LATEST iPHONE NEWS
Inventive iOS text adventure Blackbar is about censorship and _________
By Mark Brown 23 August 2013
Blackbar | Developer:
Neven Mrgan | Publisher:
Neven Mrgan | Format:
iPhone, iPad | Genre:
Adventure, Word game
Dear reader. Congratulations, you have been chosen to participate in the experimental indie iOS game Blackbar, from Neven Mrgan (The Incident) and James Moore.
In this text adventure, you play as Vi and receive letters from your friend Kentry, who's just gone and got herself a job in the big city, working for the mysterious department of communications.
Annoyingly, every message comes back censored, with key words, dates, and sentences obscured behind impenetrable black bars.
Your job is to figure out what words have been suppressed, and type them back in. It's actually easier than it sounds - you can guess what words are needed by the context of the sentence, the contents of the letter, and the events of the story.
As you go, you'll uncover more of this dystopian tale and receive letters from other characters - but we wouldn't want to spoil any of that.
All in all, it's a truly innovative little puzzler, and - considering the current climate surrounding privacy, surveillance, and communication - a very topical one at that. It's good to see a game with something to say (and for Apple to have approved it).
Blackbar is out now, for iPhone and iPad. Yours, for £1.99 / $2.99.