As a man with Czech in his blood, I’ve taken a large interest in the movies and games that the Czech Republic (or Czechoslovakia, depending on the time period) has released. Whether it be the surreal Alice by Jan Svankmajer, Karel Zeman’s Deadly Invention, or the gorgeous games of Amanita Design (Machinarium), there’s a certain vibe to Czech art that simply can’t be explained, but must be experienced. That sense of style is present in FiolaSoft’s Blackhole, an unapologetically difficult puzzle-platformer that provides heartwarming chuckles and hair-pulling frustration in equal measures.
Blackhole follows the crew of the starship Endura, a ship whose sole mission is to track down black holes and close them up before they can consume humanity. Their most recent mission goes incredibly pear-shaped, with the ship being sucked into a mysterious dimension and reduced to scrap. The only known survivors are the ship’s Cortana-esque AI, Aluria, and the most menial laborer on the Endura. The laborer, your player character, transfers Aluria into a tablet, and sets out to find the remaining crew members, repair the ship, and hopefully return home.
This is achieved through a series of small, puzzle-based levels that task you with finding “selfburns,” nanobots that can be used to repair the ships. The levels start off simply enough, with a few platform jumps being enough to grab all of the selfburns and return back to the main hub world, but that soon changes with the introduction of gravity platforms, glowing patches that flip the gravity of the level in four different directions. Think in terms of Terry Cavanagh’s VVVVVV, and add an axis, and you’re headed in the right direction. At this point the game becomes the sort of challenge that will drive some players mad, involving split-second timing and fancy footwork in order to grab every last selfburn. The game is definitely puzzle-driven, and any missteps in the more time-sensitive moments fall completely on the player. It’s the sort of accountability that some gamers may not be comfortable with, but it’s really their loss.
The audiovisual presentation of Blackhole is another standout. The 2D graphics are sharp and colorful, and the voice acting is shockingly good, with comedic timing being almost perfectly honed. The game is genuinely funny at times, with Aluria stealing the show with her machine-logic/nihilism heaping thinly-veiled insults on your character.
Blackhole is not the sort of game that has universal appeal, but its sharp presentation, sharper witt, and vicious challenge will suck you in if you’re into the hardcore platform genre.