Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness
N/A
Metacritic
72
Steam
68.763
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$24.99
Release date
17 March 2022
Steam reviews score
Total
72 (716 votes)

Black Geyser is an isometric, party-based fantasy RPG inspired by genre classics. Recruit characters with unique personalities and explore a land ravaged by civil war and a mysterious curse of greed. Your choices, good or evil, will decide the fate of the Kingdom of Isilmerald.

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Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness system requirements

Minimum:

  • Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
  • OS: Windows® 7 64-bit
  • Processor: Intel i3-3220 or AMD FX-4300
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750 Ti (2GB)
  • DirectX: Version 11
  • Storage: 40 GB available space
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Reviews
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caloundra_kid
caloundra_kid

This is my first review of a game, I am so disappointed in it. I like a game that you can immerse yourself in, a game that 5 hours have passed and your like " wow, where did the time go." this is not it, the loading time is woeful, up to a minute or more between each screen you visit, it really takes you out of the experience. I might just go make a coffee while I wait oh back to reality, and each map is quite small. So i would not recommend this game, certainly not for the price I brought it $46 wait until its down below the $5 mark.

WfB.Subtraktor
WfB.Subtraktor

only worth 30€ if you are really into this genre. The story and unique greed mechanic are quite interesting, however the game suffers from quite severe technical limitations. If playing on Linux I would recommend playing the W10/11 Version through Proton rather than the native version. Native Version was not playable (either not starting up at all or having severe graphical glitches) while the W10/11 version seems perfectly stable and bug free.

fueledbymetal
fueledbymetal

This will give you a fix of BG-style pause-able RPG adventuring, but overall the gameplay is quite shallow. There's a variety of weapons, potions & skills, but they don't meaningfully add the tactical depth relative to the classics.

Lord Valis
Lord Valis

Black Geyser is an RPG that I certainly didn't hate yet I most definitely didn't love. It is a game that tries desperately to emulate Baldur's Gate, wearing this influence on its sleeve, much to the detriment of its own unique identity. It is a game that tries so hard to emulate Baldur's Gate that it forgets to do anything else. It is a game that fights valiantly to build its own world and own character, but falls utterly short in most regards. NPCs lack any depth whatsoever, the story is eye-rolling and presents no reason for your protagonist to engage with it, character classes are uninteresting and all blend together, skills and spells are virtually benign, atmosphere is heavily lacking or sometimes nonexistent, and quests are almost always "go here, get this" or "go there, talk to this person."

There was nothing to draw me into this game, nothing that lacked any weight or tangible intrigue. Most of your time spent in this game is travelling to a point on a map, talking to someone, then travelling to another point on the map and doing the exact same thing. And the ending... Well, there isn't much of one. You fight a pitifully nonthreatening villain and then the game is over. All the the while, as your characters occasionally swing their weapons at the bad guy, you sit there wondering why you're involved in this plot to begin with. Nothing changes throughout the entirety of the game. You start and end in a completely static state. No growth, no lessons learned, no points of no return, no real obstacles. The story happens and then ends. That's it.

Ultimately, there just isn't anything here that you haven't already seen a thousand times before, yet done far better elsewhere. Black Geyser is a decent game but one that lacks any memorable experiences.

wizardovoz
wizardovoz

Vibe very similar to Baldur's Gate, but on normal difficulty it's somewhat too easy

The Vestigial Eye
The Vestigial Eye

If I had to describe this game in a word,

passion

This game oozes passion and a love for old crpgs and iso rpgs. From a compelling story that right from the beginning felt more grounded and tangible, a story of money, and plots, of a small corner of the empire spiralling into a conflict that effects everyone. I cannot give this game a high enough recommendation

Not only because I genuinely want to see this get a sequel, but because this game honeslty struck a chord with me that most games don't.

I'll admit the system was rough to get into, yes the game is unpolished in some minor regards, but overall it's a project of love and you can feel that. I have no doubt that if this studio gets more support we will see great things from them.

The story was engaging and began with a scope that was graspable and slowly opened up more and more of the world to us. We weren't forced through boring dialogue and most if not everything had a point to it, reinforcing parts of the main story. I genuinely enjoyed my time with this game and I hope beyond hope that it gets a sequel, because it's primed for one.

Half Pint
Half Pint

Great game! Im actually enjoying the story and finding awesome gear! Keep up the good work Dev's!!!9/10!!!

airshock
airshock

Any chance, they are going to make this turn base i believe it would be so much better in turn base mode for casters.

Hauptmann Kotsturm
Hauptmann Kotsturm

Boring and very mediocre. The world they've built in this game is quiet good, but the fighting mechanics never reach the class of a Pillars of Eternity or Tyranny. Read in the forum before you buy. Story is boring, quests are boring. If a mate goes down in battle, YOU HAVE TO TRAVEL TO A TEMPLE TO LET HIM RESURRECT. Each and every time. Yes, there are-resurrection-spells, but me and others never found one. Imagine the fun while cleaning a map and travelling 5 times to the temple to resurrect your fallen ones. Along with the usual travelling times and the loooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooong loading times after choosing your next goal, this is 20 minutes of quality gameplay, to get to the temple and back each time. But before you ask why devs should choose such an absurd mechanic to ruin your fun while gaming: Baldur's Gate had it, too! That's the answer. Guess if you're old and need to have it all old-school without nowadays comfort in gaming, you might check it for it's amazing mediocre fighting (give your mages a sling to avoid them running in the first battle line in their cloak...thanks, 3 of 5 Party-members are a little useless now...?) or its amazing fetch-quests. The tenor in the forum is to give it a positive review and support a small dev-team in their vision to create a game like those old classics with a small budget. While I sympathise with that intention, it would be the wrong way to recommend a game that is just not good. I'm sorry, but I can't give this game a good review since it's not a good game. In case you think that's whining of a nerdy millenial, just let me say that I'm 39 now, played Diablo, Baldur's Gate 1+2 with all DLC's, played Pillars of Eternity 1+2 and Tyranny each twice, with all DLC's as well. So I don't want a fully automatized game, but I want some comfort while playing. Last, but not least: take a look at the achievements and how many people finished the game...that should open your eyes.

Act I: 33,2%
Act II: 14,9%
Act III: 6,7%
Act IV:4,8%
Act V: 1,7%

Yes, it's a new game. But is that enough to explain those numbers? Choose your own answer.

ahsoka_tano
ahsoka_tano

I'm loving the game so far, I wouldn't say the gameplay is super difficult, but it is definitely not easy.
The story and dialogues are well-written, the voice acting and some graphic elements (water) are exceptionally good.

Gamingweeb
Gamingweeb

mouse lags a little but it seems to be somewhat improved now

Level 1 Commoner
Level 1 Commoner

I really tried to like this game. Sadly it's just very bland/easy in terms of mechanics (it is way too easy to become literally invulnerable to physical damage even on higher difficulties) and the loading times are way too long and frequent. I spent most my game time being tabbed out because the loading times were so long and I couldn't be bothered to actually play the game for any significant amout of time since the next loading screen was just around the corner.

chris.hill.11heath
chris.hill.11heath

I would give it 3.5 out of 5. Very good for a brand new game from a new developer. However, there are a number of issues with more development would have resolved. These include the earlier parts being to simple and weak, which does get better later in the game. There are problems with some of the interlinked, and optional, steps. The number and types of 'enemies' tend to be to similar. As the game develops it does get better, though the other non-main steps can be to easy or impossible. There were, and still are, problems with the ability to create potions and powders.
That said, I have managed to get through to the end and win, running basically on the default settings. But I did need to make the choice to accept help from the Goddess of Greed and I suspect that I would not have won without it.
Hopefully, the follow up game will be much better, and have more and better choices and tasks.

