Genre: Real Time Strategy (RTS), Role-playing (RPG), Adventure, Indie
Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness
Free Online Character Generator with Custom Party
Greetings, adventurers!
As you know, a major game update is coming tomorrow that also includes the option to create your own custom party (more details can be found in our previous post).
In the meantime, we have also created a completely free, online Character Generator website for you. It allows you to export and download your character (or a full custom party), which you can import directly into the game (after tomorrow's update). As you can open the website from any location, you can have fun with character builds even when you don't have Black Geyser installed on your current device.
You don't need to own the game to create a party with this online website. Anyone is welcome to use it!
Thank you for your continued support and feedback!
We are glad to announce that the French and Italian translations have just started! Currently, the following localizations are in progress:
French
Italian
Brazilian Portuguese
Spanish
The Spanish translation is already more than 65% finished. For more information on why some localizations arrive sooner than others, please take a look at this Steam post: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1374930/view/3362515187788465634 We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has joined us on this journey and continues to support Black Geyser.
Arvex Companion Quest, Russian And Turkish Localization & More!
Greetings, adventurers!
The current update not only brings a fully finished Arvex companion quest along with several fixes and improvements, but we are also thrilled to announce that Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness is now available in Turkish and Russian! Our eternal thanks goes to Gökhan Halil Düzgün from 23 Studios for the Turkish translation, and to Roman "Scarab-Phoenix" Matsuk for the Russian translation of the game.
Additionally, we are happy to share that the Spanish and Brazilian Portuguese translations are now in progress! Regarding other languages, we will update you as soon as we have more information.
For more information on why some localizations arrive sooner than others, please take a look at this Steam post: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1374930/view/3362515187788465634 Mac & Linux: For technical reasons (such as Apple's notarization process), the current update for Mac and Linux will go live after a couple of days. Thank you for your patience.
Latest Changes
Turkish and Russian localizations added
Full companion quest implemented for Arvex
Rebalanced physical and elemental resistance bonuses for armors, weapons, races and classes
Rebalanced damage values of two-handed weapons and damage, price and stack sizes of ranged weapons and projectiles to be more useful
Decreased Rothgor's melee attack timing
Tutorials for Gerdra's offer and entering the Black Geyser now appear properly
Increased Health values regained when drinking healing potions
Alnarius priests will now reward the player based on Reputation instead of Greed
Baflodac's gang downstairs and outside now turn hostile if Baflodac is attacked upstairs
Unnecessary recipe item replaced with a valid recipe
Creatures of Amanuel's Hoard will now react as groups when attacked
Creatures of Elven Ruins in Scofarth will now react as groups when attacked
Fixed the on-hit mechanics for the Scutiactus and Gloves of Inscrutable Defense items
Eloinne now takes all necessary medicine from the player in Urgently Needed Medicine
Animated Armor and Animated Hands in Wardenhaft can now react if the player loots unauthorized containers
We’re incredibly grateful to everyone who has joined us on this journey and continues to support Black Geyser, and we look forward to you diving into these latest updates.
Since the release of the game, we have received many questions from you on several topics, including the future translations of the game to various languages.
In this update, we are presenting a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) that gives answer to the most frequent questions we have received. At the end of the update, you can also find the changelist of the most recent patches.
Frequently Asked Questions
Question: I thought the game would be translated to my language by now. Why are some languages available while others are still not? Do you prefer some languages to others?
Answer: There is no preference between languages, we would love to add all of them. The only thing that determines which languages are added are our possibilities, including our financial options. The game currently has more than 280,000 words of text, which is an extreme amount of text for an indie title. Translating this many words is usually very expensive, and takes a very long time for an affordable translator.
Question: I still don’t get it. Why were some languages already added that have a much smaller player base compared to other, major languages that are still unavailable?
Answer: As a small indie studio, we are adding languages that we can, not the ones we want to. For example, some of the existing/upcoming translations were made by our friends or enthusiasts of the genre/game, who are professional translators but translated Black Geyser basically for free or at a very low cost. We don’t prefer adding language X to language Y because we like X better than Y, but because there was enough time and budget for language X. Skipping/postponing language X wouldn’t have helped for adding language Y at all.
