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RPGWatch Feature - Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness Interview

by Myrthos, 2018-04-26 18:00:12

Farflame reached out to David Zakal to talk about Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness, for which a Kickstarter campaign has started today.

RPGWatch: You revealed a story about evil forces that repeatedly tried to destroy the world until they came up with a scheme based on greed and destruction from within. Some people would probably say it is a common fantasy story while others would see some parallel to our world in it. So how would you describe it? Is it mostly based on common fantasy tropes or is it mostly allegory? Or is it more complex than it seems?

David: In the Black Geyser: Couriers of Darkness backstory, spreading greed is indeed a new plot by dark gods to infiltrate, turn, and eventually wipe the world of mortals. Mortals have learned to cope with fear and evil, but have not learned to face their own weaknesses such as envy or greed. While fear from an external force makes people stick together, envy and greed silently divide and turn them against each other. As you said, it is destruction from inside. Another interesting point in the backstory is that one of the dark gods requires this scheme because she would cease to exist otherwise. She fights to keep a long-time status quo: her eternal life. The status quo and establishments have changed throughout our real history, and those who were interested in keeping the status quo did not hesitate to use the most subtle and ruthless methods to stay in power. Therefore, this is another point where people may find an allegory to the real world, but I would like to state that our game is purely fantasy and any similarities to real-life events are coincidental. We want to make a game our players love and enjoy.

 

RPGWatch: How does the skill system and character progression work? I noticed that classes have unique skills but are there also common skill trees for everybody? Some perks? Pets?

David: Your characters gain experience points during gameplay and combat. When they collect enough experience for a level-up, the game indicates this, and you can finalize the level-up by allocating various things (e.g. skill points). There are three general skills that are available to all classes: Bargain & Persuasion, Learning & Research and Brewing & Drying. Of course, the maximum points you can allocate may be different for each class (a Fighter will never brew as well as a Druid or research as well as a Spellweaver). Additionally, there are a few weapon skills as well (such as Throwing) that are available to all classes.

The closest equivalent to perks I can think of are special abilities that characters may receive at level-up or after special, rare events. In terms of activation, these work like spell-like abilities and behave in the same way as spells in terms of re-memorization. For example, Thunderclap Berserk and Prolonged Berserk are such abilities for the Fighter class.

Pets and familiars are planned to be a Kickstarter stretch goal.

Information about

Black Geyser

SP/MP: Single-player
Setting: Fantasy
Genre: RPG
Platform: PC
Release: Released


Details