Blackout: The Darkest Night
MiniChimera Game Studio · 2021 · RPG, Indie, Adventure, Choose Your Own Adventure, Lovecraftian
PC
Positive86% · 21
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About Blackout: The Darkest Night
You have been part of something terrible, something so unspeakable that caused you to blackout and forget all recent events. Now you have the choice of pursuing this dark truth or trying to bury it in the past.
Maybe it’s not too late to turn back now.
--
Blackout is a non-linear interactive fiction game set in a dark modern universe, influenced by White Wolf’s World of Darkness, H.P. Lovecraft and weird shows like Twin Peaks.
In Blackout, you have 3 attributes that will change during the game: Courage, Sanity and Fitness. These attributes will also lock or unlock choices or paths, as will some items you may acquire along the way.
Blackout is a game about hidden monsters and hidden fears, and ultimately about overcoming the worst adversary: one’s true self.
You play as a man who finds himself lost in a dark street somewhere in the city of New Wenders. It doesn’t take long before you start having flashbacks and regaining your memory. Something terrible happened, and you were part of it. This event somehow opened your eyes to a whole new world that has been hiding beneath the shadows.
As the player, you have the choice to dig deeper into this unspeakable deed or try to leave it all behind. Blackout is a game about choices, every chapter of the game takes place in a different location, and the order in which the chapters take place will change based on your choices. Even more so, the path you take inside each chapter varies greatly, and the effect of your choices could ripple across all chapters, meaning you could have a very different experience on a new playthrough.
-=How long is the game?=-
Movie length. Expect 1.5 to 2 hours for the first playthrough.
-=How many different endings does it have?=-
Five.
-=Is there a good or canonical ending?=-
No.
-=Can I die in the game?=-
No. There is no game over, you will always get one of the five endings each time you play.
-=What do I gain by playing it again?=-
Besides trying to achieve different endings, the paths to get there can vary a lot. Items you pick up or the order in which you visit the different locations will affect possible paths, as well as your attributes.
-=How many chapters/locations does the game have?=-
There are 10 different locations (or chapters) that you can visit, the order will vary depending on your choices. There is also an Epilogue, so in total there are 11 chapters.
-=Will I be able to visit all locations in one playthrough?=-
No. Some locations are optional, and some are mutually exclusive. That said, some locations are obligatory so you will always see the main part of the story on a playthrough.
Maybe it’s not too late to turn back now.
--
Blackout is a non-linear interactive fiction game set in a dark modern universe, influenced by White Wolf’s World of Darkness, H.P. Lovecraft and weird shows like Twin Peaks.
In Blackout, you have 3 attributes that will change during the game: Courage, Sanity and Fitness. These attributes will also lock or unlock choices or paths, as will some items you may acquire along the way.
Blackout is a game about hidden monsters and hidden fears, and ultimately about overcoming the worst adversary: one’s true self.
You play as a man who finds himself lost in a dark street somewhere in the city of New Wenders. It doesn’t take long before you start having flashbacks and regaining your memory. Something terrible happened, and you were part of it. This event somehow opened your eyes to a whole new world that has been hiding beneath the shadows.
As the player, you have the choice to dig deeper into this unspeakable deed or try to leave it all behind. Blackout is a game about choices, every chapter of the game takes place in a different location, and the order in which the chapters take place will change based on your choices. Even more so, the path you take inside each chapter varies greatly, and the effect of your choices could ripple across all chapters, meaning you could have a very different experience on a new playthrough.
FAQ
-=How long is the game?=-
Movie length. Expect 1.5 to 2 hours for the first playthrough.
-=How many different endings does it have?=-
Five.
-=Is there a good or canonical ending?=-
No.
-=Can I die in the game?=-
No. There is no game over, you will always get one of the five endings each time you play.
-=What do I gain by playing it again?=-
Besides trying to achieve different endings, the paths to get there can vary a lot. Items you pick up or the order in which you visit the different locations will affect possible paths, as well as your attributes.
-=How many chapters/locations does the game have?=-
There are 10 different locations (or chapters) that you can visit, the order will vary depending on your choices. There is also an Epilogue, so in total there are 11 chapters.
-=Will I be able to visit all locations in one playthrough?=-
No. Some locations are optional, and some are mutually exclusive. That said, some locations are obligatory so you will always see the main part of the story on a playthrough.
DLC & expansions
What Steam players say
Recent verbatim reviews from Steam — separate from playze.io community reviews below.
Badly written as a horror VN. Wastes too much time on animation. Starts with cold open, only to lose pacing with the flashback retrospection and puzzle. Sorry, I already recognize tricks authors used to extend the game length. Quick spotlights on the fragments of the one picture, only to repeat showing of the full picture? Slow showing of line-by-line fluff text? Nope, no dice. I do not have time for a VN that does not value my time to provide meaningful narrative.4 found this helpful
The art is really well done, and the writing is alright - the descriptions and atmosphere setting are pretty good, but some of the dialogue isn't. I did run into some a few non-sequitur scenes during my gameplay, unfortunately, a problem that is all too common in Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style games. None of those were particularly bad, but they do break the immersion a bit. Still, easy to recommend. It's a short but entertaining adventure, and one could easily play it more than once to see missed details and routes - I most likely will do, as I'm curious about at least one other possible ending.1 found this helpful
Unusual and compelling narrative. Several different ending and you'll have to replay with different choices to get to the end.
You know what? I am going to not recommend this. Writing is ok, atmosphere ok, but it is very slow to play - text and picture reveals take forever and if you try to speed it up you can accidentally click a decision and lock yourself into moving forward. It also has boring jigsaw puzzles you need to complete to progress the story (though maybe you can skip them, I noticed I could skip after finishing the first time. Was that option always there, or only for subsequent replays?). I also felt like my decisions seemed to just lead me round and round to the same place (after trying to replay it a couple times and seeing most options seemed to be fluff that would lead back to the main path). There didn't seem to be much logic to when a decision would help or hurt me. And in the end I didn't find out what my 'Blackout' was about, why I had it, or why these events played out! I have hints, but no real conclusion. If that info is in here, I ran out of patience before unlocking it. Unsatisfying! That said I only got one ending even though I tried to replay with different choices. Not sure what paths lead to others, because as I said, my choices seemed to have little impact.
Very nice little adventure game. Could have used a few more soundtracks and the implementation of the story branches was a bit clumsy: in some playthroughs I received the same flashbacks more then one time and Will introduced himself more then once if I recall correctly. But overall it was fun wo experiment with the different outcomes. I hope you will make more horror themed choose your own adventure games in the futures
This is a visual novel with 'choose your own adventure' features. I recommend it. Those who are interested in the game can watch the gameplay video from the link below: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nlqpnjcNUA
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