Black Book

A very genuinely stunning game. I am not usually a fan of deck building games, but this one kept me thinking about my strategies while continually evolving in complexity with each "Seal", the games story acts, across which the story evolved alongside, introducing new characters at a manageable pace while throwing in twists that change the players relationship with the existing ones. The simple poly artstyle is used to breathtaking effect in some scenes, as the absolute control the developers kept over the games camera let them frame the world they built perfectly. There are moody vistas you would not expect. Especially those large beautiful frames are often accompanied by great music, the Choir employed for the soundtrack is beautiful. The story and world are well researched, and the in game lexicon lets the player learn about the real world folkloric foundation of the project as they experience it. So why can i not reccomend this game as is? The Artbook included with the Supporters Pack prominently features, in the last artwork included, a large "OIdal" rune. This pseudohistoric variation of the Germanic "Futhark Alphabet" Rune "Othala" was a german Nazi fabrication, not used in history, with which they marked their infamous SS, the Schutzstaffel. The Rune sees modern use as a Neo-Nazi dogwhistle, marking Neo Nazi works in a way that is difficult for the uninitiated to spot. While the creators politics are their own, i would have expected better from the people whom i, in playing their game, came to expect to care about history and mythology. To include this rune, in such a fashion that it can only be spotted after becoming invested in the game, feels like a profound betrayal of the values the developers supposedly care for, for no other reason than to Wink-and-nod to fellow Nazis.

Absolutely rules. You do have to treat it as kind of a mysterious game, since it's translated *and* it's deeply about the culture it's translated from, but if you have any kind of an interest in Russian folk traditions and Christianity and paganism and syncretism you're probably gonna want to buy in at full price. On the flipside, if you're Christian and not super comfy with the occult you may have an Extra Bad time here. Or you might be fine. It's a testament to how strong the writing and atmosphere are that I got some goosebumps, in a way I didn't from Faith. In Black Book you play as an apprentice witch whose lover was believed to have committed suicide, and so was denied a Christian burial, condemning them to hell. The only reasonable way to fish him out is by entering into a pact with the devil to crack some seals on an old book, and right away Black Book starts to show some nuance. It does use words like evil, but it's surprisingly slow to judge. Demons are compelled by their nature. People are driven by desires and by trauma. Witches are defined by their pacts with things. God is a set of rules that you can comply with, or suffer if you fail to. You can do evil witch stuff, which gets you money and power. You can do kind witch stuff, which makes the lives of others better. You can do godly stuff, which absolves your sins. You can treat demons kindly or attack them and the same is true of people. There's a lot of mechanical depth, even if the core battle system is a kind of wonky Slay The Spire, and the striking thing about Black Book is how much research is in it. This is a game that wants to teach, record, and preserve folk beliefs---and it is willing to do so in exhaustive detail. There's heaps of items, herbs, little interactions, journal entries, even a subsystem about picking dialog choices based on your understanding of certain traditions for more exp. There's an upgrade tree, which isn't actually that deep but there's a lot of it (take meaningless tasks for chorts, and then equipment capacity upgrades, and then take whatever you want, maybe splash in a level of cheating at poker.) Oh, yeah, there's a whole Russian card game that is badly explained but fun once you get the knack for it. It's kind of like War, but you can extend your combo and shove a million cards into the other guy's hand. Things being badly explained is kind of a throughline in Black Book. The translation isn't even super consistent, and it makes dialog choices feel kinda perilous sometimes. There's three girls and you're supposed to pick "the third from the left." Does that mean rightmost girl? Leftmost girl? She's also supposedly bloody but none of them are, so you click on one to see if there's more context and ope, guess you chose that one. On top of this, the clues for questions sometimes just do not exist. You'll get a journal entry that says "sometimes changelings replace babies with aspen logs" and the question you have is "how do you tell" and that's not in the entry lmao. However, the game has pretty generous difficulty settings and has a "skip this battle" option that does not penalize you and that the game's few puzzle fights would be genuinely unplayable without ("do exactly the right sequence of card drops" sucks already and it gets way way worse when it is not clear how *specifically* any given mechanic works.) I think in a game with less heart, I'd find these issues really annoying, but in Black Book they're easy to ignore because of how strong the rest of the vision is. I'll update as I play, but thus far it's been one of my favorite games this year, with a richness and earnestness that's hard to compete with.

Несмотря на неказистый внешний вид и скудному геймплею по началу, игра оказалась очень даже. В ней неплохо сделан основной сюжет и дополнительные задачи, отдельно хочется выделить головоломки и загадки.

Не знаю откуда такой рейтинг у игры. Весьма посредственная по смыслу и боёвке. Очень сильно перегруженная скрепами. Тоска, в общем.

Первая моя игра в жанре карточных игр. Но как я был удивлён этой истории. Игра очень понравилась: стилистика, история, сюжет, музыка, персонажи, фольклор - всё на высшем уровне. Минусов нет, возможно лишь совет или рекомендация, что сделать лучше: побольше возможности для сохранений.

Рекомендую !

Это шикарная игра, основанная на пермском фольклоре. Любителям интересных историй однозначно рекомендую. Наш славянский сеттинг. Пермская нечисть. Старинные заговоры, обычаи, песни и обряды... Я себя так кайфово чувствовала только когда сказки в детстве читала. Озвучка вообще оргазмическая. Сюжет мрачноватый, как и надо, но меня он расслабляет. То ли из-за неспешности, то ли из-за приятной музыки)

Poor writing, very poor voice acting, a clunky UI, simplistic gameplay and a lack of small detail, this game lost my interest very quickly. If those things don't bother you and the lore seems interesting, knock yourself out.

Ужасный игровой баланс

Bom demais