Question: My language is still not there anyway. Should I forget it?
Answer: Definitely not! As soon as we have more information (such as an ETA) about a particular language, we will let you know. By the way, Russian and Turkish translation will be added very very soon. We will post more information about them in the upcoming days.
Question: As a small indie studio, you still had a budget for the game and translations, what happened with that? You also had a Kickstarter campaign.
Answer: As stated on our Kickstarter page, the Kickstarter funds were only a part of the funding that we secured from external sources. Unfortunately, as an indie project, we faced many difficulties in the years following the Kickstarter, including the challenges caused by the pandemics. Based on community feedback throughout the years, we also changed the scope of some things in the game and refined/reworked certain features. Altogether, the overall budget required to complete the game increased by the time the pandemics ended. Therefore, less budget remained for translations than we initially anticipated.
Question: Why don’t you allocate more budget? It would allow you to add the missing features and languages. I have also posted a negative review about the game with the hope it will encourage your company to fix bugs faster and add the missing languages. Do you not listen to these reviews?
Answer: We do not have any external funding. Black Geyser is currently our only project, and it is the only source of revenue for the team. We appreciate all feedback, including negative reviews as well, because they are very useful to us for deciding how and where to improve the game. Regarding your question, paradoxically, the more negative ratings we get, the less the game’s revenue will be, even reducing our financial resources to the extent where we’re unable to improve the game by adding missing features or language translations. At the moment, our team is very small, and while we read and process every single review, we lack the resources to implement all requests in a short time.
Question: If you have had so many issues, why have you released the game so early? I’m glad to see you are constantly improving the game and listening to player feedback, but why didn’t you do these much earlier?
Answer: As a small team, we have been doing our best. If we had been able to postpone the release and refine the game before the launch, we would have done it. Black Geyser has been our dream project, but there are financial limitations. The question wasn’t whether there can be a “Perfect Black Geyser” or a “Black Geyser that needs refinements”, but whether Black Geyser exists or not. Based on the feedback of our community, we felt the only right decision was to stay together, release the game and then keep supporting it as we do now.
Latest Changes
3440x1440 resolution now always works correctly
Fixed Shady Dealer dialogue in Garden of Delights
Added Potion Case, Parchment Satchel and Ingredient Pouch for storing items
Item containers (such as bottomless bags) now retain their content if sold
Temple of Alnarius no longer needs a loading screen in Market Street
Level 1 to 4 scrolls are now restocked by vendors
Jade romance now has a correct cutscene
The Fish Out of Water quest now correctly ends in every scenario
Fixed ghost visual effects
Loot added to many empty containers in Crimson Crossing
Loot added to small houses in Amanuel's Hoard
Loot added to Fasitgrove houses
Isilmerald Sightseeing achievement description is now more accurate
Multiclass characters can now utilize the Outlaw "Disarm Trap" skill as well instead of Magical Perception to disarm the Wizard's tutorial trap
The levelup tutorial no longer appears if the player finishes the levelup process while another tutorial panel is displayed
The Twisted Requiem spell now properly adds buffs to the revived party members and reduces the caster's HP by the correct amount
Resurrection fix: Revived character's contribution to Adventure XP will not be lost as long as they can be revived
Additional recipes added to various vendors (Ilio, Zelima, Hu'dai, Red Damsel, Freynagar Brewery, Ay'eda, Regon, Arnulf, Aravina, Deron-Guld Herbalist, Southern Shore)
Incorrect reply options no longer appear in Rothgor starting dialogue
Cannibals, corrupted wolves and skeletons added to Castle Alastor outdoors area
All powders are now plantable
Planting stacked items no longer plants the full stack
Large white visual bug no longer appears for some freezing effects
Tolbard's shop now displays correctly in all circumstances
Arnulf now correctly moves to Fasitgrove after you complete his quest
The Estranged Sisters quest no longer gives gold as a reward when it shouldn't
Fixed Kronica longsword's attack times to match other Longswords
Added missing Shortbow damage bonus for Fighters
The Divine Aid spell now damages Abominations as well
Isla cutscene no longer breaks in the Trapped Under the Surface quest when you attack her
Shady Dealer can now spawn/despawn while he is in party sight
Reply option that ends the companion dialogue is now always the last option
Reply option in Stephan's dialogue now correctly reflects your intention to attack him in the Trapped Under the Surface quest
Fixed a bug that prevented Lich Agelas from casting the Unholy Siblings spell
More loot added to Thieves' Guild and cemetery crypts
Our Latest Update Brings Additional Party Banter & More
Ho there, adventurers!
