| BLACK
& WHITE PLAYER GUIDE - UPDATED 12 Feb 02
OK, you have they game,
you might even have read the manual, but Black
& White is not a game you can simply dive in a play in two
minutes flat. Having spent the best part of 4 days struggling to
figure out some of the game play, I though it would be appropriate
to offer some help to owners of the game.
In no particular order
I offer the following tips:
Email Intergration. OK,
the game offers to randomly name some of your villagers after the
real people in your address book (assuming you use Outlook/OE or
any other POP3 compatible). To get this to work you need to:
To activate the email
feature, you need to run the Black & White Setup application,
click on the email settings button and select your player profile
from the drop-down list.
Check the first box
(check for Internet email) to activate this email feature.
Check the second box
if you are using Microsoft Outlook. If you are using a POP3 mail
system, leave this box unchecked and fill out your POP3 server settings
in the fields below.
This feature is only
operational in the single player game and also you need to have
done the following:
You have registered
at www.bwgame.com site
You have gone into
the Online Game - Find Games on the internet and entered your username
and password at least once.
Works fine for me.
Custom Logo.
Despite the help in the readme.txt this does not work here. There
are allegedly 16 symbolx.bmp files in the profiles directory,
were x is a number from 1 to 16. Non-are contained in mine. I
have not installed the game into the default directories (it's
on D: here), so maybe that is the cause, I will investigate this
further.
Resolution.
The game s makes its own decision here, not always a logical one.
I have a 1.1 Gig Tbird/Gforce 2 combie; the game decided 800x600
was appropriate, I did not. You cannot alter this in game. You
need to run the set-up programme that is added to the menu or
run the file within the B&W root.
Game Control.
The first level introduces you to the control system. It teaches
the grab the ground move system, which is unfortunate as it sucks.
It also confuses the system by showing you how to pitch the view
by moving the mouse to the top/bottom of the screen, and rotation
using the left/right side of your screen. This also sucks, is
inaccurate and unwieldy. Zooming uses both mouse buttons and works
rapidly.
Fortunately do this
far more easily using the following:
Move - Double click
where you want to go.
Pitch - Click and hold
mouse wheel, move mouse.
Rotate - Click and
hold mouse wheel, move mouse.
Zoom - Spin your mouse
wheel, this is slower than holding both mouse buttons down.
Bookmarks - Doubleclick
on something useful, say the village store on a newly capture village,
select Control+1. Now every time you press 1 you zoom straight to
that village. As you expire expands it makes getting where you want
to easy. 1 - 7 are the available options here.
Use keyboard Shortcuts:
M - Magic. Use this
to cast spells rather than drawing a clockwise spiral on-screen.
R - Repeat. Cast the
same spell again.
Space Bar. Move to
your temple.
L - Leash. Use to pick
up or drop the leash. Far quicker than shaking you hand about the
show.
B & V - Buggered
if I know! Use this to toggle between the three types of leash you
have for your creature; Learning, Aggression & Compassion. Their
names are self-explanatory and affect how you creature behaves.
N - Names. If you have
integrated your address book and you want to see the villagers names
press N.
C - Creature Zooms
you instantly to you trusty companion.
Tab - Village Stores.
Moves you between the stores of you village(s).
The Creature. He is
a mini-god for want of a better expression and he will learn from
you and can eventually cast spells etc by himself if you train him.
Your creature learns
when attached to you using the leash. For instance, if you cast
several fireballs with the leash attached your creature will learn
to do this himself. The game informs you when he has taken this
on board.
He needs to be shown
how to eat, pick up some food and give it to him. Rub his tummy,
he eventually figure out it is good to eat. He can eat cows/pigs/lambs/wheat/fish/people.
Should you not want him to eat something or you catch him eating
something he shouldn't, people if you are a good god, give him a
good slapping. You move your hand across his face from side to side
rapidly.
The same applies to
drinking; he needs to be shown how to drink. Take him to the water
and keep clicking on it. He eventually gets the idea.
The People. Your magical
powers, Manna, Mojo or whatever comes from you people.
o Performing miracles
generates Manna. Some are more effective than others. People like
you to throw things, but they are less keen if it's them or fireballs!
Try rocks or trees.
If they want something
a lot, you generate higher manna values, for instance if they want
kids, then making breeding disciples scores well.
Moving the totem up
& down in the village sends people to your temple to worship.
This generates continuous magical power. The more worshiping, the
more energy generated. This also has drawbacks. If they are not
worshiping, the following suffers:
- Harvesting.
- Building.
- Breeding.
- Fishing.
- Wood cutting.
o You therefore need
to strike a balance between generating manna & getting on
with expanding your empire. Oh, worshipers need food dropped off
where they worship or they starve.
If you create disciples
(indicated by a yellow glow around them) they don't go to worship
until all the non-disciples are used up.
Disciples come in several
flavours:
- Harvesters (farmers).
- Builders.
- Breeders (more punters
= more manna).
- Fishermen.
- Lumberjacks.
- Pilgrims (drop these
off in rival villages to convert the locals).
- Traders (if you
have a second village store).
- Instant Population.
If you have a village with too many punters whinging about housing
& a half-empty one, move the blighters!
