By John Walker on February 3rd, 2009 at 3:43 pm.
I love an Escape The Room game. This little lovely was spotted by the eagliest eyes in the world at Indie Games. It’s called Bars of Black and White, employing a barcode scanner as its central premise. this one’s by Gregory Weir, who you may remember from Majesty of Colors.
There’s a pleasingly oppressive tone to the short game, its hastily scrawled environments fitting the overall theme, with plenty of nice surprises in its ten minutes. My favourite being the radio. Once you have the barcode scanner, you can scan black and white striped items by clicking and dragging from left to right, revealing information at the bottom of the screen. Increasingly strange information.
The aim, as is ever the case with these games, is to get out of the room. Which is a nice way to implement gentle themes from point and click adventures, while using the experimental atmosphere of interactive fiction. Go play.
03/02/2009 at 16:15 l1ddl3monkey says:
Short enough for my afternoon tea break! Interesting take on the genre, not entirely sure what it was trying to say but still very enjoyable.
03/02/2009 at 16:18 James Brophy says:
is…is it safe?
03/02/2009 at 16:18 Calabi says:
Its quite good.
03/02/2009 at 16:19 steve says:
John Walker loves to click screen
03/02/2009 at 16:30 Senethro says:
Completed it, didn’t get it. At least one “try every item on everything” puzzle but thankfully there are few possibilities. 5 minutes diversion.
03/02/2009 at 16:55 IdleHands says:
Ha ha. I played this yesterday and did think to myself ‘this is the sort of thing RPS would enjoy’. Was short but interesting enough to keep me entertained.
03/02/2009 at 16:56 Ian says:
Erm. Cheery!
03/02/2009 at 17:05 Cooper42 says:
Got this via jayisgames yesterday, and it filled a tiny slice of my afternoon. *spoilerish* Interesting idea, and, along with closure, another recent game to use psychological exploration as its underlying theme.
03/02/2009 at 17:19 Rob says:
@Senethro
What was the ‘try every item on everything’ moment?
I thought it was a good concept fairly neatly executed, was just thinking about Majesty of Colors when I clicked onto this actually.
03/02/2009 at 18:28 James G says:
An interesting idea, and well executed. Had a suitably creepy feel reminiscent of finding the first ‘behind the scenes’ alcove in Portal. My only criticism would be that some of the barcodes were a bit clichéd the whole ‘none of this is real’ and ‘what is sane,’ which as a result felt like a slightly cheap way of building up the paranoia. This may however just be my personal dislike of nihilism, which I find a concept only worth entertaining for short periods, as it is ultimately a futile one.
03/02/2009 at 18:48 Thomas Lawrence says:
Hmm, can’t find that 30th barcode…
03/02/2009 at 19:47 baf says:
You’ll kick yourself when you find it.
03/02/2009 at 20:01 jonfitt says:
A fun diversion. Gregory Weir is one to watch. Always.
03/02/2009 at 20:08 Lex says:
Okay, I’m just gonna ask. How do I get the barcode scanner? I’ve beaten the game twice!
03/02/2009 at 20:24 Rob says:
@Lex
Spoiler alert to anyone else
You do the colour puzzle on the computer, it arrives as you complete that, through the door to the apartment.
03/02/2009 at 20:24 Acosta says:
I can’t even find the barcode scanner, lol, completed the game without finding. I must be a real failure.
03/02/2009 at 20:24 Flint says:
Solve the ‘puzzle’ on the computer.
03/02/2009 at 20:33 Lex says:
Thank you! I thought that was just the key to another puzzle.
03/02/2009 at 20:49 baf says:
Hm, okay. If you won without finding the scanner, you must have taken a wild guess at one point. Perhaps this was Senethro’s “try every item on everything” moment?
03/02/2009 at 20:59 Radiant says:
2 games in a row about the futility of playing videogames.
It’s okay mate. I wanted to be a musician too!
Curse these chains!
03/02/2009 at 21:01 Acosta says:
haha, I actually solved the puzzle on the wall before I did in the computer. I guess that is why developers worry that much for straightforward experiences, to avoid dummies like me getting lost. Thanks! Going to try.
