which are outstanding). The AI and the adaptablilty are truly unprecedented. The movie titled Black and White - The E3 Movie located here really tells the whole story. This is a most ambitious game. It will do things like tie in with you IM client and your creature will read your messages to you if you're playing when you're messaged. The creatures dance to your MP3s, and learn to enjoy songs you play over and over. I'm very excited about this game, and am really hopinng they are doing a Mac version. There's a lot more to this game than any sim/rpg/god game we've seen.