After succeeding with a playable demo, the project meets its funding goals and begins paving its dark path
These days on Steam a game called Black Book: Prologue is trending, categorized as Free to Play, although it is rather a demo. This is a convincing cover letter for a project that is currently seeking funding through Kickstarter and which has in fact already managed to double its minimum funding in the absence of 19 days, making its way between new goals that are gradually being unveiled. A good sign that is explained from how suggestive the playable demo is.
The game starts from an original and different premise. We play Vasilisa, a young orphan called to be a Znatka, a sorceress capable of speaking, interacting and fighting spirits, under the tutelage of old Egor. Love sets her off the path of witchcraft by deciding to marry her beloved, but fate stands in the way of her happiness when her partner commits suicide, condemning himself to a grave on unspoken ground and to an eternity in hell. The protagonist does not accept this circumstance, nor does she believe that she has committed suicide, so she takes up the magical arts with the promise that by breaking the seven seals of the dark book, she will be able to obtain any wish that her heart longs for.
Dark narrative in the forgotten north
The demonstration is quite short and we propose to live Vasilisa's introduction as a sorceress and her first day of work, enough to try an appetizer of some of the main keys of Black Book. One of its main characteristic elements is its setting, anchored in the Cherdyn region, north of Russia in the 19th century, a crossroads between the Slavic pagan traditions and Christianity, also conditioned by being a gateway between East and West , with influences from both sides. In a rural and desolate setting, the veil between the human and the spiritual is thin, so spirits, demons and all kinds of mythological creatures roam freely, affecting a population that has in witches an authority figure to whom come with your problems.
Those who remember the episodes in The Witcher 3 with the Moirae will find the air that Black Book proposes through its music, mythology and general atmosphere, as both are strongly inspired by Slavic mythology. Obviously Black Book plays in his league and with his weapons, but what is seen causes a very good feeling. The use of Low Poly as an aesthetic option is appropriate, with enough polygons to give life to infinite landscapes of bright wheat fields and dark forests on the outside and dark corners and narrow corridors on the inside – which on the other hand have a certain air to a version Modernized Alone in the Dark given the aesthetic choice and the use of fixed camera angles.
Once in the matter, the game has two aspects. On the one hand we will have the narrative part, where the villagers will come to us with problems to solve and they will ask us to go to certain places for it. A good detail is that we must consult the documents we have to find clues about what is happening in each case and thus be able to give the correct answer, since the main weapon as a witch is our own wisdom, so we will have a good excuse for investigate in lore to get greater rewards in our progression. We will also be able to make different moral decisions, with some quite gloomy that adapt well to the tone of the game and that will surely have consequences along the way.
The other part focuses on combat, which takes place in turns and with spells in the form of letters that we can use with spirits and demons that we cannot convince with oratory. At the moment it is quite basic: spells that hurt, others that protect by a limited number of damage points, some that increase the damage we do and others that hurt an entire group. But the fact that in each turn we can use three cards, combining the actions between them, has the potential to be more elaborate as you work on it. Furthermore, it is confirmed that we will have companions on our journey, and we will also be able to recruit demons to be our servants, which will increase the depth of the possibilities of combat.
The setting, music and narrative tone of the game seen in the demo arouse interest and it is worth trying for enjoyment and in order to have the project in the bedroom for the future – it is also planned that it will be translated into several languages, including the Spanish-. It is a short demo, but it is worth playing and it is not surprising that it has caught the attention of users of the Valve platform (also available on itchi.o). We will have to wait patiently to see if this promising initial first step reaches its potential.
