Black Shades

Black Shades

Developers
	Wolfire Games
Windows	Henry Kropf
macOS (OS X)	Derek S. Arndt
macOS (OS X)	Zachary Slater
Linux	Zachary Slater
Publishers
	Wolfire Games
Release dates
Windows	2002
Mac OS (Classic)	2002
macOS (OS X)	2002
Linux	2003
Taxonomy
Monetization	Freeware

Key points

Free.

Extremely lightweight. Can virtually run on any computer.

There is no menu option. Everything is set from the configuration file.

General information

Developers' forums

Linux port page

Availability

Source	DRM	Notes	Keys	OS
Official website
Developer website

Essential improvements

Black Shades Enhanced

Black Shades Enhanced is a fan-made mod for Black Shades that adds in options to the config.txt that allow you to change the FPS limit, the Field of View, and whether you want the game to run in windowed mode. The FPS limit has also been set to 300 by default.

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\config.txt
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)	<path-to-game>\config.txt
Linux

It's unknown whether this game follows the XDG Base Directory Specification on Linux. Please fill in this information.

Save game data location

System	Location
Windows	<path-to-game>\Data\Highscore
Mac OS (Classic)
macOS (OS X)	<path-to-game>\Data\Highscore
Linux

Highscore file is in plain text format with two lines, the first one being the high score value and the second a binary value indicating wether or not the player beat the game.

Video

Graphics feature	State	Notes
Widescreen resolution		Resolution has to be set in config.txt with the Screenwidth and Screenheight values.
Multi-monitor
Ultra-widescreen
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)		Use Black Shades Enhanced.
Windowed		Use Black Shades Enhanced.
Borderless fullscreen windowed		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anisotropic filtering (AF)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Vertical sync (Vsync)		Has to be set in config.txt with the VBL sync binary value.
60 FPS
120+ FPS		Capped at 90 FPS. Use Black Shades Enhanced.

Input

It seems like setting azerty keyboard to 1 in config.txt actually switches the game to QWERTY layout. It is best leaving this value untouched.

Keyboard and mouse	State	Notes
Remapping		See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity		Has to be set in config.txt with the Mouse sensitivity value.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion		Has to be set in config.txt with the invert mouse binary value.
Controller
Controller support

Audio

Game volume can only be set via the OS sound mixer.

It is possible to disable the music in config.txt with the Music binary value.

Audio feature	State	Notes
Separate volume controls
Surround sound
Subtitles		No spoken dialogue.
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language	UI	Audio	Sub	Notes
English

Issues fixed

Game doesn't launch

Set Windows compatibility mode on "Windows XP (Service Pack 3)"

Black screen on launch

The above fix is also necessary.

Set game resolution
Edit config.txt. Change Screenwidth and Screenheight's values respectively to the desktop resolution width and height. Save and close.

Other information

API

Executable	PPC	16-bit	32-bit	64-bit	Notes
Windows
macOS (OS X)
Linux
Mac OS (Classic)

System requirements

Windows

Mac OS (Classic)

macOS (OS X)

Linux

Windows
	Minimum
Operating system (OS)
Processor (CPU)
System memory (RAM)
Hard disk drive (HDD)	3 MB