Fishbait
Fishbait

Very nostalgic if you were ever into the CRPGs of the late 90s and early 2000s. I really like the atmosphere and the developers have done an excellent job in crafting a well made game. I hope they continue to make games such as this. Recommended.

ZerafineNigou
ZerafineNigou

Better than POE Deadfire, weaker than Baldur's Gate!!! This Game is a hidden Treasure. It only scratches the itch of Baldur's Gate but it's miles better than Pillars of Eternity (no loredumping or weird races).
A must-have title if you are a CRPG fan. My only critique: the tutorial should be a bit shorter - we CRPG lovers know how to open the inventory :D

stop it, get some help
stop it, get s…

Is it timeless masterpiece on par with original Baldur's Gate? No. Is it cosy and entertaining old-school RPG, which I had enjoyed more than Pillars of Eternity? Yes. Definetly worth its money.

bilb34
bilb34

getting better guys. nice jib improving the game

Ian Samhain
Ian Samhain

I will update this when I finish the game, but so far I am enjoying this RPG. If you liked Baldur's Gate, Baldur's Gate II and / or the Pillars of Eternity RPGs then I think you will like this RPG too.

Jean
Jean

Competent Baldur's Gate clone.
The only major flaw the game has, aside from some balance issues towards endgame, are the constant and long loading screens, wich the devs seem to be working on.

FunkyFingers
FunkyFingers

I bought this game and played it through on another platform but also decided to purchase it through Steam as i want to support this type of genre and developper for i'm hoping they will carry on producing further content and eventually sequels.

For me Black Geyser feels like the true successor of the infinity engine games like BG or Icewind Dale because you can move around your guys freely on the battlefield while spells/abilities handle disabling of units. This is specifically shown when player goes 1on1 against Volendir, a druid, after solving his quest and really made me smile how he used disablers on my MC and changed to ranged weapons when i tried to retreat. So, there's a lot of potenital in combat here and since i finished the game on highest difficulty (courier) i experienced good challenges in boss fights in the last chapter which required thinking of different strategies to succesfully finish them off.

Additionally i created powders like powder of staggering for my melee guys to throw in cone AoE on enemies and stun them or other powders to poison them etc. Also it's cool that the melee guys have per day abilities from magical items which give them additional options in combat. I'm excited that the roadmap suggests there'll be additional spells and am hoping for some additional tactical depth like detect invisibility, protection from magical wepons or stoneskin i'm used from BG2 specifically from enemy AI.

Main story kept me motivated and i liked how it would offer slightly different path and change in world greed thus changing behaviour like attacking fallen commoners or merchants leaving and prices getting upward.

I'm looking forward to further additions to this game and am very grateful that the small dev team is working hard and giving it their best to enhance the game experience even further.
Recommended specifically to fans of Icewind Dale.

RopeWalker
RopeWalker

Ok game at best. The game tries to replicate old school rpgs except it is worse than those games. If you have played every other crpgs out there already, and you need some more, then go ahead give this one a try. I still managed to finish it.

(My play time distorted by leaving the game running for days)

schwarczer
schwarczer

8/10. Many compare this to Baldur's Gate but it's a full-featured classic-styled RPG on its own right, with completely unique lore. Which is both good and sometimes not so good. The lore, story and greed mechanic is really unique, even if they need some time to emerge (tutorial is pretty slow paced but teaches all stuff required to enjoy the game). I encountered both exciting, rich quests as well as fed-ex quests (some of the latter had cool twists tho). The UI/HUD resembles to Pillars of Eternity in a Baldur's Gate theme. Music themes are great, they remind me to Icewind Dale. I enjoyed the tactical combat a lot, and it isn't too hard. I'd say, the difficulty is just right for me. I disagree with other reviews that the companions would have no motivation to join you or stay with you. If you understand their lore carefully, it definitely makes sense. Having said that, the game currently has very few party banters. I wasn't sure if it's a bug or not, so I reached out to devs and got the answer that a major update would add many party interactions soon. The main plot itself is very immersive despite of the fact it's based on a royal-themed cliche. The developers are very responsive, much, much, much better support than I experienced with AAA companies. Hope to see more titles from this studio, keep it up!

Gustorn
Gustorn

I've been a big fan of cRPGs for a long time, and I'm really enjoying this so far. The story and the world seems interesting and it's clearly made by people who also love the genre. It has strong Baldur's Gate 1 vibes with an indie spin so far, so I'm looking forward to playing more of it (and will update the review when I get further along :))

DarthPeter
DarthPeter

I did like the whole atmosphere and mood of the game, I was fascinated by how deep the character generation is. Voice actors were great too, but in some conversations, there is no voiceover. I've been struggling with the combat system, but that is probably because of the lack of experience in RPGs. Sadly now I'm stuck in the story because I can't find Horumil, who is carrying a bracelet and I wasn't able to find any guidance for him.
+ I started to play the game in Hungarian, but when I started it today, the Hungarian language completely disappeared...

Wandering Gypsy
Wandering Gypsy

A fun adventure that scratches the itch of past generational RPGs with its own flair with a ruleset that is not Dungeons and Dragons like Baldur's Gate, but more in line with a custom one seen in Pillar's of Eternity. Early launch had a number of issues as well as lack of late-game content, but the developers have continued to respond, patch, and prepare a roadmap of what is to come down the line. An RPG worth buying on a sale, although the stock price is attractive as well, and playing. I will replay this again closer to the end of the year after more patches, DLC and content have been refined and added.

Lowink
Lowink

Fans of pillars of eternity and baldurs gate will find themselves at home here, not the most suck you in right at the start story but like morrowind vs oblivion this is a good thing at the start as you decide how your character sees the world - havent got to latter chapters yet but worth the price of admission so far

Anonymous
Anonymous

I have just managed to finish the game. Although it is not the most exiting one I have ever played with, it has some nicely drawn plots, a decent music and a really enjoyable Hungarian localisation (which is pretty rare). Unfortunately the beginning is a bit dull and slow, but gets definitely better in the end. I played as a Feldegug winter mage, but it was always the weakest character in the team. For the newcomers I would recommend playing a warrior character. Spellweavers or necromancers could also be a good choice due the summoning spells.

Cosmic Owl
Cosmic Owl

Tha game is a rather pleasant surprise reminiscent of old school RPGs like Baldur's gate and Planescape: Torment or the new Pathfinder games.
The worldbuilding is quite great with its unique lore and backstory of races, royal factions and their intrigues, and small world snippets in the item descriptions.
In terms of the gameplay, the mechanics are not overly complex but deep enough to offer several hours of fun with its strategic battle scenarios. Overall similar to the Pillars of Eternity series, but (in my opinion) with a tighter hit system (so the accuracy is more realistic than miss, miss, miss, miss, 1dmg, miss, evade). The Greed mechanic is interesting and gives another spin to the whole game world and its working.
The graphics are fine, with some well detailed 2d arts and the voice acting is surprisingly good from an indie studio and developers are very responsive and may have better support than most with AAA companies. Hope to see more titles from this studio and its world expanded, keep it up guys!

Overall I would recommend it to the fans of old RPGs but newcomers can enjoy it too.