03/02/2009 at 21:18 John Walker says:
How on earth did people know to use the baseball bat, let alone where, without finding the scanner?
03/02/2009 at 21:26 Larington says:
The curse of the try using an object everywhere issue that can be directly attributed to those accursed pixel hunter games.
03/02/2009 at 21:30 Acosta says:
Well, I would love to sound clever but I didn’t “know” anything, it was just experimenting. I was so lost trying to get the barcode reader that I simply used what I had (the pills and the bat) in anything that would make any sense or was in someway interactive, leading to my characters hitting microwaves, televisions, badly drawn zebras, doors and eventually the lamp, which funnily enough turned the light to the wall, and given I was in middle of furious rampant, I hit that too. Voila.
It´s a shame, I think I accidentally killed a nice experience, it would have much more impact if I had read the codes for first time.
03/02/2009 at 21:50 Pags says:
Incredible leaps of broken logic. That, and a whole lot of pixel-clicking.
03/02/2009 at 22:19 DeliriumWartner says:
Thanks for that guys. Very pleasing. Anyone else try to scan the images at the end? (Trying to avoid spoilers there)
03/02/2009 at 22:40 Senethro says:
My own “try everything” moment was using the pills on the spider. As soon as I saw the spider I tried first the electric knife, then the pills so its not like it held me up a long time, it just rubbed me the wrong way.
I’m alarmed by the people who batted their way out without the barcode. That suggests that there are people who ENJOY lots of random clicking.
03/02/2009 at 22:42 Pags says:
Not if all you’re clicking is a light switch though. As that recent post amply proved.
03/02/2009 at 23:01 Nihohit says:
disconcerting.
04/02/2009 at 00:02 Tei says:
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04/02/2009 at 00:06 El Stevo says:
“I’m alarmed by the people who batted their way out without the barcode. That suggests that there are people who ENJOY lots of random clicking.”
The barcode scanner is only really needed when working out what to do with the baseball bat.
04/02/2009 at 00:27 Lizard Dude says:
Didn’t find the latter half of the barcodes until my second playthrough.
I also didn’t realize until the second playthrough that
-spoiler-
The barcode obsession derives from the mental patient’s only view of the outside world: his vertically-barred cell door window.
04/02/2009 at 03:25 Shakey-Lo says:
Oh wow, its got a Wholphin DVD! It’s got my interest.
04/02/2009 at 05:01 Dorian Cornelius Jasper says:
James G:
Yeah, I was definitely getting Portal flashbacks in my first playthrough.
04/02/2009 at 06:21 Bret says:
The aperture science bar-code scanner will not threaten to stab you and in fact cannot speak.
04/02/2009 at 12:02 Down Rodeo says:
I liked that… as others have said, use pills on spider is a bit weird. But then, you are a bit insane…
04/02/2009 at 12:12 CreativeShadows says:
hmm cant find the last barcode :(
04/02/2009 at 12:15 CreativeShadows says:
never mind just found it :) obvious barcode is obvious………. too obvious
04/02/2009 at 12:31 Vandelay says:
I didn’t find using the pills on the spider that weird. It is obvious from the barcodes you’ve read that you are a prisoner in this place and being studied, and I think one of them might have even said something about drugging you or some such. But still, I tried the knife on the spider first too, though I hadn’t picked up the pills yet.
Quite liked it, but I agree with James G that many of the messages were too heavy handed and clichéd. I got a little bit of the seen it all before from it. But not a terrible way to waste a few minutes.
04/02/2009 at 16:51 Tei says:
I like the game, is a sucess as a game, and a trippy experience.
What I don’t know is why is so taxing on the CPU, maybe is the chat thing on the right.
04/02/2009 at 19:49 Igor Hardy says:
Figuring out that the computer monitor is a touch screen was way too hard!
04/02/2009 at 21:54 Alex says:
I can never do these things, so perhaps my success in finishing it makes me like it more but: I thought this was really good.
Yeah, it’s a bit derivative (Portal meets They Live!) but every step seemed really logical to me (being shit at adventure games); atmosphere was really well-done, and I don’t think it’s ever occured to me just how sinister the basic concept of Escape the Room games are.
06/02/2009 at 05:18 Thomas Lawrence says:
baf was right, I kicked myself.