''Black Shades'' is a

free Free may refer to: Concept * Freedom, having the ability to do something, without having to obey anyone/anything * Freethought, a position that beliefs should be formed only on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism * Emancipate, to procur ...

and

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized sof ...

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by

Wolfire Games Wolfire Games is an American independent video game development company founded by David Rosen. Wolfire Games develops video games for macOS, Windows, and Linux. History David Rosen founded Wolfire Games in 2003 to organize his open source ...

. Originally released for

Mac OS 9 Mac OS 9 is the ninth major release of Apple Inc., Apple's classic Mac OS operating system which was succeeded by macOS, Mac OS X (renamed to OS X in 2011 and macOS in 2016) in 2001. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "T ...

it was ported to other platforms due to the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...

availability. The player controls a psychic bodyguard who is tasked with protecting a VIP from a horde of zombies, snipers and other assorted would-be assassins.

Gameplay

The object of ''Black Shades'' is to defend the VIP from assassins and zombies for a set amount of time. Once that time is met, the player progresses to another level. Each new level presents a randomly generated city, and a new weapon for the player. The levels get progressively more difficult. Aiming their weapon, the player is not presented with an aiming reticule as is common in most

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the pl ...

games, but the player is allowed to use the

ironsight Iron sights are a system of physical alignment markers (usually made of metallic material) used as a sighting device to assist the accurate aiming of ranged weapons (such as a firearm, airgun, crossbow or even compound bow), or less commonly as ...

of their weapon. The player has two psychic abilities, the first one being " Slow-mo". This ability allows the player to slow down time, for the purpose of having more time to aim, kill possible assailants. The second ability is the "soul fly", which allows the player to fly around the city without the body of the bodyguard, allowing them to find enemies.

Development

The game's developer David Rosen (founder of Wolfire Games) aimed for ''Black Shades'' a much simpler graphical style than in '' GLFighters'' and '' Lugaru''. He did this in order to complete the game within the deadline for the uDevGame 2002 game contest. From 2003 to 2008, the

was hosted on

icculus.org Ryan C. Gordon (also known as icculus) is a computer programmer and former Loki Software employee responsible for ''icculus.org'', which hosts many Loki Software projects as well as others. Gordon's site hosts projects with the code from such c ...

under the "uDevGame

License A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

". In 2021, David Rosen relicensed the game under the

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

version 3 or later.

Release

''Black Shades'' was released in 2002 for PC with

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

, and

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. A

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port was created by Zachary Slater. In 2009 the game was also ported to the

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company b ...

iPhone and

iPod Touch The iPod Touch (stylized as iPod touch) is a discontinued line of iOS-based mobile devices designed and marketed by Apple Inc. with a touchscreen-controlled user interface. As with other iPod models, the iPod Touch can be used as a music pl ...

. In 2013 the game was ported to the ARM-based OpenPandora handheld.

Mods and add-ons

Due to Black Shades' open-source nature, this allows it to be modified extensively. The Black Shades Enhanced partial conversion authored by Michael 'Bitl' Hart, offers more capabilities such as a higher frames-per-second limit, the option to use a windowed mode, and the option to adjust the player's field-of-view.

Reception

The game was noted for its use of procedural generated content. The game was one of the winners of the UDevGame 2002 contest, out of about 40 contestants.uDevGame 2002 official results
/ref>

Eurogamer ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson. Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...

Jim Rossignol James Michael Rossignol (born July 1978) is a British video game journalist and critic, as well as an author. He has also branched out into games, founding the company Big Robot in 2010. Biography Rossignol started his career as a reporter o ...

named ''Black Shades'' number 2 in a top 20 list of ''Summer of PC''

Freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the f ...

games.Eurogamer's Summer of PC Plenty - Twenty freeware games.
by

Eurogamer.net ''Eurogamer'' is a British video game journalism website launched in 1999 and owned by alongside formed company Gamer Network. Its editor-in-chief is Martin Robinson. Since 2008, it is known for the formerly eponymous games trade fair EGX ...

(18/07/2006) Joe Martin from bit-tech.net recommended the game even in 2009 with ''"Black Shades isn’t a new game, it’s just a free game that I really like. It’s basically the opposite of

Hitman Contract killing is a form of murder or assassination in which one party hires another party to kill a targeted person or persons. It involves an illegal agreement which includes some form of payment, monetary or otherwise. Either party may be ...

, but reduced down to twitch shooter basics and presented in a typically indie way."''.Free Games I Like: Black Shades
by Joe Martin on bit-tech.net (7 Nov 2009)

References

{{Reflist, 30em

External links

''Black Shades'' website
Wolfire Games games Windows games IOS games Classic Mac OS games MacOS games Linux games Open-source video games 2002 video games Indie video games Freeware games Video games developed in the United States Single-player video games Video games using procedural generation