Metsche1979
Metsche1979

I'm still at the beginning of the journey, but so far the game is a lot of fun. We need to support developers of CRPGs to ensure a constant flow of good CRPGs in the future. GrapeOcean Technologies shows a lot of potential and I hope that they will become a company that makes a name for itself with this type of games.

The Rabid Otter
The Rabid Otter

While the non-standard races and classes are interesting, after four hours this just didn't hold my attention. I do appreciate the Villainy and Greed mechanic.

This isn't a bad game. It just didn't hold my attention.

Wizard Worm
Wizard Worm
Love RPG? Make sure to Follow my Curator Page for plenty more!

Such games are very rare. The spirit of the classic crpg in the style of Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale and others is felt in everything. Very interesting plot and greed system. It is easy to play and interesting until the very end.
Cons: Slightly simple quests that do not spoil the game at all.
Pros: Everything else.
A great adventure that will forever remain in your heart. Just a must have. I really hope for Black Geyser 2...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDTJXAxQAnM

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Just a Porn Star
Just a Porn Star

It feels like a fan mod for the original Pillars of Eternity in that it lacks so many of the QoL features we come to expect from other newer games in this genre. I mean cmon... holding TAB shows and hides nameplates, but it does not exist in the keybinds page and cannot be toggled on.

Casio Seagull
Casio Seagull

Pretty rough around the edges. End game quest chain got bugged so I wasn't able to finish. Uninspired character leveling -- literally didn't care about picking skills and spells. Flat characters and storyline. Greed mechanic is more annoying than interesting. I like what they're trying to do, keeping the spirit of Baldur's Gate alive, but this misses the mark. I thought the price would be right, but honestly this should be a Steam sale pick up only.

Loprax
Loprax

Genuine Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale vibes, definitely worth its price for the fans of cRPGs.

ultra_vi0lence
ultra_vi0lence

I was looking for more old school CRPGs. I didn't find it here. The characters lack depth and the game feels shallow and uninspired. The dialogue is boring and feels pointless. The combat system is chaotic and allies are difficult to discern from enemies, especially if they're obscured by the environment. The UI doesn't give you many clues about what you're supposed to be doing or feedback about stat assignment etc. Overall, the game doesn't scratch the CRPG itch for me and feels like a half finished smartphone game.

cyberarmy
cyberarmy

This is a mediocre Baldur's Gate clone at its best but still manages to fall behind BG in every step. There are some good quests and writing but I cannot really recommend this one, even if you are a diehard RPG fan

stretch
stretch

Unplayable. My machine is no beast but it isn't a potato either and it's performance is awful. Refunded.
I really wanted to try the game but if something of this graphics quality requires a supercomputer to run then it has serious issues.
I hope to try again once it actually works on a machine of realistic proportions.

Agesilaus
Agesilaus

If you enjoy games like the original Baldur's Gate, you will like Black Geyser. It is a good game, as long as you make use of the combat AI for your spell-casters, but the game still seems to lack content in places like the Gardens of Delight. There just needs to be more polish all round, more potential party members with clearer opinions/more bants, etc.

I thoroughly enjoyed it until I reached the Garden of Delights, but then decided to put it down for a while. I'll be back again soon enough.

rlstevens1
rlstevens1

It's a good, party based rpg that sits a bit below pillars of eternity. I found it a good antidote to the grind and immense amount of thought that I expended on gloomhaven.

Ambalabada
Ambalabada

Actually liked this game. Story was alright, but amount of possible choices is incredible and those choices actually matter. Besides that? A good above mediocre indie game

dubbo_mtg
dubbo_mtg

A good CRPG in the vein of the old Bhaalspawn saga from Bioware. There are a few minor bugs in an otherwise enjoyable game. I look forward to any DLC which expands the base game.

Squish
Squish

Started as a snow elf necromancer,ended up being a bastart child of a human count that i serve drinks to.

Unfortunately the story and dialogues didnt impress me.It doesnt work for me when you can convince a character to join your party within seconds of starting a conversation.During my short playthrough I also expirienced framerate drops and crashes,meanwhile character models all look like shit.

One day I might l force myself to play through all the Baldurs Gate games,but this one is a hard pass.

Samurai Shampooh
Samurai Shampooh

game was alright, but characters felt boring and no personality. everything just felt...flat. i wanted to reccomend it but cant. when the story is weak and characters feel like personality of cardboard i just cant play it.

Tai (Kiri)
Tai (Kiri)

Got my Baldurs Gate fix from it!
The combat system is slightly cumbersome to learn, but can be learned quickly.

OrcWhisperer
OrcWhisperer

Fun Baldur's Gate like experience.

Poloneise
Poloneise

As an avid fan of isometric RPGs, this is literally the first RPG ever I have not finished. It's simply too boring.

Princess
Princess

Oh so far this game is really a lot of fun. Loving it.

The last patch they had helped out a lot of the lag we saw They heard about our issue only a week ago and they already released a patch to address it.
OMG these developers really care.

I just love them. They are the best !

-
Geforce RTX 2080 Super
Rezen 9 3900
32 gigs ram.
Nice ASUS monitor (dont know model)

Hirsipuulintu
Hirsipuulintu

I first heard about this game as an old school RPG and it turned out to be completely true. As in the best times of Arcanum or the first NWN, a lot of bugs and lack of optimization await you. ) But at the same time, most of the advantages of the games of those times are present in the game, and the greed mechanic turned out to be quite interesting.
The conclusion is simple and short - if you are at 30+ yo and you are an RPG fan - you should definitely at least give this game a chance.

Shaman
Shaman

The game is unpolished, but definitely worth a buy when on sale.

These guys have potential.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Pretty fun game with BGIISOA inspirations

rlhhd7
rlhhd7

I cannot recommend this game in its current state. I did scratch an itch to play an cRPG, but I found myself at the end of the game kinda scratching my head saying "that's it?". Greed didn't seem to have any effect whatsover on the playthrough, it may have changed a sentence or 2 at the end of the game? The ending was 4 paragraphs of outcome based on your decisions. Seemed pretty empty. I cleared 3 area's that were supposed to become my strongholds according to the quest giver, but I guess they cut strongholds from development because I got to do absolutely nothing with them. Lots of weird bugs, like items disappearing, or changing to something completely different. Romance felt rushed and uninteresting. Loading times are still nowhere near where they should be for a game with such basic graphics and small maps. Mixing potions took forever and was just not where it should be.

Overall, I wanted to like this game, I liked it when I first started it, but I could tell as I was progressing that things were moving entirely too quickly. I finished the entire game in 30 hours, so essentially I paid 1 dollar per hour of entertainment. I would like to have seen a lot more side quests, a more robust main questline, and the greed mechanic make a bigger impact on the game. The bones are there in the world and with the lore to have a great game, there just isn't enough in it yet.

xabie
xabie

Still has some bugs and issues but overall this is a good game in the same vein as Baldur's Gate.

michaelley328
michaelley328

Simple game play. Interesting companions

Galatians62
Galatians62

This game was right up my alley, so of course I enjoyed it. If this is your style, then definitely pick it up. The combat really ramped up toward the end of the game and was a great challenge on veteran. Had to replay key fights a few times to get my strategy up to par, but not so difficult it wasn't fun. Great Game! Great Story! Probably won't run it again, but I got my money's worth and had a great time. Thanks Devs!

Urjelly
Urjelly

Great story driven game where decisions matter. The skill sets for the melee classes is lacking a lot but over all combat is smooth and I look forward to each new zone to see what awaits.

