Black & white

Black & White gives the player the opportunity to act as a deity who rules his own tribe of people living on a small island. You will have to take care not only of your tribe, but also to grow your own being, to train and educate it.

God’s

Taking on the role of God, the player can use all supernatural abilities. A special role is given to magic, which is divided into two types: to help people and to destroy them. For example, a player can use the magic of water to create rain, which contributes to the growth of the crop. You can quickly build new homes or obtain valuable resources by the power of thought in order to accelerate the development of your people. To destroy people, God can use destructive magic: create fireballs that burn everything in its path, start a chain lightning that can kill an entire group. The player is free to choose his own way of achieving goals, depending on the style of play. ^[one]

Settlements

Each island has several settlements. Usually, at the beginning of the game, each god owns one village, and he can attach the rest during the game.

Good and Evil

As the name of the game shows, the big role in it is played by the choice between good and evil , which is expressed in the player’s actions (almost every task in the campaign has “good” and “evil” solutions - for example, to save the brother of the woman in whose house is stored the stone needed to complete the task, after which she will give up the stone, or destroy her house and take the stone away by force) and leads to a change in the attitude of the player from the side of his being and subjects.

Advisors

Two characters act as advisers to the player - an old man with a halo around his head, sitting on a cloud and embodying good, and a demon embodying evil. From time to time they appear on the screen and seek to push the player to accomplish good or evil deeds.

Creature

Each god has his own embodiment - an animal of gigantic proportions, which over time becomes larger and stronger, acquires new opportunities and learns. There are 11 creatures in the game (including all additions - 18), but only 3 are initially available - a tiger , a cow and a monkey . The creature is able to independently move around the island, observe the work of its inhabitants and learn from them, but at the right time the player is able to call him to himself using a special leash. Stroking a creature or, conversely, beating, the player stimulates him to perform certain actions (a classic example of a “ carrot and stick ”). For example, if you stroke a creature that has just eaten a person, then it will tend to eat just people.

List of creatures (as they appear): humanoid monkey , tiger , wolf , cow , sheep , zebra , chimpanzee , turtle , lion , brown bear , polar bear , horse , leopard , gorilla , mandrill , crocodile , rhino , chicken and ogre .

Temple

Among the buildings existing in the game, a special place is occupied by the temple. Each god initially has his own temple. If you go inside the temple, you can get acquainted with various game statistics, as well as save and load the game (thus, the temple partially functions as the main menu). The sites around the temple are sites for worship. In each of the player-controlled settlements, there is a totem, moving which, you can set the number of inhabitants who should currently worship God. Worshipers increase the mana that can be spent on miracles, but keep in mind that worship distracts people from work, and after a particularly long prayer, they can die of fatigue. You can instantly increase mana if you make a sacrifice; a variety of game items (trees, animals, and so on) can be sacrificed, but most of all mana can be obtained by sacrificing a living person, especially a child. Each nation has its own site of worship with its available miracles. Also, the temple is "protected" by people and buildings from the villages, because if damage is done to the temple, the damage is reflected in houses or people.

Miracles

Another interesting feature is the ability to create miracles. Miracles in Black & White - an analogue of the magic present in many games. For example, a miracle of water causes rain over a certain area, and a miracle of teleport allows people to teleport between two points (for example, between a native village and a temple). Since the creators of the game sought to minimize the interface, the call of a miracle requires a certain figure to be drawn in the air or on the ground. This system was later partially copied in the game " Darwinia ".

Weather

The weather is out of the player’s power, although it is possible to enable an option in the game that uses real weather in the player’s place of residence to simulate it in the game.

Addition to the game, called Black & White: Creature Isle , was released January 22, 2002 . The supplement focuses on creatures; the action takes place on a separate island, not connected in any way with the islands from the original game. The action of the add-on occurs after the events of the original game. The main differences from the original:

• There are no other gods on this island;
• Artificial intelligence of creatures has become more powerful, and now they can have their own pets.
• Added new wonders for creatures - Acceleration and Anti-magic.
• Added a new ability to creatures - construction. The main purpose is to accelerate the construction of buildings.

The game won the nomination "Best Strategy" (2001) of the magazine " Gambling " ^[2] .