Kickstarter Coming Soon For Expansion Pack
over 2 years ago – Tue, Sep 12, 2023 at 07:55:46 AM

Greetings, adventurers!

We are happy to announce that that we are going to launch a Kickstarter campaign very soon (early October) to fund the DLC's development - its Coming Soon page is already live on Kickstarter! 

We encourage you to subscribe to its launch notification on the Coming Soon page. Your subscription (the number of subscribers) will help us a lot in the planning of the campaign, including the stretch goals. If you're an existing backer already having the DLC add-on, you will be offered another cool reward in the DLC Kickstarter (for any pledges that normally give the DLC), so we've got covered here. Of course, you can still choose to get a second copy of the DLC instead, if you prefer.

If the Kickstarter campaign is successful, our studio won't be forced to close, and the DLC is expected to arrive before August 2024.

You can check out this forum post for more details on the DLC and its associated Fixpack. We want to emphasize that this Fixpack will be a free Steam/GOG update to all owners of the base game, so you won't need to purchase the DLC to get it. 

Backers of our previous Kickstarter campaign who haven't received their physical rewards yet (game box, lorebook etc.) will receive all items well before the start of the DLC campaign, as all shipping will be completed before the end of September.

Thank you for your support and be sure to join us on Discord, or across social media, to let us know your thoughts.

The Black Geyser Team

Shipping rewards and DLC plans
over 2 years ago – Tue, Aug 29, 2023 at 06:51:08 AM

Ho there, adventurers!

Now all physical rewards are packed and ready to be sent. We truly hoped that we could make this happen in August, but we need a couple of weeks more to actually deliver them to you who still haven't received it. 

Since rewards are delivered to all over the world, and more than half of the packages will be sent outside the European Union, they will be subject to customs clearance as well. This makes the whole process more complicated, because we want to make sure everything is set perfectly even for the packages that will be delivered outside the EU (it seems that this was easier for crowdfunding rewards a couple of years before, but not anymore). We could send the packages at different times in different batches (e.g. EU, USA, Asia etc.), but then we would lose a major discount that we get for the very high number of packages (making our finances even more difficult).

To be brief, you should receive all your physical rewards before the end of September. Thank you for your patience. 

Game Localizations

Besides English, the game is now also available in Brazilian-Portuguese (released today!),  French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish,  Spanish, Latin American Spanish, Simplified Chinese, Russian, and Turkish. 

Future of the team and DLC plans

As far as the future of Black Geyser and our studio is concerned, we are truly grateful for your extremely valuable feedback that you provided here on Kickstarter and via our Google survey  as well (the survey will remain open for some more time). Based on the results, we have decided to organize a Kickstarter campaign for the DLC in the near future. We also managed to secure the required minimum budget for organizing such a campaign. For more details on the planned DLC, see this forum post.

If the Kickstarter is successful, our team will be able to stay together and create a DLC for the game. In this case, a free fixpack will also be developed for the base game, which will be delivered as a free regular update to all owners of the game (you won't need to own the DLC to receive this update). Even though we call it a fixpack, it will contain new features and important QoL improvements as well (check out this post for the complete list).

Since a successful Kickstarter campaign for the DLC enables the Black Geyser team to stay afloat, it will also allow us to plan a Black Geyser sequel in details and launch another Kickstarter later to fund its development. Sadly, if the DLC Kickstarter fails, our studio will most likely be forced to shut down.

We will inform you as soon as we have more details to share about the upcoming Kickstarter. This update should happen within two weeks.

The Black Geyser Team

We Need Your Feedback
about 3 years ago – Fri, Mar 03, 2023 at 07:43:44 PM

Greetings adventurers,

Our team is currently facing financial difficulties. It's not getting any better for now, but we have some hope here that we want to share with you. The current post will discuss two topics: delivering Kickstarter rewards to backers (this is not in danger), and the overall project status and future of our studio (this is a big problem currently).

If you have no time now to read further, please skip directly to our Google survey.

Delivering boxed editions soon

First of all, we are truly sorry about the big delay many of you might be experiencing in receiving your physical Kickstarter rewards. All digital rewards (lorebooks, original soundtrack, digital wallpapers etc.) have been sent a couple of days ago - if you haven't received yours, please let us know and we will look into it immediately.

