Line #0 Videogame/Blackout


1	[[quoteright:235:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/BlackoutGame_304.jpg]]
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3	->''"Escape your fate -- [[YouCantFightFate if you can]]."''
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5	''Blackout'' is a Danish PsychologicalHorror AdventureGame created and produced by Michael Valeur and Creator/DeadlineGames and released in 1997, using live action cutscenes of puppets and hand-built miniature sets to tell a dark and disturbing story. The lack of actual challenges and focus on story and environments arguably makes it an early example of an EnvironmentalNarrativeGame. The game came on three CD's and also contained a novel, written by Valeur, and is seen from the point of view of two of the game's side characters, while the game's player character makes sporadic appearances in their intertwined stories.
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7	The story of the game proper starts when you, the main protagonist, wakes up in a messy and a dark apartment to the sound of a phone ringing, having lost most of your memory and as a result having no idea who or where you are. Answering the phone only gives a cryptic message, asking you if you have fulfilled your task, and a examination of your surroundings reveals blood stains on the walls and headless body in the bed. Before you can inspect the body any closer, you immediately have another blackout, and when you wake up again, you find a notably cleaner apartment, and the body and any evidence it has ever been there are gone. Thus begins a search for your true nature, the cause behind your madness, the constant blackouts and the identity and fate of the body.
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9	The game, as it is, is quite open-ended, allowing the player a lot of leeway to explore a dark and rather eerie CityNoir through four different neighborhood hubs; the mundane Uptown, the shady Downtown, the Docks, and the concrete Suburbs. As the player does so, the game subtly tracks their activities as well as the occasional choice they make, and uses them to inform the PlayerCharacter's personality, resulting in different reactions from the game's cast of characters as well as ultimately determining how the story ends.
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11	Should not be confused with the book ''Literature/{{Blackout}}'', or the GameShow ''Series/{{Blackout}}''.
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13	The game originally only saw a release in Scandinavia in local languages, so a copy of the original can be quite hard to track down nowadays, though [[http://nordicgamebits.com/2015/06/19/the-1997-blackout-is-getting-remastered-for-tablets/ a remastered version with a build-in English translation for tablets is supposedly in the works]]. Until then, a LetsPlay with English subtitles is available [[https://lparchive.org/Blackout/ here]].
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15	!!Tropes used in this game:
16	* AbusiveParents: Even the BigBad seems to feel a bit sorry towards [[spoiler:the main character]], recognizing he behaves in such an odd way because of his absolutely hellish childhood.
17	* AllThereInTheManual: There is a lot of additional information on some of the characters found only in the novel.
18	* AssholeVictim: [[spoiler:The main character]] might be a SelfMadeOrphan, but it is rather hard to feel sorry for his parents, seeing how [[spoiler:they both made his childhood absolutely miserable]].
19	* BadPeopleAbuseAnimals: [[spoiler:One of the first clues to the PlayerCharacter's terrible childhood is when he reminiscences about how his father beat his dog to death with a hammer.]]
20	* TheBartender: Two of them in fact:
21	** The bartender on the lower-class Buttom Bar is a very buff Indian-looking man who is quite the big boxing fan and loves to discuss the great stars in boxing history.
22	** The bartender on the higher-less establishment, The Mask, is a a war veteran with a French-esque accent who has a preference for red cocktails and enjoy sharing his (at times rather depressing) war stories.
23	* BlindSeer: The old medium, Claire, ends her séances by removing her sunglasses, showing you the empty eye sockets beneath.
24	* BondageIsBad: Choosing to have a session with Vicky, the prostitute at the New Orleans brothel who dresses like a dominatrix and is heavily implied to offer some sort of sadomasochistic sexual service, pushes you further towards the cruel and sadistic "fire" personality.
25	* CityWithNoName: The name of the city, or even the country, is never given.
26	* ChoiceAndConsequenceSystem: Subtly done. Firstly, the game offers the player relatively few straight-up either-or choices, and the consequences of them aren't immediately obvious. Secondly, the game is more about tracking how the player interacts with the world (i.e. how often does the player buy drinks at the bars, have sex with (or just talk to) the prostitutes at the local brothel, have sessions with the therapist, or pay visits to the library, to mention a few), and mainly uses these parameters to alter the story.
27	* TheChainOfHarm: [[spoiler:The main character suffered a horrible childhood at the hands of his father, but when exploring his father's past, it turns out that he himself suffered at the hands of his own father during childhood.]]
28	* ChristianityIsCatholic: The Priest, judging from his outfit, and the Church he serves, judging by its emphasis on the Virgin Mary and relics, is clearly Catholic-esque at the very least.
