I do not know if a black hole is something we should feed. Ostensibly they are things (anti-things? I’m not a black holeologist) that I would like to be far away from, given what I’ve heard. And yet here I am, having tinkered around with the demo for A Game About Feeding A Black Hole, which is a game about feeding a black hole, left with the feeling that this is not only a thing I can do, but find tranquility in.
The thing about A Game About Feeding A Black Hole is that it is more or less what it says on the tin. It is also a game about inaction and reaction. You have a tiny circle which every second or so, to start with, does a bit of damage. So, you break down the handful of asteroids you see around you, their remnants being swept up in the nothingness that is the black hole, trying to increase its size as the clock counts down.
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This then gives you money, money which you can spend on a skill tree, a skill tree that can grow your circle, or strengthen it, or increase the length of the timer, or increase the mass of certain asteroids, or make some of them shoot out forks of lightning, or turn some of them radioactive, all of which works in tandem with one another. As your skills increase, so does your ability to destroy asteroids and feed the black hole, growing it in size incrementally. This is one of the reactions, as well as how a lightning bolt might hit another asteroid helping to destroy it, even more effectively on the radioactive rocks.
The inaction is the fact that all you really do is move your mouse around. After a while, in the demo, the game does half of the work for you, but oh that sweet satisfaction of seeing a plethora of numbers and destroyed bits of space boulders flying into deep, dark, nothingness. This is a game to spend perhaps 15 minutes on, the kind of thing you might do on a cigarette break during your shift at the busiest brunch spot in town, a way to get away and calm yourself down.
A Game About Feeding A Black Hole is also a game that came out today, December 15th, so for the price of a fancy pastry, you could instead, well… you know. It’s available to pick up on Steam right here.