Good news is that all physical rewards (premium and normal boxes, books, cloth maps, T-Shirts, mousepads and keychains) have been produced except a last batch of lorebooks. This final batch of books rolls off the production line in 2 weeks and will be delivered to us immediately. This means that all physical rewards should be ready for shipping before the end of this month. In what follows, we will discuss the reason of the delays.

Delays regarding Black Geyser almost always have financial reasons, and reward delivery was no exception. When the full version of Black Geyser finally launched in March 2022, the war was already active in our neighbor country Ukraine. Inflation in our country increased significantly, and the international shortage of pulp and paper already affected the printing/manufacturing industry in most countries. Manufacturing prices increased a lot compared to our original financial plan, so we needed to start making new reserves to be able to produce the physical rewards. There were other difficulties as well - negotiation and special deals for each reward type. For example, even before the war, we were not able to find a high-quality printing company that offers custom box manufacturing in quantities smaller than 500 copies (per box type). Not even for a higher price. Similar issues arose for other reward types as well before we finally managed to find suitable partners for everything.

Future of the Black Geyser Team

First and foremost, a reminder of who we are and what Black Geyser is. We are a very small indie team, and Black Geyser has always been a community effort. Without your support, it wouldn't exist at all. Sometimes we receive feedback where disappointed players seem to believe we are a mid-size indie company. We are not, and it's definitely our mistake if we have set exaggerated expectations with Black Geyser for some backers. Having said that, we sincerely believed in every single objective that we ever set for Black Geyser. It is our very first videogame product, and we learnt really a lot from this project. We made mistakes of varying severity in management, planning, scope, writing, design, character depth and so on. Still, we created a serviceable game (that is hopefully still enjoyed by many), with a Steam rating of 71% and a GOG rating of 3.9 out of 5. This is as far as we could get with our limited budget.

We learnt from our mistakes, looking at Black Geyser as a first lesson. We want to finish its DLC, and we would love to create a sequel as well - a sequel 10 times better than the original Black Geyser. Unfortunately, however, we encountered an obstacle that we cannot defeat alone: funding our team, even short-term. A Catch 22 situation. We are constantly supporting Black Geyser and trying to address several issues, but current sales are no longer enough to keep our studio afloat. In fact, sales are decreasing as Steam rating is gradually reduced by the reviews of disappointed players. There are more than 80,000 wishlists currently, but they do not convert to sales. There we are, a Catch 22 situation. At the same time, living costs have greatly increased here due to inflation, and our team members have to make a living, too.

Regardless of what happens, all Kickstarter rewards (boxes, books etc.) will be delivered. We have got you covered here.

Black Geyser and creating further RPGs have been our dream. However, unless we get a clear signal that players want us to keep developing games, it might be soon the time to move on. The current situation is not good for anyone: we cannot deliver the quality and gaming experience to you that we would like to, making you disappointed. At the same time, several team members already left, and our core team is in danger as well - we can no longer make a living in these circumstances.

Therefore, we ask your sincere feedback about Black Geyser and our future projects (including Kickstarter campaigns). We ask you to fill this Google Forms survey (it is very short) and spread the word about it as much as you can. 

What We Can Do

Without support from the fan base, we will have to close our studio after all Kickstarter rewards are delivered to backers. On the other hand, if we get the necessary support from you in a Kickstarter campaign, we will be able to finish the DLC development this year and will also start working on the Black Geyser sequel. (See planned DLC features.) In details:

What we have:

• We have a fully functional RPG game engine in place that we only need to improve. This is much, much, much cheaper than developing an engine from scratch based on Unity.
• A still strong team with many lessons learnt from Black Geyser 1. A team that has leveled up several experience levels.
• Former team members of great expertise who will return to us once we can afford their positions.

What we need for the DLC and the sequel: 

• A Kickstarter to fund the DLC and then the Black Geyser sequel. So we don't ask support for any ongoing operation but for developing something new. First, developing a DLC, then a sequel.

Frequently Asked Questions:

We have posted a detailed FAQ on Steam that will answer a lot of questions you may have about the current topic.

Again, please fill in this short Google Forms survey if you have time. It would help us a LOT. 

Thank you for your feedback in advance!

Black Geysers Officially Launches
about 4 years ago – Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 02:06:13 PM

Ho there, adventurers!

After years of development, a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign, and over 6 months of Early Access, Black Geyser officially launched into 1.0 today. In that time, we've worked incredibly hard to implement your feedback and improve on the things that matter to you.