29	* ClassicalElementsEnsemble: The main character has four split personalities, each of which is aligned with a ClassicalElement and has the corresponding ElementalPersonalities. The air personality is a carefree, easygoing [[TheGadfly Gadfly]]. The fire personality is characterized by his extremely cynical world-view and TranquilFury. He also has a latent sadistic streak, and is obsessed with revenge and inflicting cruelty upon others. The earth personality is quiet, distant, shy, and modest and believes he is not very interesting. The water personality is childish, skittish, and fearful, and is plagued by feelings of abandonment and loneliness.
30	* CleanupCrew: [[spoiler:Turns that the main character fulfils this role in the local mob's production of snuff films. He cleans up the apartment where they carry out and record their horrific business, and in return, in addition to some hush money, he is allowed to live in said apartment for free.]]
31	* TheDon: "The Widow" is a RareFemaleExample, being the leader of the local organized-crime gang. [[spoiler:As it turns out, she is also the PlayerCharacter's employer.]]
32	* DrivingQuestion: Who are you, and what is the identity and whereabouts of the headless body?
33	* EnvironmentalNarrativeGame: The game contains no actual challenges or puzzles. If you just walk around exploring and talking to people the story will progress anyhow. The only real challenge comes if you are trying to find out how to get a specific ending. The game might therefore quite possibly be an UrExample of the genre.
34	* EvilOldFolks: "The Widow" is the rather amoral leader of the local mob and she has specialized in producing [[spoiler:snuff films]]. She also happens to be an elderly woman.
35	* ExploringTheEvilLair: Made even worse by the fact that it is [[spoiler:your own, forgotten, evil lair that you are exploring]].
36	* FilmNoir: You as player navigate a CityNoir and interact with a colorful cast of character, in the attempt to solve a mystery, while wrestling with heavy existential questions and themes such as the meaning of life, fate versus free will, what identity means, and the difference between sanity and madness. Interestingly, the game seems to deliberately try to invoke ''Neo-Noir'', in that the main character is not someone who has experienced the GreatOffscreenWar personally, but rather is member of the generation born after it.
37	* GreatOffscreenWar: The country has recently been involved in a war of some sort, and a number of characters are veterans of the conflict. But just as the name of the county and the city, no actual information on the war is ever given.
38	* GoodShepherd: The Priest genuinely shows concern about the state of both his community and society at large, and is quite friendly towards the main character, having listened to his problems and given him guidance in his youth and he tries to gently nudge him towards getting professional help from the local therapist.
39	* HelloInsertNameHere: The player is asked to type in a name at the beginning of the game, which they are told will be the main character's name. However, it turns that [[spoiler:the main character actually has a pre-established name, which is Gabriel]], and the name the player has been asked to type is actually [[spoiler:the name of one of Gabriel's split personalties]].
40	* HeKnowsAboutTimedHits: The medium, Claire, outright [[BreakingTheFourthWall breaks the fourth wall]], whenever her services are requested, by directly asking the player to "click" on the objects she is holding out to them in her hands.
41	* HookerWithAHeartOfGold: All of the prostitutes in the game really, who in the end come of as some of the nicest characters in the city.
42	* IAmWho: Personal details about the PlayerCharacter are gradually revealed as the game is played. [[spoiler:He is a young man by the name of Gabriel, he has had a rather hellish childhood, he works as the CleanupCrew for the local mob, he suffers from a severe case of dissociative identity disorder, having four different {{Split Personalit\|y}}ies, and he is a SelfMadeOrphan]].
43	* LastSecondEndingChoice: Downplayed. [[spoiler:The available options in the final choice which determine the ending the player gets is unlocked depending on which actions they have been doing during the game, but they are not mutually exclusive; it is possible to get everything between all choices to only one choice.]]
44	* LiveActionCutscene: The game is quite a notable twist on this; instead of actors and full-scale sets, it uses puppets and handcrafted miniature sets.
45	* LosingYourHead: [[spoiler:In your nightmares and when you finally find the lost head, it speaks to you, telling you it's story and the reason you chose to steal it. But this is probably only a effect created by your insanity. Probably]].
46	* MadArtist: [[spoiler:The player character turns out to be one. Part of his secret lair is an atelier full of {{Spooky Painting}}s with plenty of overt demonic and apocalyptic imagery, like something taken out of Creator/ZdzislawBeksinski and Creator/HieronymusBosch's bodies of work.]]
47	* MediumShiftGag: [[spoiler:In the "love/Act" ending, where Gabriel ultimately chooses to leave the city for a new life with Kate, the latter transforms from her normal puppet self into a live actor as she leans in and kisses him. The rest of the ending then plays out entirely in live action, as he and Kate drive away [[RidingIntoTheSunset towards the sunset]] in a car.]]
