Blackbar
| Category | Price | Seller | Device |
|---|---|---|---|
| Games | $2.99 | Mrgan LLC | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
"Its allegories are smart, and its approach to story-telling on touch-devices is just as well. 4.5/5" —TouchArcade
"Taut and intelligent. 8/10" —Eurogamer
"A political statement—a super fun one. I _______ love this _______ game." —Loren Brichter
"Awesome and totally unexpected." —Shaun Inman
Blackbar is a text game: a sci-fi story of a dystopian future told through the medium of word puzzles. Reminiscent of text adventures and interactive fiction, it has a unique mechanic centered around the concept of censorship. Censorship is frustrating, but the human spirit can beat that frustration by turning it into a game.
You'll pick up Blackbar instantly; however, its challenges will keep you searching, thinking, and trying for days.
"An ingenious puzzle game that critiques censorship" —Fast Company
"The humor is black, the puzzles go from simple to truly challenging, and the story is top-notch." —Gamemoir
"Playing Blackbar is Like High School English Class, And I Love It." —Kotaku
"Wonderfully written and does a fantastic job of pulling you into a not entirely unrealistic tale." —Gizmodo
"Well-written and entertaining, with just a touch of a deeper message to hit a few concepts home. Just plain awesome." —JayIsGames
Reviews
Too short
chile_man
Interesting, but took me about two hours to complete. It needs to be longer and the story just seems to cut off, like it is unfinished.
Very interesting game!
anechoe
As other reviews mentioned, seems a tiny bit off on a few of the puzzles. The design itself is very ... if you don’t get it you’re just sort of flailing without recourse, and the back and forward buttons are super annoying to use to traverse prior puzzles. But I enjoyed it mostly. For $3? Yeah, get it. An interesting look at a different type of word/novel/puzzle game. :)
Where's the rest?
Strangelander
Great game, excellent use of text, tricky puzzles. But given the themes and plot, and the price, it needs to be three times as long. I did not need a walkthrough, I played it over several days and used a bit of trial and error for a couple pages. BTW, there are two endings, sort of: a "black ending" and a "yellow ending." If you got the black ending, go back one page and try again.
Neat idea, boring gameplay, lackluster story
Tom Hanks Is Bela Lugosi
The concept of the game is fun and original. The game itself is pretty dull. Not a lot of clever; not a lot of fun. The cute little twists all leave something to be desired, I think because the medium itself—like a worse kind of crossword—is sorely lacking. The plot, which is really the only thing worth keeping on for, isn't worth keeping on for at all; it's a heavy-handed, childish take on a dystopian government, the sort of thing a teen comes up with after reading 1984. The characters are shallow, the Evil Government is boring, and the one attempt at tugging your heartstrings manages to be simultaneously melodramatic and boring. This is not a good game, for all it was created by a great guy.
[SPOILERS] “I must inform you that I am not stupid...”
SamsunRo
. . . but I cant solve puzzles with absolutely no context, writers. Subculturia?! Really? It just devolved into an exercise in futility and interrupted the story. Unsatisfied with a game I was so curious about for so long. I love a good dystopian story, but the gameplay was disappointing.
Meh
Litpa1208
This game was alright. Some of the puzzles were challenging but overall I found it boring with little background and context.
Really fascinating
A user 2749
I wish there were more iPhone games like this--a minimalist, novelistic excursion, no ads, no freemium bs, just a clever series of puzzles. It's literally the only phone game I have ever enjoyed. Developers please take note, we want to play Myst and The Dig on our phones, not games that demand our money like slot machines.
Fun but easy and short
Generic
I enjoyed this up to a point. But, there was no real escalation and it was over in about an hour. Mildly entertaining.
Short, without the promised deep plot
WT9T
I got through the whole thing in 90 minutes, counting a puzzle I gave up on and googled; call it 2 hours. That's $1.50 an hour, which I think is steep, judge for yourself. The "political" story isn't there, unless you count "dystopian repression = bad" as food for thought. The society is unchanged at the end, major tragedies (and the characters on whom they befall) come and go in three pages, there's one major plot twist that is never explained, and another that is inexplicable. I'd like to back it up with examples, but I won't inflict spoilers on readers who might want to give it a try anyway. Because if you like word puzzles and can get past the merely-decorative plot, you should consider this game. The screenshots give a fair impression of what you can expect.
Stuck on title page and won't go any further
Topcee
I bought the game on the 5th Jan 2016. Opened the title page and promptly was stuck there. Loads of frustrated tapping later, the app just crashed. I closed down all my other apps and tried again. Same result. There goes $2.99 :(