As we continue our post-launch push to improve on all that you've asked, we've delivered two recent updates that deliver key requests: additional party banter and achievements.
Alongside this, we've added the Staff of New Dawn (an item offering resurrection) which sees those who carry it no longer needing to visit temples if a party member dies. We've also finished and extended the Hamlin, Bjalla and Jade companion quests. Take a look at the full notes below.
Tons of mini-banters added
Finished/extended the Hamlin, Bjalla and Jade companion quests
37 new Steam achievements added (the Arvex one can't be completed yet)
Aldnar cutscene (with potential battle) now respects your party formation
Multiselect item highlights in shops now disappear properly when switching item category
Quest inventory is now shared across party members
Items can now be moved to subcontainers (e,g, bottomless bags) via usual inventory "lift & drop" operation (there is no need to open the container UI any longer)
Added tutorials for infusion, world greed, Gerdra encounter, and point-of-no-return in Alastor
There are now five HP indicator labels (uninjured, slightly injured, injured, badly injured, nearly dead)
Minor chain lightning no longer harms party members and allies
Changed house name from "Family Home" to "Wilgo's House" for Estranged Sisters quest
Dozens of fixes in quests and dialogues
Staff of New Dawn (an item offering resurrection) added to Zelima and Ay'eda shops
Deron-Guld soldiers are no longer hostile after you side with Aldnar
Banter texts remain visible for longer times over characters for better readability
World Map tutorial now appears correctly when leaving Crone's Hut
Consumable item descriptions are now always displayed correctly
Gundemund's Freezing Tips now have proper AoE targeting marker
Gerdra messenger cutscene can no longer get stuck
Stunned or frozen creatures can no longer evade attacks
Wights in Xurzax battle were put closer so that they can notice the party
The Pact Prophecy can no longer be put back to its container
Fixed missing wardstone description image
As always and for all of you who continue to support Black Geyser and who continue to provide feedback here or on Discord, thank you so much!
In March, after a hugely positive Early Access period, we launched Black Geyser into 1.0. We were incredibly proud to have addressed many of the issues that players raised and our small team did our best to identify and fix key concerns. While the game wasn’t perfect and there remains plenty to accomplish, we’re glad to see that our continued efforts have seen our recent raft of reviews vastly improve player perceptions.
We’ve still a long way to go to get the game where we want it to be and have been working hard on not only our next update but also our future roadmap. In last week’s update, we added the Pass Time feature alongside other improvements. Where today’s update is concerned, there’s quite a lot of improvements that many of you have requested (full changelog here):
You can now use the worldmap to travel to reachable areas without the need to visit area border
Multiclassing is more worthwhile: previously, XP requirements of chosen classes were summed for multiclassing. These XP sums are now reduced by 20% for using two classes, and 40% for using three classes, making multiclassing more fun.