Skarots
Skarots

it a good rpg with if you style

Yo"rr gamma ix bae
Yo"rr gam…

I dont hate this game. but its a bit annoying how little depth there is to the quests ive found. The side quests will introduce you to a flat character, then end...thats it nothing more. No more interactions with that flat character. Thought you were going to join the mages guild? Nope. Thought the mob boss would be giving you more than one quest, maybe an in to the thieves guild? Nope. Its like going back to the orig baldur's gate without the creativity. I am having fun, and I think its prob worth playing if you are obsessed with isometric games, but the start of it so far feels like it lacks depth. Maybe that changes later? I will prob update this review when I finish the game, but my initial thought is, "Why didnt they work a bit harder on the side quests??" I don't hate the game, and I would recommend it to fans of old school isometric games.

strubet
strubet

A great game that bring back memories of Baldurs Gate 2!

MrMuse
MrMuse

Some minor roughness around the edges such as clunky ui especially in regard to spell selection. You need to click the spell book every time you change spell levels on any given caster unless you leave the book on "favourites" where you can slot your most used spells. Other than that Black Geyser is pretty much as expected. I would caution people to ignore the "is that it?" kind of reviews as these were obviously made before many of the side stories and quests were fleshed out. This is apparent given the achievement statistics showing how many people have rushed through the chapters without doing anything much besides.

So, how does it compare to other isometric RPGs old and new? Well it doesn't have the polish and sheer size of games such as Pillars 2 or Wrath of the Righteous and if you go by that alone then some may find the full asking price a little on the steep side. I had it in a 1/3 off sale for £20 and I'm more than happy with it for that amount. Narrative aspects are engaging enough, the range of spells and equipment are fine including rare powerful quested items. Companions all have multi part quests of their own and there are a variety of these to find and switch in and out of your party. If you go in expecting something VERY similar to a more modern Baldur's Gate with its own world and story then you wont be disappointed. The map works in exactly the same way as those Black Isle games where you have to exit areas in certain directions to find new ones unless they have been revealed to you during quest progression. After you have discovered locations you can fast travel to and from them just by clicking on the revealed area you want to get to and this avoids a lot of monotonous trudging back and forth.

One gripe I have is that the used class specific skills of fighter classes are fairly boring and the game's own rule-set may seem overly simplistic for some.
All in all though, BG - yes the initials are surely deliberate, can be viewed as a rough Pillars one or a more comfortable to play entry to the "enhanced" Black Isle stable. Since those games were huge hits in their time and still played by many to this day I think it's unfair to slate Black Geyser as inferior to modern epics such as the Owlcat games and if you are looking for something more neatly packaged than such a gigantic and complicated system then it will scratch your RPG itch just fine.

japijo
japijo

Just started this game for a few hours and it reminds me so much much of Baldurs Gate 1!
So I did my best practice of BG1 and outfitted my full party with bows and slings except for one tanky dwarf. And now I'm clearing every wilderness the main quest area from top to bottom, even the non-hostile critters... good times!

Still have to dive properly into the main quest so I'll probably update later.

Hosa
Hosa

is like they relised the game 50% undone.

kaelis
kaelis

DO NOT BUY THIS GAME! IT CRASHES CONSTANTLY! WAIT UNTIL THEY PUT OUT A PATCH IF THEY EVER DO.

Deathjester
Deathjester

Good game, sort of like Baldur's gate (1) and Pillars of Eternity (1).

There are some bugs, however up to now those have been annoyances and there have been no instances where a quest was borked beyond saving, so it's playable, even with bugs.

It's a bit simpler than say Pathfinder, but i don't think that's a bad thing, there are no timed quests and the pace of the game is more casual which i like.

The game should do a better job at explaining things with tooltips, instead i've had to rely a lot on Steam discussion boards, the game also should remove the whole "Unsummoning summons after battle has ended" I would like for my skeletons to stay for the full duration, the enemy AI needs some tweaking, you can throw a fireball at an enemy and not aggro anyone.

The game should give a small stat boost to enemies or double the amount of enemies in game, i'm playing the game on Veteran difficulty and the game feels like other RPG's on Easy difficulty.
I suggest you install this game on an SSD since the longer you play the game the longer the loading screens will take, hope they fix that soon.

The story is fine, characters are OK.

I would give this game a 7½ / 10

Milkyway Commando
Milkyway Commando

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness is a single-player RPG / CRPG game released about 6-months ago from the GrapeOcean Technologies software company. I added this title to my library 4 months later after some positive Steam Friend Activity comments. And I’m so glad I did! Not only were the positive comments correct, this game is very well done and lots of fun! It’s unfortunate that we only have a thumbs up rating because I’d certainly give this smashing game an overwhelmingly positive rating! Why?

I loved pen and paper RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons and Gamma World back in my younger days when getting a group of folks together was a bit easier. Unfortunately, those days are over and now just a chapter of really great memories of wonderful adventures and great stories. These days my RPG adventuring is mainly done via single player computer games like the Dragon Age and Baldur’s Gate series. So, I was so excited and eager to try this little gem as soon as I could. Would it compare to other CRPGs?

I decided I’d give it a go on the easiest setting available – story mode. On this mode, combat is much easier and would allow me to concentrate more on the story as well as learning the mechanics such movement, inventory, and other basic stuff of this new game. The prologue did an outstanding job of being superb tutorial of the overall mechanisms that were employed throughout the entire game; not once did feel confused, lost or frustrated with how to interact my surroundings. This introduction also immediately captured my intrigue and imagination with respect to the storyline of greed and darkness.

If you’re into party-based escapades where you have control over other characters, then you will find this as enjoyable as I did. The party member control system is quite intuitive and much easier to utilize than the one used in Dragon Age Origins. The inventory system is what you’d expect and like other systems can be a tedious but not so much that I found it to be a major negative. In all honesty, it was very much in line with other classics in the genre.

The most exciting part to me was the morality system. Many of the games I’ve played did not take into account the love of coin or how much wealth one could amass throughout the story. While amassing great wealth can be achieved, what you could do with it was, for me, a refreshing aspect of gameplay. I also enjoyed how one could decide just how far and in which direction they wanted to take their principles. Suffice it to say, I personally found the story and this element very relevant to what appears to be an issue for us here in the real world… constantly balancing our greed with generosity.

With respect to the graphics, I found them to be top-notch. Many times, during my playthrough, I’d be awestruck and captivated by the level of detail put into the scenery. The detail given to each area is well developed and thought out. I highly applaud the developers for not going simplistic with their world / location designs! Different areas are unique and not a cookie-cutter lay out. I genuinely felt the love and dedication this software company put into their product. I can only hope this game does well so this company can continue their growth. I also hope you’ll give this one a try as I really think you’ll like it too.

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness is certainly on my list to replay. I’m not a big achievement hunter so I cannot speak to whether one can obtain all achievement in one playthrough. I do not typically target this aspect of a game and figure I can obtain all of them over repeated playthroughs. I will be increasing the game difficulty next time as well as recruiting some different characters. As far as characters, they were okay but I did not feel all that connected to them. However, I did not get the impression that was the intent or focus of the developers. If there’s another installment in this story, I’d support a bit more character involvement but not so much that it’d take away from the overall story.

Probably the most important aspect for me was that I never ran into any glaring problems / bugs. I am very, very impressed with the level of quality the developers have put into and continue to put into this title. I wish other software companies had the same philosophical and professional stance as this team with this product. Very well done GrapeOcean Technologies! Thanks for a great story and game!

