Game

Black & White

2001 · PC (Microsoft Windows) · Mac · Puzzle · Real Time Strategy (RTS) · Simulator

75IGDB player score
144 ratings

Previously Take

That 75 average hides a game its 144 fans would defend to the death. A puzzle game that respects your brain — sandbox, open world on the surface, real logic underneath. The story is the main course; the multiplayer is the reason it's still installed years later.

About this game

Play the role of a deity in a land where the surroundings are yours to shape and its people are yours to lord over. Be an evil, malevolent god and the natives will worship you with fear in their eyes. Play as a kind, benevolent god and they will worship you with love in their hearts. Your actions decide whether you create a heaven or hell for your worshipers. Then select a creature from the land to act as your representative in the world. Raise it to gigantic proportions and teach it to do your bidding--whether the animal grows into an evil colossus of mass destruction or a kind and gentle giant is up to you. Progress through the game's rich storyline performing powerful miracles to battle other deities and become the world's supreme god.

The player begins on an island as a new god, created from a family's prayers. After saving their drowning son, the god follows the grateful family to their village. A large creature is later discovered who tells of its former master, a god named Nemesis, who desires to reign supreme as the one true god by destroying all others. The player is told of the Creed; an energy source with the ability to destroy gods. Nemesis destroys his former creature and attacks the village. A mysterious vortex opens that the player enters to escape Nemesis. The player is transported to a second island and greeted by another god, Khazar. Khazar reveals that it was he who sent the vortex and requests assistance against another god, Lethys, Nemesis' underling, in exchange for resources to rebuild the village. Later, Nemesis destroys Khazar and steals his piece of the Creed. Lethys then kidnaps the player's creature, taking it through a vortex. In the third land, the creature is held in stasis by three magical pillars. After the creature is freed, Lethys grants the player a piece of the Creed and opens a vortex where another can be found. The player returns to the first land, now cursed by Nemesis; fireballs and lightning rain from the sky. After the curses are lifted by destroying the three guardian stones, and the piece of the Creed is claimed, Nemesis appears, inviting the player to his realm. On the last island, Nemesis curses the player's creature, causing it to slowly change alignments, shrink, and grow weaker. When the final piece of the Creed is obtained, the player destroys Nemesis, and is left as the only god in the world.