Silver Reward Scrolls.
Silver scrolls allow you earn an incentive for carrying out some
task. In level 1 the is a hill-billy who want s to be impressed
with the size of you creature - I never managed that first nor-last.
Find the sick brother and so on gets you a totem stone.
Gold Story Scrolls.
Compulsory quests, which take the game forward.
LEVEL 1
This aims to introduce
you to the game, its control systems and so on. Baffling at first,
as you advisors leave a lot missing. At the basest level you have
to do three things:
Find the three totem
carvings & drop them on the pedestal by the giant gates to go
select you creature. That said, you do have to carry out a couple
of Silver Scroll tasks to do this.
Secondly - get you
creature trained up by the giant beast abandoned on the island by
Nemesis.
Finally get in the
vortex & move to level 2.
Things that puzzled
me or what you have to do follows in no particular order. If you
don't want some surprises spoiled, skip the next row of bullet
points:
Totem Heads - One is
in the quarry, the woman in the village has one (her brother is
by the giant mushrooms South West of the village) and the final
one is in the Quarry to the South, the village Stonemason carves
it for you. Pile all three on top of one another to open the get/get
your creature.
Farmer - Find his sheep,
they are on the tops of hills, down by the sea (must be a lake or
your creature drinks salt water come to think of it). Drop the sheep
in his field. Just keep you eyes open when pottering around the
place. 5 Sheep give a box of food. 10 Sheep allow you to change
your creature to a sheep.
Teacher - The children
are in a cave to the North of the village. Put your creature in
the top left of the box canyon past the trees, keeping him on the
leash. When the pervert wanders out, let him move a fair way down
the track the double click on him to attach the leash. He squeals
for a bit then you are rewarded with a heal miracle.
Stonehenge - Same as
the sheep, keep your eyes open. There are some in the quarry, a
headland on the South coast, to the left of the giant gate in the
trees. A couple are quite close to the Henge itself. You have to
place them in the right order, they make amusical scale. Earn a
food miracle generator.
Beach Ball - Knock
the rock of the tall rock to get the beach ball. Located South East
of the village. Your creature likes to play with it.
Shipbuilders. They
want wood, grain & meat. Don't give them a sheep though, you
need them elsewhere. They leave a Miracle Shower generator.
Beast that bars the
way - Two choices here, beat him up with your creature after you
have down fighting training with the giant beast or simply drop
some food by him. He goes to sleep & you can then get the second
beach ball.
Beat Sleg you get a
better heal miracle.
Extra Beasts. You may
have seen the extra beast available online. To use the Gorilla/Horse/Mandrill/Leopard
you must first have got your beast (Cow/Monkey/Tiger). Go to the
far end of the beach that the sailors were on and use the silver
scroll at the trainers hut.
Smashing up the nursery
give 3 dice and 1 teddy bear, your creature loves them!
Make sure you throw
all you food & wood through the vortex BEFORE clicking on
the golden scroll. Slap a few livestock & people through as
well.
Level 2
Level two gives you
an ally (although you can take him out if you like, he starts
to steal your terrain near the end of this level). The two of
you aim to take out Nemesis' chum in the frozen North.
This map allows you
to take over 3 villages without resistance before you have to
start working hard for further conquests. Use the creature on
the nearest village and use the fluffy leash to tie him to their
store. Once this village is captured you have access to more spells.
Do the target practise exercise on the two islands off of the
Western shore and listen to all the advice your partner God gives.
You will need it. You main effort is a slow march across the island
capturing villages. When you earn the wood miracle, make sure
you water it as soon as you have planted it.
In summary, a war of
attrition with the chance to train your creature.
Skip the next bullets
if you wish to be surprised:
Poisoning. The plague
in the 3rd village only occurs when you open the silver scroll near
the choking Indian. It's a case of food poisoning, check your grain
store. Then heal them once you have popped it out of the way. You
could put it off the coast on an island and poison your enemies
later. Healeing them earms mucho manna.
Completeing the Offence
& Defence challenges by Kazar give you the Fireball & Shield
Miracles.
Temple. The temple on
the lake shore is a simple puzzle block game, it allows you to send
people there to be healed afterwards, slap a teleport right next
to it for free healing.
Tree Puzzle. Find the
tree puzzle to the right of the 4th village and solve it. Bookmark
the bird miracle generator. Avoid adjusting the middle tree, it
alters four adjacent ones and makes life difficult. Stick to corners
and outer middles & cycle through the options. Solving this
puzzle earns hundreds of points each time you use it on enemy villages.
Drowning Kids. Use
your creature to rescue them.
Kids stealing cattle.
Two options:
- Kill the farmer.
- Frighten the kids
by dropping them in the sea and then resuing them.
Old Woman with the mushrooms
spins you a riddle about something hot, something unique to your
creature and something that howls at night. Heated Rocks (use a
fireball), creatures Poo! and a Wolf.
The circus will release
the slaves if you give them a horse, lion, tiger and wolf. You look
carefully for them, the more exotic ones free 2 slaves.
Destroy the temple.
Use loads of fireballs. You eventually burn it down. This is assuming
you didn't go for the scroll immediately after your creature was
kidnapped.
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