Again, I’m a bit bummed that we can only give this title a thumbs-up. If you’re looking for a great CRPG / RPG game to play, I’d highly, highly recommend Black Geyser! In short, it gets an overwhelmingly positive rating from me!

Aryn11
Aryn11

Decent tribute to BG/IWD etc, I'd recommend if you get it on sale. It's not amazing, but it also doesn't cost $60. Voice acting isn't bad (better than Pathfinder, not as good as a Bioware title, which is fair). I kind of wish it had some QOL improvements but it seems to be sticking more to the "old school" mentality even in terms of convenience. However, they did put in a run button! So that's a plus. And you can travel anywhere you've been from the map. Load times kind of suck - 15-20 seconds for every time you zone in or out or to another map gets old pretty fast (and I'm not sure I get why they're like that given the graphics complexity of the game or lack thereof). The crafting mechanic and greed mechanic are interesting. I'm starting to see a little more dialogue and backstory of the characters which is cool. So far it's been fun and I don't regret buying it.

Edit after 45 hours: Just hit chapter 3 and my load times are now OVER A MINUTE. I know the devs have some workarounds in the works for this so I may wait to play further until those get patched in before continuing.

timitos
timitos

The first couple of hours in I was disappointed to be honest. Even though I thought I knew what I was getting into (an indy game without a lot of polish) I still had hard time 'getting into it'. Especially the capital City that you reach early in the game feels empty and boring. And both the clunky character animations and often annoying music also don't contribute to me wanting to continue.

But when I started doing the 'wilderness' areas things started to click. This is where the game for me hit the Baldur's Gate 1 vibe sweet spot. And all of a sudden I started enjoying it!

So maybe that will help other new players too: approach the game as if it is a classic old game which you just now discovered and started to play.

Skaa
Skaa

It reminds me of Baldur's Gate - thanks for taking me back to my childhood for a few hours.

cseepe
cseepe

I gave this game a thumbs up because it works as promised and is fine if priced under CAD $20. That said, it's uninpsired and I quit playing after about 16 hours. As other reviewers have said this game is a throw-back to a decade earlier, when it would have been a triple-A title then. Clearly, a lot of work has gone into the game and it's a decent time-waster per se. The graphics are okay but the isometric perspective has no "vanishing point" so the angles and dimensions are more like architectuural drawings and detract from an immersive experience. If you've got an old computer and are looking for something that won't max out your system's performance then this may be a good title.

Like I said, there's nothing wrong with it for $20 or less and it will keep you busy for many hours. I personally couldn't get into it. Perhaps I'm just spoiled by today's amazingly-immersive technologies.

korpos
korpos

The game is pretty fun with some hilarious dialog options. I think it's worth checking out for those who like these kind of games.

GamingMommisimo
GamingMommisimo

I'd write a longer review but that'd take a while and I want to bump the game's metrics while it's still young in its lifecycle. BG:CoD feels very much like a love-letter to Baldur's Gate 1 while utilizing the conveniences of modern hardware and taking lessons from some of its elders in the past decade's CRPG revival.
It's a relatively low-power adventure set in a world with a great variance of tone - don't let the game art fool you, while the lore and main story arc set up a pretty grim and dun world, the environments, side quests and music all cover the whole spectrum of tone from jovial to campy to comedic, to just generally magical and breathtaking.
FOR THE COMBAT NERDS:
This game features its own ruleset which feels (and I hate comparing, but for those familiar with the genre) a hybrid between Pillars of Eternity 1's d100 rolling and AD&D 1e's clear-cut progression, but with a very heavy focus on % damage and effect resistances. It's a nice system that offers steady progression and solves the Armor Class Problem a lot of TT/CRPG rulesets have where being a good tank boils down to simply never getting hit, as opposed to you know...tanking hits. Spellcasters are pretty satisfying and the fact that damage and status effects are based off of resistance percentages makes it a lot easier to digest what works, what doesn't, and why. It's very accessible at-a-glance but I really hope the developers implement an inspect option so you can see enemy stats directly instead of having to experiment and remember. Overall, my only real complaints are that light armor feels a little underpowered for melee rogues / casters, and that you can't go a little crazy. It's balanced very well but with the way the ruleset works the base power ceiling is a little low, and features diminishing returns the more effort you put into maximizing your combat potential.
GENERAL:
Fun world, and while the writing quality can vary between awkward and decent, there's a lot of variance for you to roleplay how you'd like. The soundtrack can vary between jovial and campy to grim and foreboding, and this can be said for the visual tone as well. Your adventures can take you through enchanted forests, big-architecture medieval cities, bright countrysides, exotic settlements, dark caves and mines, haunted temples and the like. The story is a bit of a slow burn at first, partly because the devs REALLY put effort into making a comprehensive tutorial that is definitely good for newbies to the genre, but for anyone with CRPG experience can get a bit longwinded. That said the quests are pretty fun, and those that grant you choices you can make aside from how hefty a reward you want do actually have consequences that can affect the world (and the availability of other quests).
Overall it's a fun, slow-paced romp that offers satisfying character progression and really captures the nostalgia and cozy feeling of the original Baldur's Gate while standing up on its own without any rose-tinted lenses. The main concerns are QoL features, and the loading screens. Good lord, the loadtimes are actually bad. They're okay when you start but as the game progresses so do the loadtimes. Other than those, the game could really benefit from an inspect feature that lets you view enemy stats, and better information / organization of hotbar abilities (spells, talents, class abilities, etc). If you're unsure, give the game 6 months or pick it up on sale - the devs are as of this posting continuing to improve the game at a good pace. Well worth the price.
P.S. devs please make caster buffs last longer or make more of them AoE buffs

⚔️ ²⁶Ž ⏂ Ṛ³⁵ 🐉
⚔️ ²⁶Ž ⏂ Ṛ³⁵ 🐉

What A Fantastic Game!!
Get this game if you want to scratch that Baldur's Gate itch or need to sate that Pillar's of Eternity craving. The game has a great story and your choices matter in how the game develops as you play it. The game has a crafting system allowing you to craft potions or make powders. You do this by combining herbs and boiling them or drying them to make powders. Powders can be planted on enemies or blown/thrown in there faces. The game keeps all your recipes in a journal and explains how to make them. The game has a unique in depth Lore to it and keeps a compendium of every Person, Monster, or Place you've encountered so there is no end to the amount of depth and back ground story they have created. Like in Pillar's of Eternity you can seek out and create ultra powerful Weapons, and speaking of, you can find Cursed items and Use them. The unique way a cursed item works in this game is it offers powerful abilities but also has Weakening effects for using it, but, you can seek out a way to remove the curse and retain only the positive powerful effects of the Item.
Graphically I found the game to be on par with Pillars of Eternity which is not a bad thing considering the Hud and other aspects clone Pillars. The world Map works like the old Baldur's Gate games meaning you have to walk to North, South, West, East to unlock and travel to that Map sector.
Game play acts as a Real Time Strategy but can be Paused at any time allowing you to select each party memebrs actions.
The game has a considerable amount of races and classes to choose from and I found them to be unique and thoroughly fleshed out and perfect for the games setting and story.
Final thoughts are that this game is really fun and entertaining and was made by a Indie team that deserves a chance to bring a sequel and many more games to us gamers in the near future!

