Game Design - Black and White

Black & White Game Design, Hendrik Heuer

Company

based in Guildford, Surrey, UKwas founded to make Black & White!founded by Peter Molyneux!Published by EA Games on Windows and Feral Interactive on Mac OS X

Peter Molyneux

English computer game designer and game programmer!Order of the British Empire

Black & White

Genre: Real-time strategy, God game!released on March 25, 2001, after missing several deadlines.

Black & White

You take the role of a god, ruling about people and commanding a Creature. !The game features elements of strategy and fighting games.

Black & White

The main objective is to destroy Nemesis!To do this, you have to obtain Creed, which is an energy source to destroy gods!You also have to train your Creature and help your village

Philosophy

You can decide whether to be a good god or a bad god.!You can either help the people and stroke your Creature, or you can punish people and reign through fear.

Control & Input

Most interaction is done via mouse!Keyboard only plays a minor role

Interface

No interface!Only spells who are indicated visually (cast by mouse gestures)

Control & Input

You can manipulate everything on the island. If you pick a tree, it is your choice to collect for the people or to throw it at them.

Your village

Devil and angel - they provide guidance, but they are biased in terms of moral

Space of the game

continuous 3D game. !game consists of four islands, which themselves are not limited (but surrounded by the sea).

Skill vs. chance

Mostly skill!Choosing the right spells, taking care of village inhabitants, training Creature

Choosing a Creature

Richard Evans (who also did the Sims 3)!Game Developer Choice Award for Programming Excellence!merged different AI techniques like perceptron training and decision tree learning

Artificial Intelligence

A quest

Training your Creature

Main interaction with your Creature: You punish or reward (by smacking or stroking).!You give the feedback yourself !Positive feedback reinforces the behavior, negative feedback keeps them from doing it again.

Interaction

Fighting

The Creatures can fight Creatures of other gods.

Creature fighting

Multiplayer

LAN and WLAN!multilateral competition!main goal is tower-defense and defeating all opponents!a lot of village building and town-conquering in the beginning

Gameplay

Reception

Really good reviewsGameSpot 9.3/10IGN 9.7/1090% average on Metacritic!But also: The most overrated game of all time (GameSpy)

Critique

I love the philosophical dimension of the setting!Artificial intelligence?!!Good gameplay balance due to the strategic and fighting elements

The sequels

Questions? Game Design, Hendrik Heuer