Are you afraid of the dark?

MANILA, Philippines - If you’re afraid of the dark, Total Blackout is not for you. The game show requires challenges to be carried out in complete darkness. Players navigate the pitch-black area of the place and attempt to guess what’s in front of them without using their sense of sight.

All the rest of their senses can be used — hearing, touch, smell or taste — to identify the items. So those with weak hearts need not join. Often, when the players enter the dark area and are confronted with things to be identified, they scream, shout, curse or freak out at the mere touch of an item.

There are always four contestants at the start of the game show. Individually, they bravely sail through the dark area for three intense challenges. Usually, the challenges are timed, so players cannot stay long to identify a particular item.

There is a challenge that requires players to identify things by simply using their sense of taste, while the items are located in bellies or armpits of other people. There is another challenge to get a rubber ring using only your mouth, while your head is inside a box filled (respectively) with confetti, cobwebs, Guinea pigs and feather dusters.

At times, animals are used in the nerve-wracking challenges, so viewers see rats, rabbits, worms, spiders, dogs, pigs, eels, critters, cats, fish, chicken, goat, sheep, skunk, lobster, octopus, iguana, turkey, alligator, lizard, snake or cockroaches that the players have to forcibly contend with.

Sometimes, players are made to believe there are fearsome animals or things in the challenges so they instantly get frantic. Like lobsters are actually only rubber toys, broken glass are just potato chips and hot coals are merely bread.

In other challenges, players are made to wear a bubble helmet and they can just use their facial skin or their mouth to help them identify the things, like peas or rats or snakes.

While sitting in a tub of cold water, players must correctly identify items that are dumped on them. In another challenge, players must guess the weight of an object, person or animal.

Still in some challenges, players can just use their sense of smell to identify the items, like sweaty armpit, mouth reeking with garlic stench or sock with disgusting smell. At other times, players have to taste the items to identify them, like cheese, peanut butter, grapes, cherries, jelly beans or mashed potato.

The players have to struggle over rounds of outrageous challenges in completely dark surroundings. The production uses a night vision camera to document the shots.

At the end of every challenge, all the players jump to a black hole and the one who falls has to leave the game. After three challenges, the contestant with the most number of things identified, wins Total Blackout.

There are days when players come in pairs, so there are four pairs of friends, siblings, partners/couples or officemates who help out each other identify the items and dauntlessly go through the challenges. There was also an all-stars Total Blackout episode, with players from other shows like Celebrity Apprentice, Eureka, The Bachelor and Alphas.

“Being in the dark is something you can never imagine,” said a player who bravely went through the scary challenges.

Hosted by Jaleel White, Total Blackout airs on AXN. The show is also seen in its respective versions in other countries like Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Japan and the Netherlands.