Vala Tarsis
Vala Tarsis

Still rough around the edges. If you're looking for something with a similar feel to old Baldur's Gate 1, you can find it here. Dialogue and story beats can be a bit weird sometimes. Check out the discussions to get a feel for what bugs are present.
The community is active and the devs are still working on the game. I'll give it another go down the road.
Content warning for those who care: A character invited me to be "alone" with them, and when I played stupid, my companions egged me on to join that character alone. I simply did not go for it and it was never brought up again. Also one of the companions is a bit "forward" with their private life. Just didn't take them along with me. There was also a strange moment where your character can for no sane reason spout wild and gross accusations about an npc. You can have "romances" with companions, but I never explored that so I can not speak to what happens with that. As for gore, lots of blood in some araes, typical dark fantasy stuff. There is a combat finishing move similar to other CRPGs called "chunking" and it is exactly that, and can be a bit of a bloody mess.
I don't recall much bad language or it wasn't significant enough to note.
Hope this helps someone know what to expect.

Adjutant
Adjutant

Truly admirable efforts by the team, thank you GrapeOcean.
Did enjoy this, and it was a solid throw back to much of what BG1 and BG2 inspired.

but... as other critics have also accurately stated, Black Geyser feels painfully unpolished in many respects and outright infuriating in some other specific cases.

What broke it for me was not just a few, but a *handful* of broken quests
... and the waiting. waaaaiting for loading screens. a LOT.

Reported the bugs using the reporter, but got no feedback, tried the forums and web, but no luck.
disappointing.

What really got under me riled up was that the main excuses for this were "simply ensure you have an SSD and other system optimizations" - please guys, we all know that's not the core reason for memory leak issues, catastrophically inefficient asset packaging and loading strategies, and a non-robust quest engine.

Other than those (major) gripes, it was still fun for a fan - but you'd have to be a fan of the genre to look past these critical issues and still enjoy the rest.

Anonymous
Anonymous

I really love this game. Completely captures the feeling of baldurs gate, icewind dale and pillars of eternity, the big classics of crpgs. It has lots of content, beautiful maps and interesting quests. The crafting, brewing and spell systems are also well-designed. There is a completely unique greed system, which is a nice addon to the well-known crpg base. Given that this is and indie game, i am very imressed what a handful team of people could put together with the fraction of budget and resources compared to Baldurs Gate or other big names. Well done guys, i hope there will be a second installment in the near future!

SteveTheMad
SteveTheMad

Having fun, story`s interesting - Keeping me Entertained. What else can I say ( Value for money ).

gbigdan
gbigdan

There are some unpolished elements to this game, it honestly has been a very enjoyable experience overall. I paid full price for this game and I feel it was well worth the cost.

dgtldust
dgtldust

Lovely game, childhood vibes on all levels, thank you devs

red.crow
red.crow

Hi there, let me write a few things about Black Geyser.

The pacing of the tutorial level is a bit off but better not to judge based on the first steps. After some time, you are going to realize it's a rare gem with an intriguing story and an interesting world with novel concepts like 'greed' which influences the world itself and the characters in it. I'm quite happy with the fact that the designers tried something new beside the well-known fantasy tropes. I definitely need more time to experience the adventure with different character classes but right now I'm quite content with my starting fighter/svindler multiclass which gives some abilities to really influence the dialogue options. The brewing system looks cool too.

The art is well made in my opinion, there are many beautiful visuals in the game. For me, it is a very good point to see a bit more realistic take on some scenes, and many interiors are simply gorgeous. The music is great, too.

Yes there are minor flaws here and there but updates are coming and let's hope the team will fix them. :)

So, all in all, the game nicely presented the old vibes for me. It's an homage to the great old games like Baldur's Gate, Icewind Dale but with a new, fresh twist. If you are a fan of the classic RPGs, or if you want to try something novel I can definitely recommend it.

Anonymous
Anonymous

This game is not for someone looking for casual enjoyment. It will require a large commitment of time and energy with a number of reloads when you discover that you passed by something important.

Some of my problems:
A. In character creation, you will need to set values for characteristics without knowing whether a value is appropriate for your class. Then you will need to select weapon skills without knowing whether you will ever see one of those weapons.
B. The crafting system may end up being exciting and useful, but you will find your inventory cluttered with dozens of items and no obvious way to use them. A Let's Play pointed out that I needed items from a shop that I had no way of knowing I needed to enter.
C. If you focus on your (important and urgent) mission, then you will miss being able to recruit party members that are in locations that you have no particular reason to visit.

I want to believe that some day I will come back to this game and find it to be wonderful, but that is not going to happen this year.

marekwins
marekwins

I really did like this game, but...
I'm really only a veteran of BG2, tried a lot of the other CRPGS but they didn't do it for me. I played this game the same way as BG2 and quickly discovered that it was far too easy. I started on hard and after about two hours I turned the difficulty to veteran, but it didn't make a significant difference. I encountered one major boss in some ruins and wasn't even ready for it. I decided to just let my characters fight it so I could see what it does, then planned to reload. It took a while but they killed it. I used a few spells at most, no buffs, etc. I did have everyone geared as good as possible, at least with what I had found/bought, but still. A short time later I stopped playing due to the lack of challenge. I do like the game and I do recommend it, but I just wish it was more challenging. I think I reloaded about 6-7 times in about 10 hours of play, and then only from being very careless. I hope you guys enjoy it more than I did :)

Gorecommandré
Gorecommandré

Still early in the game, but for me it absolutely embodies a good ol' crpg feel. Nice party management, great customization options, not-too-complex ruleset and a story that is both personal and tied to global events in the setting.

The writing is pretty good, too! Not the novel-sized texts of Pillars of Eternity (which I liked nevertheless), but just the right length of dialogues and descriptions.

One minor gripe are the loading times between areas, which seem to increase the longer a gaming session runs. Some minor character glitches, but nothing too serious or distracting. I can definitely see myself finishing this.

Margrave
Margrave

Reminds me a lot of the old school Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale games back from like 20+ years ago, can clearly tell that's what they were going for. Voice acting has been good.

[NerdsBG]Damnation
[NerdsBG]Damnation

Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness is a classical 2D cRPG inspired by games like Baldurs Gate and Icewind dale. There are bunch of innovations compared to the old school games which are good on paper, however the way they are implemented is a bit questionable.

Score: 5.5/10

Pros:
- good, even if full with cliches story
- nice combat system
- interesting world
- good interface
- beautiful visuals (even if extremely outdated)

Cons:
- relatively short
- poor and uninspiring voice acting
- bad balance of classes, some of them are way better than the rest
- weird magic system. Attacking spells are doing really low damage, buffs and debuffs are active for too short period of time to be really useful in combat, heals are bit OP
- bestiary containing only like 8-9 monsters, too few of everything - weapons, armors, quests, companions
- All companions are bland and lacking personality. Don't expect someone like Minsc or Morrigan
- three months and few big patches after release the game is still not bug free

reidj062
reidj062

Pros: CRPG in the vein of Baldur's Gate, with a system that is more intuitive. It's better balanced and less buggy than the Owlcat Pathfinder games, with their poorly implemented, half-planned strategy game components. There's a variety of classes and races to choose from, and your choices do matter. There's a decent amount of replayability. Spells are varied. Armor and gear isn't simply "oh, this is better, I'll take that." There are often trade-offs to various armor types, weapons and equipment- you have to choose what is the best for the way you want to build the party.

Cons: Casters get screwed over early on. Yes, this is common to most fantasy games- they wear cloth armor and they're squishy. This game takes it a step further- they possess minimal defensive spells, they can't evade attacks, their hit points suck, and their cloth armor doesn't give much protection. I died twice in two minutes playing a necromancer during the tutorial, what should be the easiest part. Fortunately, things balanced out later on.

