Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness Update #32 – Backer Beta Video Preview

This month’s Kickstarter update for GrapeOcean Technologies’ isometric RPG Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness talks a bit about the game’s upcoming Backer Beta, lets us know that the developers have recently managed to secure some additional funding, and shares roughly 20 minutes of fresh, developer-narrated gameplay footage. According to the update, we can now expect the Backer Beta to go live in November 2019, with the full release scheduled for April 2020.

Here’s the video:

And here are the text bits:

For this update, we want to address more specific dates relating to our delays, while at the same time giving our backers a much better idea of what to expect. For this gameplay video, we will be focusing on the dialogue and story aspects of Black Geyser, and the systems throughout the game by which players will be able to influence their surroundings while interacting with NPCs. All of the footage you will see in this video is part of the Black Geyser Backer Beta; backers who have pledged for a tier that includes this reward will be able to play through the same sequence of events that we choose in the video, as well as a lot of content before and after what you will see here. The options that go unselected are things our beta backers can choose in the Beta, as they are possible routes in the conversation and may lead to very different results than those you see in this quest.

The Cult of Zoria quest presented here ties in directly to the main story quest of the game. Your character has been hired by a mysterious figure in Isilbright (the capital city of the kingdom of Isilmerald) to flush out the cult dedicated to the worship of Zoria, Demigoddess of Night. Strange things have been happening in the countryside west of Isilbright, along with the disappearances of important political and religious figures. It’s up to you to root out the truth and discover what the demigoddess’ recent resurgence of followers might mean. But in the course of your investigation you find other adventurers, sent before you to investigate the same happenings. Will you help them, or claim the glory for yourself alone? Can you discover what the cultists are up to before it’s too late?

Just as a reminder, for a short while longer our late backing is still available. If you are interested in what you see in this update and want to be a first-time backer, visit our Backer portal here. If you are an existing backer who has not yet pledged for a tier including the rewards which grant you access to our Backer Beta, you still have a chance to upgrade your pledge on BackerKit; follow the link in your email that we sent you after you first pledged to access our pledge manager, and update it to a higher tier if you want to join the beta!

Current status

As discussed in our previous Kickstarter update, delays were expected due to the combination of external and internal causes. To be brief, we faced more unpredictable bugs than we assumed we would in our initial project plan. After fixing them, we decided to rewrite a part of our Unity-based game engine to make it more robust in order to reduce the risk of similar bugs in the future. This refactor is now complete. Other bugs were completely out of our control (for example, the Unity core engine and editor have their own issues as well, and we have very little influence on those).

Additionally, for several months it looked like our negotiations with the investor who proposed a change in funding milestones might have finished at any moment, but talks only ended a few days ago – with success. The good news is that the game will have all the features that we originally planned for (as well as those promised due to successfully-reached Kickstarter stretch goals), but there will be a delay of 8-9 months in the release of the Backer Beta as well as in the launch of the finished game from the dates we originally planned. Therefore, the Backer Beta is expected to be accessible in November 2019, while the release of the game is expected to be ready by April 2020.

Our next Kickstarter update is planned at the end of June. Stay tuned!