We will soon be back with more information on the schedule regarding the delivery of Kickstarter-specific rewards (both digital and physical). In the meantime, here are some improvements that happened during the Early Access period:

What We've Improved

Black Geyser's most requested improvement.

We've vastly improved load times to significantly improve the speed at which you can enter and exit buildings and zones. We continue to work hard on improving these even further.
 

You suggested, we delivered.

Our tutorial wasn't perfect, and Black Geyser was difficult to start out in. We've overhauled the tutorial, cleaned up our signposting and given players much more help through its opening hours.
 

Magic lacked spark.

You right highlighted that casters were far too weak compared to other classes in Black Geyser, so we completely reworked their abilities and balance to significantly improve their potency.
 

You wanted even more content and we were happy to oblige.

Black Geyser was already a large game, but when it comes to old-school CRPG's, we agree you can never have enough. We've implemented all new quests, Chapter 3 of the core story and made significant improvements to plenty of others.
 

Hitting like a wet noodle is never fun.

Many players raised concerns that their characters and their abilities weren't scaling properly, leaving them feeling far too weak against ever tougher enemies. We've fixed this, so you'll feel much stronger as you explore the wilds of Yerengal. 

Everyone should be able to play Black Geyser.

Mac & Linux support were important for us and our community, and never more so than with the Steam Deck having arrived (we have hopes!). We're pleased to say Black Geyser is now available on both.

We want our encounters to be tactical and challenging.

We've added all new boss mechanics and unique encounters to Black Geyser. These are designed to make fights much more tactical, while ensuring greater difficulty for those who choose to seek out these enemies. 

Wrap up warm for these cold spots.

You can now explore the northern frozen harbour of Freynagar, separated from the city by a huge ice dome, or take a trip to Amanuel's Hoard, the seaside fort owned by the greediest man in history. These new zones come with a cold warning. 

Love to make potions? Its got much better

Our crafting wasn't as intuitive as it could be, and it was too time consuming. We've streamlined the process, implemented automated recipes (have the items in your inventory? You'll be able to craft at the press of a button) and refined the process by making it much more accessible.

Finally if you've missed it, we've a launch trailer below!

Thank You

Thank you to everyone who has been on this journey with us and don't worry, we're not finished yet. We've plenty of updates on the horizon. For all those diving in for the first time, be sure to stop by our Discord and chat by the fire.

The Black Geyser Team

Let Your Greed Grow On March 17
about 4 years ago – Sat, Feb 19, 2022 at 06:25:02 AM

Greetings, adventurers!

We're happy to announce that Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness will be released on 17th March 2022!

Since the game released into Early Access in August 2021, we've been blown away by the sheer amount of feedback and support we've received. We knew that the game wasn't quite where we wanted it to be, and we wanted to work hard and use this time to refine our vision. In total, we've delivered over 19 huge updates. From significant improvements to loading times, all new quest chapters, to a fully reworked tutorial and fresh zones: explore the northern frozen harbour of Freynagar, separated from the city by a huge ice dome, or take a trip to Amanuel's Hoard, the seaside fort owned by the greediest man in history. 

Going back in history a bit... One of our key milestones in the project financing was our campaign on Kickstarter. It is the contribution and awesome feedback of our crowdfunding backers that made this project a reality. THANK YOU!

Last year, before finalizing the custom content, we sent e-mails (both manually and via BackerKit) to contact all backers with a game design related reward tier (such as the Undead Miser hoard design). Even though we used a different e-mail address for the reminder emails (hosted by distinct major providers, including Google) to ensure our emails don't end up in spam folder, a small percentage of backers could not be reached in any way. In their case, we assumed that they didn't intend to participate in the game design. Thank you everyone again for your support and contributions!

If you have used your Steam/GOG key to activate your Early Access version of the game, then you will receive the full release automatically via your client software. If you haven't yet activated the game, you can find your key(s) in your BackerKit account.

Most extra digital rewards will be delivered at launch, while a smaller part of them will be delivered a couple of weeks later. Boxed editions and physical rewards will also be delivered later (we will inform you as soon as we know more information on this), but the digital keys that belong to them are already available in your BackerKit account in the "Downloads" section, so you can play the full version of the game immediately at launch.

We will keep you updated!

The Black Geyser Team