The game does partial voice acting, which I hate. If you don't have the budget for voice acting, don't do it. Having characters speak one dialogue line, then having the next one be silent, is jarring and makes it clear the studio ran out of money.

Companion side quests are disappointing. Some are incomplete, and the ones that are complete have disappointing endings. The character won't grow as an individual, learn anything worthwhile about their past, the curse that has been plaguing them for years, etc. They won't develop new abilities. There will be a setup for a great character arc for this companion...and then it will flatline.

rmp
rmp

Pretty good game that looks and feels like Pillars of Eternity and older games like the BG games. Story was merely OK at first but I found myself getting more into it as it went along. I think there were some things that could be improved, like even after finishing the game, the origin of your character seems hazy. You're told some stuff at the beginning and I was expecting more explanation on all of it later on but it didn't really happen. I don't know if I missed something or that's just how it is.

There are several companions who can join you, most of whom have their own quests and stories so they don't feel like mindless drones along for the ride. Sometimes they'll have opinions about events in the main plot and once or twice I got to ask them their opinions on a choice I had to make.

Combat feels very similar to the BG games, with five characters instead of six. One thing that I didn't like is that you can't see status effects when you mouse over an enemy. If you want to know if some spell or ability worked, you have to really pay attention in the frenzy of combat or comb through the combat log to find if something was resisted. Another thing is some spell descriptions don't say how long they last, and they never say what the range is either.

I think the levelling up and ability system, especially for fighter type characters, is somewhat uninteresting, as the combat abilities (when you can pick them) can be useful but not that exciting (no 'Smite' for my Templar?) and always the same ones since character creation. There aren't enough general skills too. It's not like a 3.5e DnD (NWN2, Pathfinder, etc) where most level ups feel like Christmas time with whatever goodies you're about to pick up.

Another downer for me was no animal companion for Rangers.. Boo! I didn't choose a Ranger for my main character (mostly because of that) and there wasn't a Ranger class companion, but I get the impression that a Ranger is pretty much a fighter with armor restrictions and some light spell casting. I don't want weird, overpowered animals or freakin' dinosaurs (*cough* Pathfinder) but a permanent animal companion like in NWN2 is how you make a Ranger feel like a Ranger and not just some slightly modified fighter. Same deal for Druids.

I started on normal difficulty and moved it to hard later on and still found it quite easy on many fights, and was tempted to go to the highest setting at times. The issue is that a fighter class that can use heavy armor and a large shield can, with a few more items like a good helmet and pair of gauntlents, very easily reach 100% resistance to all types of physical attacks. That doesn't make them invincible, but then the only danger is other stuff like elemental damage, which does happen more often later in the game. If you see enemy spellcasters, take then down ASAP and then casually finish the rest of the fight stress free. The devs have said they're going to re-work some of this, so this could change in the future. That isn't to say that every fight was easy, but most were. Would surely be harder if I had gone with a different choice for the main character. Sometimes I had to reload because one of my companions like my spellcaster or thief died and the hassle of death with going to a temple and blah blah isn't worth the hassle, so I always chose reload over resurrection.

This game, like all others of its type, will throw boat loads of consumables like powders and potions on you. I've never been a fan of having my inventory cluttered with stuff like that and hardly ever used anything beyond straight up healing potions. If you're a hoarder like me, you'll hang on to them regardless, always for those "just in case" big battles that never come. Or you simply forget they're there during combat and remember them when trying to manage your inventory. But for those who make consistent use of these things, the game would be even easier. Shields are OP, at least when I played, so I gave one to every character who could use one for their melee set, as the increased defence with the shield outweighs the small offensive penalties of using one and the seemingly trivial additional damage of a two handed weapon. Two weapon fighting was not an option when I played.

If you've read other reviews, you'll have surely seen mention of long loadng times. Yes, the rumours are true, they aren't exactly quick. And don't think you'll be alt-tabbing out of the game while it's loading to watch Youtube or something, as the game seems to need to be the active program to get things done.

On the good side, this game has some pretty funny dialog choices for your character in conversations. Easily the funniest I've seen in a game like this. You won't always want to select them (get too snarky with the king and you'll be reloading) but I've never laughed at dialog selections before, so kudos to the writers there. Pretty good music too. The music for one of the town areas can get annoying if you have to listen to it over any prolonged amount of time, but generally the background and combat music fit the scenes and scenarios perfectly.

If they make a sequel, I'll get it.

Alas
Alas

I found Black Geyser by chance. I knew nothing about it and I was not aware of the team behind it. But the description of the game immediately got my attention. An isometric, party-based fantasy RPG inspired by genre classics. Nice. I'm a sucker for such games and I often get the Baldur's Gate itch. So an opportunity to scratch it, is not an opportunity I'm prepared to waste. The game was promptly purchased and found itself squarely in the top spot of my what-to-play-next list. Let's see how this went.

First of all, the premise of the game is indeed interesting. Yes, the protagonist's backstory is comically contrived, but the overall plot is fairly decent and the worldbuilding solid. The game places you in a rather standard fantasy kingdom that is experiencing a civil war. The main purpose is to navigate the intrigues of that civil war and try to influence with your choices the outcome. In addition, the world contains a fairly well developed mythology and out of that comes perhaps the most promising mechanic of the game. The curse of Greed. The concept here is that a malicious deity has placed a curse on the land that makes everyone greedier. The player can, with their choices, combat or accelerate the world's descent into a miserly, green-eyed fueled anarchy.

The problem is that this, otherwise enticing, idea is not really very well developed nor appropriately consequential. Spend the whole game being selfless and it will still be less effective than just donating your ill gains to the church later on. The effects of which are hardly felt anyway. This is not just restricted to the curse. Generally speaking the game is not anywhere near as polished as I would have hoped. In many cases, you could basically see the places where content should have been, but was cut. Missing companion quests, allusions to inexistent strongholds, questlines that simply go nowhere and so on. This is further exasperated by a woefully short overall duration. Only 25 hours for a full run. The game clearly needed more development time.

The gameplay is also not particularly impressive. The game claims to be inspired by Baldur's Gate, but I would say its primary inspiration is Pillars of Eternity. Or a very unpolished variant of that at least. The game has many mechanics that don't seem particularly well utilised such as brewing. There is also a painfully obvious lack of QoL. In fact, the game is outright obnoxious at times. An indicative example is a main quest that requires you to remove equipment from your inventory or risk losing it. Oh you want to proceed with this mission? Take off your jewelry, one by one, then place it on that box over there, one by one. You can retrieve it and put it back when done, again one by one. How hard would it be for that to happen via a script?

Still, all these flaws I could mostly excuse and be content to keep on playing. Unfortunately though, there is one more problem. A very nasty one. Loading times. The game has unreasonably long loading times. Every area you visit is locked behind a near minute long one. Couple that with the relatively small maps and a game design that forces you to constantly move around from one area to the other and the issue becomes simply unbearable. There were times, ie inside a dungeon, I'd need several minutes to get back out, as every level had such a loading screen. Why? Just why? I checked the forum for advice and the devs were saying get an SSD. I have a very fast one already. I can't even imagine how bad this would be with an HDD.

Overall, I'm afraid I can't recommend this game at this stage. Yes, the team did make an admirable effort on this niche genre. I do wish the team all the best and I don't regret playing it, however incomplete it may feel. Besides, it's not the lack of polish and content that bothered me the most. What breaks the camel's back is the loading times. That's what made my time with the game so frustrating. As it is, Black Geyser is only for those genre mega-fans that have already played everything else out there and are desperate for a fix.