Magical bags for additional item storage: Bottomless Bag of Bulguras and Superabundant Sack of Swinishness
Rebalanced final battle and the ability to pre-buff before most key battles
Besides this and before the end of the month we’ll also be adding the following (with more to come):
37 brand-new Steam achievements
Dozens of new banters for party members
Finished (extended) companion quests for Bjalla, Jade and Hamlin
Dozens of side quests fixes
As far as our mid-term plans are concerned - and some of these may arrive before the end of the month - we’re wanting to further expand on our quest journal and travel system. These changes will include:
Quest journal mentions the quest giver name and location
Quest journal offers a button to travel directly to quest giver (allows a single loading screen instead of multiple loading screens across outdoor and indoor areas)
Customize the shortcut for ingame highlights (currently, it’s hardcoded to the TAB key)
Compare a weapon item to both equipped weapon sets (three-tooltip comparison)
Potion Case, Ingredient Pouch and Parchment Satchel item to hold potions, ingredients, scrolls and recipes
Finally, our long term plans are very much in the works and while we don’t yet have a firm date on when they'll arrive, we’ll have them to you as soon as possible.
Finished (extended) companion quest for Arvex
Customizable ability bar by player
Item descriptions will list the classes that can use the item
Pets
Strongholds
More spells
More love for unarmed combat (such as items giving a bonus)
Two-handed weapon style
Flails
Deluxe Edition
Game OST as an independent asset
Revising many fetch quests to make them more complex and interesting
Additional, complex side quests
Create a full party during character creation
Savegame file compression to reduce disk space usage
Modding support (including the possibility to lift class restrictions of races)
Additional localizations (translations) of the game
For everyone who has joined us on this journey and continues to support Black Geyser we’re incredibly grateful and we look forward to you diving into these latest updates.
Having released our latest update we're pleased to say that a key community requested component has been added: Pass Time.
The Pass Time feature allows your party to wait an arbitrary amount of time, rather than time passing in real-time. It's particularly useful when you need to wait due to a quest or want to change the time of day (day or night) and you don’t want to visit an inn. Like anything in Black Geyser, it's down to you whether you choose to use this, or avoid it completely.
Besides this we've made additional improvements to brewing and drying, enemy encounters, loot and sounds. As always, you can visit our stream of update notes here.
Patch Notes
New feature: Pass Time
Jade is now properly bound to the wheel
Several items (including throwing weapons) were rebalanced to be stronger
Quest items can no longer be transferred to a container in the loot window
Comparison tooltips now correctly show the Base Block Chance in both sides
Lower interruption chance is now marked with green in comparison tooltips
Completed quest filter checkbox now retains its setting
Month names and historical year established
The Brewing & Drying UI now has correct sound effects
Hitting Sir Dalnor no longer makes whole Isilbright hostile
Added camera shake to Blood and Ice Elemental hits
Alenar no longer takes more than one enerant bark from party
Increased damage of ordinary and plagued ghouls
Second level of Alastor now has correct Blood Elemental version
Mistress Tyrenne and her acolytes now attack the party after dialogue
Fixed the price of Duskmarble and Star-Spangled Greatshield
Fixed Teamster dialogue after ambush
Claudio and Bonitia are now present in their house all the time
Removed gold loot from Abyssal Hunters at Grandmaster Argos Agelas
Crimson Wraith XP value increased to 500
Summoned Wights now have the proper undead specific immunities
Fixed the race of Wights and Posessed Robes (from Wraith to Revenant)
Krag has now a soundset that fits his personality
Tenebrous Grove travel marker added to minimap
Added loot to many Crimson Crossing containers
Iwor now holds a giant hammer instead of a spiked club
Over the last couple of weeks and since we've launched Black Geyser, we've been delivering updates almost daily to address your feedback. Since our last major notes list, we thought it time to deliver another. If you want to keep up with the frequency of our patches, you can always find real-time updates for our notes here.
