Black&White 2: Developer Diary #1

It’s time once again for Black & White Studios to embark on the fabulous journey through the development diaries so that you’ll be able to keep abreast of all the goings on in the world of Black & White 2. I’ll be your guide through the entire development process of the game and, lucky you, you get to experience it all from my rather distinct perspective.

John McLean-Foreman

It’s probably best to begin with an introduction. In quick summary, my name is John McLean-Foreman, and I was an entertainment and videogame journalist for about six years. In the early part of 2001 I decided that making money and eating were cliché, so I left journalism behind and became a fulltime fiction writer. I sacrificed anything remotely resembling a normal life (girls, leaving the house more than once a week, talking to real people, style, etc.) and by Jan 2003 I was fortunate enough to be asked to write the story for Black & White 2.

The challenge that I’m faced with in writing these diaries is how best to cover the myriad of topics that will be fascinating to you, the general public: the creation of music and sound, 3D, AI, storytelling, round table discussions, working with actors, animation, testing, impending deadlines, the fans themselves, and so on. These are all great subjects to discuss, and will be discussed in more detail in future articles, but how do I then focus on the most interesting bits without digressing into fantastical tales involving bloody gun battles, alien abductions, and genetic mutations (none of which happen in the game incidentally, though the suggestion of time travellers from future B&W sequels was briefly tossed around), as is my inclination?

On the whole, I’ll be focussing on many of the personalities here in the office and what they do. After all, if you don’t really know who any of us are, why would you care about what we’ve got to say? Given enough time and countless anecdotes, you’ll hopefully grow to know us and befriend us in a vicarious sort of way.

For those of you who don’t know, Black & White 2 is a god game that allows you to control the lives of all the tiny mortals that worship you (insert maniacal laughter if you like). The power is in your hands, the choices are all yours, and whether you decide to be good or evil, it’s your actions that directly affect the outcome of the game.

A Greek Harbor anyone?

Although Peter Molyneux (the lead designer of B&W2 and CEO of Lionhead) always envisioned Black & White to be a series of five games, Black & White 2 was officially born late one night back in Jan 2002. Prior to that first planned BW2 meeting though, the development team spent several weeks trolling through the online forums disguised as fans. They dropped suggestions, some first-class, some deliberately awful, to get an unbiased feel for what the real fans would like to see in the next game. (I mean, dear God, who came up with the changeable clothes for the Creatures idea? I’ve got my spanking hand ready and I’m hunting the guilty party.)

Armed with the ideas gleaned from the forums as well as scads of their own, the dev team got together at Peter’s, drank copious amounts of alcohol and debated what they wanted the sequel to be. Out of the chaos of that drunken night came the first incarnation of Black & White 2.

Lionhead prefers to do relaxed brainstorming sessions away from the distractions of the office, phones and emails. This method has historically worked very well for Peter on games like Syndicate, Dungeon Keeper, and Black & White. Apart from being good fun, it really gives everyone an opportunity to relax and voice opinions that they might not otherwise get a chance to share.

As is the case with all such sessions, a bad idea, or often a joke, will spark another idea that sparks another, and another. The idea begins to clarify, and become more focused.

When Jonty made reference to the opening scene of The Fellowship of the Ring, the part where Sauron single-handedly decimated the forces of Man and Elves, everyone leapt on the idea in agreement.

“Exactly!” said Peter, “Your creature needs to be able to do that... and more. It needs to have the potential to become your ultimate military unit.”

The topic moved on to what was missing in B&W1 and it was decided that the sequel really needed to feel epic, that the player should feel like a god rather than Mr. Big Hand who had to run about doing chores at the whim of mortals. No more would the player be hunting lost sheep, but would instead be involved in events deserving of a god’s attention; events like altering the course of a world already deeply enmeshed in war.

As the evening progressed, new ideas continued to flow: the Creature needed to be more help than hindrance, the Creature interface had to be more open and accessible, and epic story would become an integral part of the game, battles would involve hundreds and thousands of soldiers on every side, players needed to be given reasons to become emotionally attached to major and minor characters... by the time that brainstorming session was over, the seeds of the design had been sewn.

For those of you who don’t know, Black & White is a magical world that runs parallel to our own and continues to evolve in the same way that ours does. That evolution means conflict, and conflict means war. And war? War means that the little people of the original BW, who were just too damn nice, clearly needed an overhaul.

Japanese gates!

Now there are armies chalk full of violent little combatants for you or your Creature to command, but how you use those armies to gain supremacy in the world is totally up to you. If you’re a Sim City kind of player, then you can ignore a large part of the warfare simply by creating cities so wondrous that the enemy populace will become disenchanted with their lot in life, abandon their homes, and set up shop in your land. If on the other hand you’re as aggressive as I plan to be, you can lay siege to enemy towns, impose your will upon the conquered, then feed the remaining troublemakers to your Creature.

Well, that’s Black & White 2 in a nutshell: are you going to be a god of war or a god of peace? Either way, you’ll play through your own unique and epic world. There’s so much more I would like to tell you, but because game development is an evolutionary process and our design document is constantly being updated, you’ll need to come back month by month as I lay out the latest steps in the making of Black & White 2.