Black & White One on One

I couldn’t just leave after that last post… though I felt like it. =) Here’s some action on Black & White… I heard that the original title was Black OR White… but that game idea was scrapped early for being too linear. That’s when the apple struck Peter’s head… and the rest is history.

Now for the real news. An interview with head of music and sound from Lionhead Studios is up at Lionsource and here’s a sampling:

Q: Finally, is there anything you want to tell the fans?

A: You are playing Black and White. You have a creature that is newly born, naive and totally dependent on you. He stands staring at you waiting for some sign from you that you will look after him. You give him some grain to eat as his first meal. He takes it from you, looks at it and throws it away cheekily then runs over to a horse grazing in the same field, picks it up and eats it. You scold your creature for doing this. Immediately he runs over to another horse, picks it up, strokes it and puts down again. He then runs over the discarded grain you gave him, picks it up and eats it. You stroke your creature for doing this. From now on he knows that you are happy if he is kind to horses and eats grain when he is hungry.

This was my first experience with my creature and I nearly cried. I still had a million and one lessons to teach him. I even had to re-train him that it was ok for him to eat horses when he was starving and I had no food for him. Your creature will constantly amaze you with his interpretation of your lessons. Trying to feed a live pig to a sheep, doing acrobatics to attract your attention, running like crazy to get home because he knows you’ll not be happy if he uses the beach as a toilet.

The creature is one tiny fraction of the game as a whole so I say to you – BUY THIS GAME. I say this not out of any loyalty to Lionhead or some desire to see the game top the charts but purely and simply that if you do not do so you will miss out – BIG TIME!.

It’s easy to tell this guy is excited about the game. Me too.