Black & White, developed by Lionhead Studios and published by Electronic Arts

for Windows PCs in 2001, and later for Mac OS in 2002.

And in the early-2000s PC gaming world, few titles were more hyped up than this one, being

the first game from the newly-formed Lionhead Studios.

Not only was Black & White the debut title from the ex-Bullfrog developers since they'd

gone independent, but it had been in the works for over three years by the time it came out.

Back then that was an unusually long development cycle,

and originally Lionhead expected to have it done by Q4 of 1999.

But release estimates came and went, excitement grew and dwindled, and every six months or

so the cycle would repeat with some new interview promoting the project

and its larger-than-life designer, Peter Molyneux.

And make no mistake, the game looked insanely cool all the way from its announcement in

1998 to its eventual release in 2001.

Teaser footage made it seem like a successor to Bullfrog classics like Populous and Dungeon

Keeper, its graphical detail was unprecedented at the time, and the promise of cutting edge

artificial intelligence with trainable creatures sounded amazing!

Then it came out as such a buggy mess that some folks thought they might've shipped

a beta version instead of the finished game, and when it did work, some still felt it didn't

meet their lofty expectations despite favorable reviews in the gaming press.

That being said though, I find Black & White more than intriguing enough to revisit, it's

just filled with so many unusual choices.

Even the box is an unique choice, with dual gatefold covers showing off the white and

black moral paths the game was known for.

It's a cliche at this point considering how many games have gone down this route,

with evil choices adding horns and spikes to everything

and good choices means butterflies and rainbows.

But yeah, it was a neat idea at the time,

enough to make me grab a copy in the early 2000s.

Opening up the box you got the game itself on CD-ROM inside this minimally-decorated

cardboard sleeve, a product registration card and this 16-page installation guide covering

the excitement of troubleshooting everything from Windows 95 to Millenium Edition.

Finally there's the manual, printed appropriately enough in black and white.

It covers a lotta ground, with 52 pages worth of densely-packed information

throwing everything at you all at once.

Due to the way the campaign is structured, I recommend using this

as more of a reference guide after you've started playing.

Black & White begins with a white and black logo, followed by a Black & White logo, and

culminating in a what amounts to a teaser for Black & White itself.

No real information or lore is provided, just a minute and a half of random gameplay footage.

And it only plays the first time you start the game, too

making its inclusion that much more questionable.

Once it's done showing off its press kit sizzle reel, it's time to give yourself

a name and choose a pre-made symbol, the latter of which

will become the defining imagery of your religion.

Once you've established your impending godhood, a short cutscene plays setting up the world

of Eden and your place within it.

By which I mean you have no place at all, until the precise moment that you do.

- “A land of innocents has no place for gods.

-"Until fate intervenes.”

- “Keep away from the water!”

“Wait! Stop!”

- “When people pray, a god is always born.”

[ominous music plays]

- “Help, someone help us!”

“Help our child!”

“We call to the heavens!”

- “Able to change eternity..."

-"That god is you.”

[funky god music plays]

Yeah, this intro still really gets me in the mood for some god gaming!

That awesome music by Russell Shaw and trippy cosmic imagery, dude.

Something about it just gives me chills.

- “Are you a blessing or a curse?

Good or evil?”

- “Be what you will, you are destiny.”

Annnnd then just like that, it's a clunky old computer game [chuckles.]

Yeah, get ready for tons of mandatory hand-holding and unskippable tutorials.

Which, granted, at the time were still a fresh idea.

And if you've never played before it's a solid tutorial, especially since the manual

leaves something to be desired in explaining things clearly.

However, if you have played before and simply wanna start a new game,

then this tutorial is a real slog and the option to skip it would've been nice.

Fans eventually patched this whole section out themselves, but more on that later.

For now though, let's follow along and see how vanilla Black & White works, because even

to this day I've never played anything quite like it.

So yeah, the basic idea is that you play a supernatural deity

represented by a hand floating around the landscape.

You've got two advisors representing the good and evil sides of your conscience, and

who keep you informed of your godly options whenever big notable choices pop up.

And there are a number of nearby human villagers that have started believing in your existence,

so your overarching goal is to increase their belief in you by manipulating the world using

your god hand and a selection of miracles.

But uh, the controls... are a thing.

[child screaming]

Black & White lacks a traditional user interface,

and alternatively went with a mouse-driven layer of abstraction.

Instead of windows, icons, and drop-down menus, you've got this floating hand of god

and the world around it.

Everything is designed to be controlled using your hand and a combination of mouse movements,

audio and video cues, and context-sensitive objects.

Left mouse button moves around the map, right mouse button interacts with things, and combining

the two buttons controls the camera.

That is, if you're using a mouse at all.

Essential Reality teamed up with Lionhead

to provide native P5 Glove support in 2002, stating it was

“the perfect gaming platform to demonstrate the power and technical achievement of [the] new P5T technology.”

If you've seen my Oddware episode all about this device, I'm sure you'll react to

that statement with a fair bit of skepticism.

As with most P5 experiences, it's not that it doesn't work at all, it's that it works

just enough to become more frustrating than if you weren't using it to begin with.

Obviously, seeing as the whole game is played with a virtual hand it makes some sense to

implement a virtual hand controller.