48	* MissingTime: Happens every now and then to the protagonist, thus the title of the game.
49	* MrExposition: The old street sweeper can reveal a lot of background information if you ask him to.
50	* MultipleEndings: The game has several endings, which depends on which of the PlayerCharacter's personalities the player decides to lean into and some other choices made during gameplay.
51	** "Act" ending. [[spoiler:Gabriel decides that he loves Kate above everything else and wants to live with her. Kathe admits that she knows the path before them won't be easy with Gabriel's mental health issues, but she is willing to give it her best try. The two of them leave the city for a new life in the South where Kathe has gotten a new job.]]
52	** "Fire" ending. [[spoiler:Gabriel lets his anger and inner fire consume him. He assaults and beats up Jakob, before setting fire to his practice.]]
53	** "Leave" ending. [[spoiler:Gabriel succumbs to the demons of his past. Overcome with his traumas he goes catatonic, and the local priest declares him to be beyond help.]]
54	** "Therapy" ending. [[spoiler:Gabriel decides he ultimately cannot be free of his illness. Urged on by his inner voices, he returns to his atelier and [[SelfImmolation sets himself on fire]].]]
55	* {{Muppet}}: The characters are all played by puppets.
56	* NietzscheWannabe: [[spoiler:The protagonist's father used a nihilistic might-makes-right philosophy to justify the abuse of his son]].
57	* OptionalSexualEncounter: One of the locations is a brothel by the name of New Orleans down by the docks, and you can have a session with any of the four prostitutes employed there. As with anything else in the game, the choice of which one of them you choose to visit pushes your personality in certain direction. There is even an extra layer to the "optional" part, as each of them give you a choice between "sex" or "conversation", so you can actually interact with them in other manners than just having intercourse.
58	* PlayerAndProtagonistIntegration: The game plays quite a bit around with the trope. Amongst the first things player is asked to do is to name the player character, and the game treats the player and the main character as the same for the most part in the beginning of the game, but it gradually turns out that the main character actually has a name and past outside of what the player has established. But this actually fits with the main character suffering from amnesia and a SplitPersonality, and it is strongly implied that the player themselves is actually not playing the main character, per se, but rather that they are playing as one of his split personalities.
59	* PyroManiac: [[spoiler:Arson is the modus operandi of the protagonist's violent and vengeful fire-personality]].
60	* QuestForIdentity: The main crux of the story is figuring out what the protagonist has forgotten due to his amnesia.
61	* SelfImmolation: [[spoiler:Gabriel decides to [[DrivenToSuicide go out]] this way in the "Therapy" ending.]]
62	* SelfMadeOrphan: [[spoiler:Turns out the main character murdered his own abusive parents, took their heads, and preserved them in jars as trophies.]]
63	* ShameIfSomethingHappened: Bob, the tattoo parlor owner, says so to the Priest when he causes a ruckus over the fact that he is giving a tattoo to a minor, threatening to report the Priest to [[TheDon the Widow]] and then telling him it would be a shame if a fire accidentally was to start in his church some day.
64	* ShowWithinAShow: You can go and see the movie "Bird Brain" at the local cinema.
65	* TheShrink: The player can interact with one, which will have an effect on which personality traits become the most dominant.
66	* SnuffFilm: [[spoiler:The reason why the headless body was in your apartment to begin with has to do with a mob film production of such a movie.]]
67	* SonOfAWhore: While there is an example in Vicky's son, [[spoiler:the main character also turns out to be one]].
68	* SplitPersonality: [[spoiler:Four of them actually, constantly fighting over the mind of the protagonist]].
69	* StoryBreadcrumbs: Due to the nature of the game, it is quite possible to inadvertently miss certain rather crucial story clues and elements, and in fact some choices are deliberately constructed to inform the player on one part of the story while leaving out others. This encourages multiple playthroughs, if the player wants to fill out all the gaps and get the full picture on certain things, especially regarding several subplots and the full story about the main character's DarkAndTroubledPast.
70	* ThroughTheEyesOfMadness: Some of the events you witness are a result of the protagonist's mental instability; see the example for LosingYourHead.
71	* WideOpenSandbox: The plot in and of itself is not very long, but the game is relatively non-linear and contain a lot of people to talk to and things to interact with.
72	* YouWakeUpInARoom: The opening of the game. The PlayerCharacter wakes up in a messy, bloodstained apartment with a headless body on the bed. One flash later, the apartment is clean and the body is gone. The driving questions of the game then become: What happened with the body, and who are you?

Context Videogame / Blackout