Dont Get Blacklisted
Overview
Trailer #1
Don’t Get Blacklisted is a satirical look at many predatory practices that take place in the AAA gaming industry and the player’s powerlessness at stopping them. In this game, the player works through a series of puzzles in an attempt to play the in-universe game they bought. Directed from one puzzle to the next by a morally dubious narrator, the player uses the main menu as a hub, taking them from one puzzle to the next, all in an effort to… eventually…
play a damn video game.
Story
You know that feeling… when you first buy a brand new big name video game? You know the one, you hype yourself over the trailers, obsessively type in the title again and again on google, you watch anything and everything online that has even the barest tease of new footage for this game. The day arrives, you wake up early and head down to your local retailer to pick up the game, your insides a combination of delirious happiness and tense nervousness to finally have a copy to call all your own - the unenthusiastic cashier doing nothing to dampen your spirits. The feeling of your feet gliding, hardly touching the ground as you race home to insert your disk (if you’re still doing that) and spend an unhealthy amount of time with your eyes glued to whatever high end monitor you may or may not have. The anticipation as the game loads up, company brands and logos against a dark screen building towards the crescendo that is the main menu! And finally, after all that, all you have to do… is select “Start Game”. Do you remember that feeling?
… well hold on to it cuz the sense of gratification you get by finally starting the game is something you have to earn here SCRUB! It’s 2021 asshole, don’t you know you can’t just start the game!? You have a long checklist of things to do, people to get to know, and make agreements you can’t get out of (possibly involving somali pirates). Show off how worthy you are of playing possibly the greatest video game of the 2020’s by playing another game first… then another… then another… then - wait really, another!? At some point you have to wonder how much of this is a test… and how much is trying to prove a point….
Characters
The Narrator (Shawnathan Wells) is an ever present voice that talks the player throughout the length of the game, giving hints to the player when they seem stumped. Generally acting like a nuisance & representing everything the player is fighting against (AAA game companies, their predatory practices, and lack of meaningful consequences).