Leonardo Trapovich
Leonardo Trapovich

Normally, party-based rpgs at least have a semi-decent companion AI. This one is braindead, and turned off by default. The setting and story and such is fantastic, but combat keeps getting harder and your own companions dumber. I'm scared of even doing side quests since it will just increase world greed half the time, making the world more dangerous.
4/10 - should have been turn based to mask AI retardation

blueeyes53959
blueeyes53959

great game love the story so far.

Huud
Huud

If you like Pillars of Eternity, you will probably enjoy this one as well.

blanco7
blanco7

This game is very good, interesting plot, nice gameplay. Graphics is very nice, but there are fps drops sometimes (I guess that's a game engine problem). The Polish version has some linguistic mistakes. I hope that the next patches will improve the smoothness of the game (fps drops, freezing, general performance) and long loading times (ssd).

straightener
straightener

Although the gameplay is similar to Baldur's Gate, it is a lot easier to play IMHO. The fights are more balanced for beginning levels so far and the story, while linear, allows for a lot of exploration. I'm really enjoying it and it is well worth $19.

cm_theforce
cm_theforce

I must say that I really enjoyed Balck Geyser. The story and combat are nice and I liked the greed system.
You won't find so many options as Pathfinder but it has the spirit of some classics CRPG like Pillars of eternity. If you love CRPG games you should try Black Geyser.

triplesixsmokey
triplesixsmokey

very good game choices are good aswell i like the lore as theres much to be explored and found aswell as the choices mattering and what you can do comabt is good but the attacking response should be updated as you will see them just stand around even if you have aggressive on but combat is still nice i greatly enjoyed it and i hope they continue on with this theres so much to do and explore!!! the only thing i would of enjoyed more is lord espen having his own land or somthing so we could spend all that greed money or what not on our own agendas and buildings or somthing somthing to spend all that greed money on haha just my preference but all in all game is very fun and enjoyable a few bugs but devs are very responsive and community based id suggest getting it if you love choice mattering games and true rpg style

Cujo
Cujo

Diamond in the rough.

If you can excuse some of the games short comings, it can be enjoyable. Only 9 hours in and hopefully I can finish it, because my track record with finishing games is not the best. But maybe, I can add it to my favorite finished games such as Disco Elysium, Tyranny, Icewind Dale, Torment Planescape, as well as others.

My advice to the Devs.... Almost there, but not quite. Listen to the community and keep on patching if it makes sense.

Anonymous
Anonymous

Great price/value ratio, charming old-school quests, wilderness exploration. In most things, PoE is superior to this, but in SOME things, this game beats PoE (no loredumping, closer to Baulder's Gate vibe). First act is kinda bland but game gets MUCH more engaging later. Wholeheartedly recomended for the fans of this genre.

voidmapper
voidmapper

As I kid I was a huge tabletop RPG fan and put many hours into CRPGs as well like the Icewind Dale and the Baldur's Gate series. I had high expectations about this game too and was curious if it would be capable of catching this old-school atmosphere while creating a new direction.

As some mentioned before the loading screens are indeed take a bit long but despite this and some smaller bugs, this small indie company definitely nailed it with a unique story, balanced game mechanics, strong world building and catchy soundtracks. The graphics and the interface design work fine together, it's an homage to the era we all loved.

I'd be glad if more story-oriented single player games like this have released nowadays. Recommended!

Protonic Flux
Protonic Flux

Giving this game a thumbs down. They are doing the quest part a little bit better then in most games. But the game is a poor comparison to other games in the same catagory. There is also a issue with combat. In the first real zone where you fight and on 3 different characters I keep getting spam knocked down and killed. So I get to sit for about 30 seconds to a minute each time while my character just lies there waiting to die.

After trading posts with a developer I am going to keep playing the game. Reinstalled and started over with another character. Passed that area without any difficulty this time. I am still on the fence about the game. But we'll see where things go.

Shofixti
Shofixti

BG:CoD is absolutely fantastic game. Story is interesting, quests are entertaining, combat is challenging (especially at the end of the game, last zones are very hardcore). The world created is very fun to discover and travel through. I pretty much felt like im playing old Baldur Gate games once again. Also the game got crazy helpfull and active develpores, for such a small team they do a crazy good work there.

There also a few things i didnt liked in the game - not every companion quests can be completed, they just do not pop in, i dont know why, i guess they arent in the game yet. A small issue. Another thing is with combat, the game seriously needs some balancing, its literally waaaay too easy until last 2 chapters in game. And i didnt even played with full 5/5 party, 3-4/5 was max i was using. On the other hand, last zones are so hardcore,.. i spend like a hour to beat last boss (mostly waiting at loading screens), because last boss can literally wipe a 20 lvl mage in 1-2 hits. There should be warning before entering the "last zone", that u cant return from there, with it i would not went there without a full party. But i beated his ass anyway after some tries. I guess the worst thing which was really weird to me was - theres no "attacks of opportunity", i know its not DnD style, but it.. ruin the fun in fights when you can straight rush to kill enemy mages without any penalties then kill the rest. Also most of skills are useless, skip all the extra dialogue skills, they are barely used, and those which offer protections from getting ambushed while sleep, for my 50h gameplay i was ambushed once while resting, and it was on the last zone in game. Also the greed/reputation system is kinda not working? I dont know why its there :P

Overall its an awesome game, for any old classics RPG fans. Buy it, you wont be dissapointed. A crazy fine game for at least 2 playthrough. Maybe when ng+ shows up one day i will do the evil playthrough. Good work devs, i recommend this game highly.

adamlink747
adamlink747

Can't recommend. This game is the start of an excellent game but needs another year before its ready. Skills are unimportant, you can buy whatever you need if you take the path of the non greedy hero type like I did. The game is way to easy, maybe you arent meant to have a full party? Polish is lacking to say the least. Skills and abilities for other classes are boring and lack luster, even spells are boring. This game needed another year and maybe a bigger dev team and it would have been GREAT. As is I cant recommend anyone spend their time or money on it.

On a personal note I dont like having no quest markers but I leave that as seperate from whats wrong with the game because that seems like design choice. I liked the graphics but spells look horrible.

Toxic
Toxic

Baldur's Gate 2022 Indie Edition.

Plagen
Plagen

I enjoyed the game quite a bit and managed to finish it in about 20 hours, though I will mention I didn't finish every side quest or explore every single location.

The combat feels nice, though AOE spells are basically useless since they will hit your melee teammates as well. Spells are similar to D&D rules, where you can only cast a certain amount of each spell until you rest to recharge the count. If I would have realized this before, I would have just made my protag use melee instead.

My only real complaint with the game is the load times, and it might just be that I am impatient. They take forever. Changing zones, going into a structure, etc, all just takes a while. It feels like the longer the game runs, the longer they take as well. Also, you cannot alt+tab the game to kill time doing something else, as when the game isn't focused nothing happens. So you end up sitting through the loading screen a lot. This sucks a lot especially when you encounter a hard fight and die a lot, as every time you have to do through the loading screen.
Similarly to the loading screens, quick saving completely lags the game for a few seconds almost as if the pause button was hit. It seemed fine near the beginning of the game, but as I got towards the end and as I started playing for hours, it would lock up the game for around 5 seconds each time. Given how much I would save (After each fight, basically), I'd guess around 30min of my playtime was waiting for the save to complete.