B&W was a real fun game, very interesting ideas and it really tried to be different from other games in ways that did and didn’t work.
We really take control and camera schemes for granted these days, but it took a lot of misses before we landed on the semi-standardized methods we rely on now. B&W portrayed the player as a divine hand, and you had to click and drag to literally “drag” your viewpoint around the map. You could also click on the creature to lock your hand onto it and allow you to gently move the mouse to pet it, or rapid swipe to slap it across the face!
The creature responded amazingly well too, reacting to many stimuli in the environment, mimicking actions you take, and responding to rewards and punishments. The systems of morphing it’s character model based on how far along the “devil to saint” meter were reused heavily in Fable. MS probably has a patent on the technique, the fuckers.
Anyway, super exciting to see fans reverse engineering it! I’m a big supporter of remaking classic games as new open source engines. I think projects like Spring (rts) and gzdoom really show how powerful and creatively productive a community that cultivates good, open, tools can be.
It’s not lost if you are capable of going to myabandonware.com and using KurtisLutris.
Good effort, regardless.
Step 1. Think of a game that you loved 10+ years ago and you can’t buy anymore (like Black & White, Need For Speed: Underground,…)
Step 2. Go to myabandonware.com and use the search function.
Step 3. Use Lutris to manage the installation process.
You won’t get everything. But you will get a lot of things.
I dream of a day where this series actually gets a remake or full hd remaster. The game was so open ended and you really felt accomplished in everything you did in the game. Whether training your pet, taking over villages, etc. For me the game was the first of its kind where your actions actively showed so it was really awesome to see your hand becoming more glowey or scarred. Same with your pet. Then there was your conscious guys good/evil which were a riot as well. Overall just a great game. Good memories.
Let’s not water down the concept of lost media. Black & White was sold on physical discs with twee 2000s DRM. I guaranfuckingtee you it’s easily pirated, alongside the Fisher Price version of Windows it ran on.
The song that the sailors sang in the original B&W is stuck in my head to this day. “Ohhhh, we’ve got this notion that we’d quite like to sail the ocean…”
