Blackout (video game)

File:BlackoutGame 304.jpg

"Escape your fate - if you can." —The game's tagline

Blackout is a 1997 Danish Psychological Horror Adventure Game created and produced by Michael Valeur and Deadline Games, using puppets to tell a dark and disturbing story. The game came on three CD's and also contained a novel, providing additional information on the story from some of the side character's points of view. The story of the game proper starts when you, the main protagonist, wakes up in a room, having lost most of your memory, only to discover that the apartment also contains a headless body. You immediately have another blackout, and when you wake up again, the body and any traces of it 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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Tropes used in this game:

• Abusive Parents: Even the Big Bad seems to feel a bit sorry towards the main character, recognising he behaves in such an odd way because of his absolutely hellish childhood.
• All There in the Manual: There is a lot of additional information on some of the characters found only in the novel.
• Blind Seer / Eyeless Face: The old medium end her séances by removing her sun glasses, showing you the empty eyesockets beneath.
• City with No Name: The name of the city, or even the country, is never given.
• The Don: The Widow.
• Driving Question: Who are you, and what is the identity and whereabouts of the headless body?
• Easier Than Easy: 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.
• Exploring the Evil Lair: Made even worse by the fact that it is your own, forgotten, evil lair that you are exploring.
• Feelies: The prequel novel available with the game.
• Film Noir
• Great Offscreen War: 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.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: All of the prostitutes in the game really, who in the end come of as some of the nicest characters in the city.
• Missing Time: Happens every now and then to the protagonist, thus the title of the game.
• Mr. Exposition: The old street sweeper can reveal a lot of background information if you ask him to.
• Multiple Endings: It depends on what personality you choose and some other choises made during gameplay.
• Muppet: The characters are all played by puppets.
• Nietzsche Wannabe: The protagonist's father used a nihilistic might-makes-right philosophy to justify the abuse of his son.
• Pyromaniac: Arson is the modus operandi of the protagonist's violent and vengeful fire-personality.
• Quest for Identity
• Show Within a Show: You can go and see the movie "Bird Brain" at the local cinema.
• The Shrink
• Snuff Film: 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.
• Split Personality: Four of them actually, constantly fighting over the mind of the protagonist.
• Through the Eyes of Madness
• Wide Open Sandbox: The game is not very long, but it is relatively non-linear and contain a lot of people to talk to, things to interact with.
• You Wake Up in a Room