And as a result it does function better than other

P5 demonstrations I showed on Oddware, but c'mon now.

This game is weird enough on its own, no need to throw an infrared finger mouse into the mix.

- “Faith in you is fallin' like a stone.”

- Ya don't say.

Regardless of wonky glove controllers though, Lionhead was deeply committed to the whole

“disembodied god hand” idea in Black & White, making sure players rarely did anything other

than click and drag, almost never having to touch the keyboard.

Not that I recommend playing like that since there's a buncha shortcuts that are only

accessible through the keyboard, many of which the tutorial never mentions.

For example, you're told that saving and loading the game occurs inside your temple.

So you'd navigate to the building in-world, right click it to go inside, enter into the

main central room, navigate to the save game room on the right, then click on a picture

to zoom into it, type in a title to save your game, then exit the save room, and leave the

temple to return to the game.

Or you could just press Control+S on the keyboard and quicksave at any time.

I know which method I prefer.

There's tons of stuff like this that seems needlessly cumbersome,

implemented under the guise of “immersion” and “innovation.”

But then you dig a little deeper and it turns out

there's actually an easier or more efficient way of doing things.

Like how there are unseen controls to slow down and speed up time

by pressing Alt+1 and 2 on the keyboard.

Or how you can forgo the bizarre screen edge camera controls if you simply use a mouse

with a clickable wheel.

Anyway, all that to say that Black & White is often simpler to play than it appears at first glance.

And thank goodness, because what's here is immediately captivating, at least to me

as a fan of the 'god game' and 'city builder' subgenres.

Despite what Lionhead said in the marketing, Black & White is less of a role-playing game

and more of a real-time strategy game with an emphasis on resource management and puzzle-solving.

[sailors sing “The Explorers Song”]

Each of the five main maps in the campaign contain their own sets of challenges to complete,

signified by golden scrolls indicating story objectives and silver scrolls providing side quests.

But the core gameplay revolves around accumulating the resources of food, wood, belief, and villagers.

Food and wood and pretty self-explanatory, acquired by villagers or by picking them up yourself.

Belief is gained by performing miraculous actions within the view of villagers.

And naturally, villagers themselves are acquired by reproduction for the most part, as well

as converting them away from rival gods to believe in you instead.

Overall it's a pretty laid-back experience, lording over the land as your people go about

their day working, dancing, worshipping, screwing, building, eating, and complaining.

[peaceful ambient music plays]

Ahh it's nice.

Too bad there's a bunch of nonsense constantly screwing things up.

For one thing, villagers often have questionable priorities.

So if you don't want them wandering around doing whatever, generate some disciples by

dropping people down near specific objects and structures.

- "Disciple Forester."

This is how you create dedicated builders, farmers, woodcutters, fishermen, craftsmen,

and even breeders, all doing little more than eat, sleep, and work.

This is also one method of increasing your influence,

by creating missionaries and traders to nearby villages.

Influence is shown by these wavy colored borders when you zoom out, and there's a whole stack

of variables affecting how quickly and how far it spreads.

And even then, it's not so much a hard border as it is a loose indicator of your power.

Like, you can still reach beyond your own influence to manipulate people and objects

outside of your own lands, but only for a limited time.

Then you have to go back and try again to refresh your hand.

It's a bizarre mechanic at first, where you're constantly moving your god hand in

and out of rival territory, but you get used to it.

Tossing rocks and trees and things from a distance is also an option,

as well as performing miracles.

With good-natured miracles like generating food and forests, and offensive ones like

tossing out fireballs and lightning.

Another way to influence villagers is the creature: a large animal with divine powers

that you'll choose while playing the first tutorial island.

There are three creatures on offer by default, that being the ape, the cow, and the tiger.

However, there are eight more creatures out there in the world to be unlocked,

as well as four DLC creatures.

Ahh, 2001.

When downloadable content came in the form of self-extracting executables

found on the developer's website.

For free, even!

My how things change.

Anyway, creatures.

They're big and powerful, but not too big and powerful, at least not yet.

Each one has to be fed, exercised, trained, played with, and scolded in order to increase

their capabilities and size.

And as with everything else in the game, this means using your god hand.

So your can hand them food, bring them toys, rub them nicely when they do something you

want, or give them a good smacking if they do something you don't.

[intense smacking sounds]

Seems harsh, but it's the only way to get them to learn

not to take unholy craps in the middle of town.

Or pick up and eat random worshippers.

Or whatever else you deem unsuitable.

You can also train creatures using leashes, making sure that they only hang out around

certain areas and witness you doing certain things.

Because yeah, they learn by exposure to your godly activities, eventually figuring out

how to perform many of the same actions and miracles.

Creatures also carry over into skirmish mode too, so you're not limited to training them

during the campaign maps.

There are three of these skirmish maps that you can enter at any time, where you'll

compete with between one to three AI gods, or the same number of human players over a

LAN or the internet.

At least, before EA shut down the online servers of course, so playing against AI is the best

bet unless you use a custom multiplayer client.

But yeah, creature training is key to surviving later parts of the game, and thankfully they

do have a separate moral alignment from yours, so they can go around being a jerk while you

play a pacifist, or vice versa.

Powerful stuff when used to your advantage.

This also means that you'll likely attract the attention of other gods and their creatures,