Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness

It's an okay game, but a bit boring. The combat aspect is super weak, but thankfully it's real-time. Turn-based would make it totally unplayable.

в целом игра не плохая, отзывать покупку не буду т.к. понравилась. Но не зацепила. Иногда вообще не понятно что делать, а делать нужно быстро т.к. они там сейчас все как умрут.

A solid, fun game. It does not do anything groundbreaking, but I felt that the core experience was good, if a little underdeveloped in some areas (for example: some companion quests feel unfinished). Overall, I would recommend it on a good sale.

Проходные квесты, пустая беготня ради ничего. Средний сюжетец, бесполезная система алчности. Половина игровых механик никак не используется. Ужасная производительность спустя 4 года.

Szerintem ez a játék tökéletes annak, aki most ismerkedne az izometrikus csapat alapú CRPG-vel, és RTwP-vel. Nincs túltolva a karakterkreáció, és a fejlődési rendszer sem. Pont annyi van mindenből, ami még casual szinten is abszolút felhasználó barát. Fantasy része sem volt elrúgaszkodott, az apró detail-eken pedig látszik, hogy szeretettel készült a játék. Van benne egy kapzsiság rendszer amit igazán könnyű balanszolni minden irányba, de itt kifejezetten vicces beszélgetésket hoz, ha úgy döntünk kapzsik leszünk. Magyar csapat, jó játék lett, jár a pacsi!

Really enjoyed it. Old School feel that took me back to BG and IceWind Dale. I would love to see more

"Greed is good" - Gordon Gekko, Wallstreet. Black Geyser Couriers of Darkness is the first game from a European studio, and it was funded, at least in part, via Kickstarter. It also swims in a genre that I very much adore. That means I cut it a lot more slack I wouldn't cut other games. For a first outing, its good, but boy does it need polish. The world of Black Geyser is interesting enough; though, outside the gods, it doesn't offer much to differentiate itself. I adore the concept of the greed meter, a player facing visual representation for how your actions are impacting the world; however, it didn't seem to have an impact on anything. Perhaps if I had purposefully driven it up, it would have, but I don't even recall prices going up. This leads us to where Black Geyser starts stumbling. The underlying mechanics of the game have issues. This starts in character creation where some information is presented to you but other information is opaque. Things like the impact of attributes and XP to level multipliers are hidden from players, which makes it impossible to make truly informed decisions during character creation from the game alone. Some of this information is in the manual, but not in the game itself. Then there is the balance, or lack thereof, between the character types presented for play. Some classes (templar and ranger) are just better than others, and some classes (the outlaws and priests) fail to add anything meaningful or truly differentiate themselves from each other. Likewise, some skills are useful while others are a waste (class specific speech skills). These issues read as being the result of a new dev's first game and as the result of feature creep from a successful Kickstarter. When thinking about your main character, just go dual class templar/ranger with mage or pure templar. That's really all you need. The game also features a very robust number of status effects. Too many. So many that I couldn't tell you what most do, like itching, pervious, toasting, anticipating, and exposed. Those status effects are mostly meaningless next to damage and stuns, which... stunlock is totally a thing here. You get knocked down, stunned, etc. you may as well be dead most of the time, but you can be stunned in other ways, as each time you are hit, you action could get interrupted. Where this is mainly a caster issue, it affects warrior special abilities too, leading to those just not getting used in combat. This seemed to scale such that it was mostly an issue at the start and less of an issue by the by the end, which shows a lack of balance. This whole system seemed over engineered without any streamlining, very much like characters. Gear and coin is only an issue in this game in that outside of a few outstanding uniques, most gear is a shrug. There is a feature by which you can acquire cursed gear and then choose to use as is or remove the curse to get a lesser version. That was actually really cool. The copious gear you acquire largely just translates into a very heavy coin purse, and there just isn't much to spend it on. Where you can eventually unlock a stronghold, you don't even spend gold to improve that (at least the warrior one didn't have that option). As alluded to, the story is overall good. The Goddess of Greed is up to something. Turns out she's not the only deity with plans. You get a good set up as the servant and sole survivor of a noble's estate that is wiped out by said noble's trash son leading a rebellion. When you eventually interact with the king, you see the impact of Greed upon him in his speech and mannerisms. All of this is solid stuff, but then there are some swerves that don't make sense or that are poorly explained. The main quest has you happily working for the king then the traitors then the king again who, despite being in a strong position post rebellion, wants to accede to the other side's demands for... reasons? There's a plague and when you stop it you get a clue as to how it started but following that thread doesn't really give you answers or meaningfully add to the overalls story. Where the king was clearly being affected by Greed, he's about the only NPC that will talk to you that is. Maybe more become jerks if you try to drive up the Greed meter, but I was being a jerk with maybe half the offered rewards and saw no noticeable impact. One other quick note, I can appreciate an evocative name like Black Geyser. Its up there with Azure Bonds, Pillars of Eternity, and Neverwinter Nights, but there isn't any mention of the Black Geyser until late in the game. That feels like a mistake. Of similarly titled games in the same field, I can only recall Pool of Radiance also being stingy when it game to connecting the story to the game's title, but it still peppered references to it throughout. By contrast, by time it is mentioned here, the game even gives you a joke line you can say about how someone finally mentioned "Couriers of Darkness." That's a failure of storytelling; though, a minor one. To close out, I again return to what I said at the outset. As a first offering in a genre I adore, I cut Black Geyser a lot of slack. It sits at a solid 3/5, which I normally would not recommend, but for said slack. I hope the studio learns from this experience and goes on to do greater things.