March 29th, 2022
Combat mode no longer gets stuck when moving far from enemies
Demilich buffs himself even if you attack him before the dialogue
Fancy Knife is now correctly a quest item
Stephan no longer gives sick sounds in healed state
Fixed some dialogue errors with Stephan and his wife
March 30th, 2022
Combat mode no longer gets stuck when moving far from enemies
Defeating Lord Amanuel now gives correct XP
Madruk now correctly appears at his home after curing him
Looting containers in embassies is no longer possible without consequences
Helgenhar no longer speaks in Amanuel dialogue if he is not in party
Amanuel's lackeys now have the correct race set
April 1st, 2022
Added duration scaling to many buffs and debuffs
Fixed some bugs related to the Scofarth bandits
April 6th, 2022
Performance improvements
Combat log window now retains its height between areas
Resolution related fixes with 8K support added
Berthold now correctly appears so that you can report back to him
Divine Aid no longer heals undead opponents
Velianrick, Aldnar and War Council are correctly despawned when needed
Power creation based on recipes now works correctly
Amanuel's Hoard can now be visited even after its quest is completed
Added more types of ammo to shops
Added bigger stacks and restocks to shops
Added throwing weapons to several shops
Fixed an item-related bug that caused a big greed change incorrectly
Changed Isla hair style to match her portrait
April 7th, 2022
Talgorn's Glen now always loads correctly
Dead party member simulacrums are no longer lootable
AoE targeting marker now works correctly near corpses and items on the ground
Completed filter now works properly in Side quests journal
Grendych now properly leaves after you save him
Story mode was made easier (enemy damage and HP reduced)
April 8th, 2022
Savegames now get correct timestamps
The Dryad's seed can no longer be planted on the wrong side of the river
Royal Guard patrol route no longer includes the Palace execution scene
Cultists now properly target party members in Frick's house
More creatures die now in Scofarth due to the river poisoning
First of all, we wanted to say thank you to those of you who have picked up Black Geyser and ventured through the dangerous Kingdom of Isilmerald so far. We’ve loved seeing folks try the game and have been using your valuable feedback to fix and patch the items you’ve brought to our attention.
Below you’ll find a full list of patch notes from this month so far. In the coming days we’ll be showing off our roadmap and sharing the major issues we’re tackling so you can stay up to date on all things Black Geyser.
March 18th, 2022
Log now shows party greed increase/decrease correctly (earlier, it showed decrease incorrectly as increase too)
Support for additional wide/ultrawide screen resolutions
Tutorial highlights and panels no longer appear during cutscenes and dialogues
Minor fixes in class descriptions in character creation screen
March 20th, 2022
All paths work now after getting the Pact Prophecy
March 21st, 2022
Animal pelt from Early Access save games no longer corrupts shops
Generous reply option now works in Lord Frelsi dialogue
Main quest no longer breaks when player helps Lorin
Shop no longer breaks when selling a split stack of throwing knife
Double-clicking a shield now correctly equips it to the 2nd weapon set as well
Zoria Titan interrupt chance fixed
March 22nd, 2022
Outlaw sneaking tutorial at Crone is now more user-friendly
Compendium no longer contains duplicate/multiple entries
Effect durations can no longer get stuck
Fixed XP value and HP for Chimera and Lizard
Hu'dai now spawns both day and night
Krag and Smolf no longer have generic commoner dialogues
March 23rd, 2022
Quick-save system can no longer freeze the gameplay
Lorin now actively helps if the party carries the Alakai sword
Removed duplicate heat resistance from Corrupted Gryphon
Corrupted Gryphon XP value fixed
Ruflodac's Simulacrum shaders fixed
March 24th, 2022
Dialogue skillcheck fixed in Bjalla's Mendelroth dialogue
Dialogue reply options can now be scrolled while cursor is over a reply option
Fixed Dalkivar peasants getting stuck during leaving cutscene
Fixed several Hamlin side quest and dialogue bugs
Stolen Painting cutscene now triggers even when scorpions are attacking
March 25th, 2022
Added grey color for inactive class skill calculation tooltips
Fixed Miraculous Antidote heat level for brewing
Sleepwalker dream ending cutscene fixed
Alvimelkedic temple door condition fixed
Fixed minor faction issue with Cult Fanatic
March 28th, 2022
Gershom no longer accepts less than 6 bones
Fixed a bug that prevented leaving Alvimelkedic in some cases
Spell scaling fixed for Severine's Sparkle
Added loot and gold to intoxicated thieves
Category and Race fixed for some Abyssal Knights and Archers
