Blogs - BlackseaOdyssey

Launch Trailer!
Coming to PC/Mac/Linux June 1

Enter the Blacksea Odyssey – a violent underworld brimming with colossal creatures and runic technologies

Explore dangerous, interstellar space-scapes as you hunt enormous space-behemoths

Launches: June 1, 2016
Price: $9.99 (20% off first week)

Ahoy, spacehuntsman! Since Steam Early Access launch, we've been hustling to update the game each week with brand new space behemoths to hunt, runic technologies to unearth, and ancient spears to unlock! Not to mention we've added two unlockable characters: the fierce bounty hunter Rade Lawson and the razzlin' dazzlin Emerald Jones!

While we're certainly still working hard on the remaining content, we thought that it'd be nice to write a post about the Desert elderfish bosses and their kingfish Cthulhu!

Queen Verminess

Queen Verminess, the mother and ruler of all of the beetle species, has massive blade-like pincers capable of slicing the largest of moons in half with a single slash.

King Dreadnaught

King Dreadnaught reigns over the Erakno Destroyer species with ruthless tyranny. His vast arsenal of web-spewing cannons can drape an entire planet, suffocating it's inhabitants while smothering their screams.

Rackjaw

Rackjaw is the eldest ancestor of the Sandchawer species. He has great renown throughout the galaxy by space-creatures and space-huntsman alike for being the fastest creature to roam the Blacksea. He's gnawing pincers can dig through planets causing them to crumble to dust.

Adaea the Weaver

Adaea the Weaver is the mother of all of the Erakno Trailers. Her endless trail of webs litters the furthest, uncharted corners of the Blacksea galaxy. When the planet-beings first tried to send larger spaceships into the Blacksea, it was Adaea who wrapped them all in a covetous net of webs and devoured them for all to see.

Vilemoth

Vilemoth is the last of an ancient breed of asterfish long extinct. The scythe-like blades upon it's monstrous head have scarred not only the densest of planets, but also the great and mighty Titan of the Stars itself. Vilemoth's Dust Storm of Death has wiped out entire civilizations, burying them beneath mountains of sand.

Cthulhu

Cthulhu is kingfish to all of the Desert asterfish. Legend says that Cthulhu's formed his children in his boiling stomach acids, then spit them out. Many believe that Cthulhu smashed a great and ancient star with his bare hands, causing an explosion so large that it destroyed the former universe and created the current one.

Again, we update the game weekly so if you haven't picked up your copy of Blacksea Odyssey, head over to our Steam page to do so!

Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy hunting these recently added celestial colossals!

Enter a vast chasm between space and time brimming with colossal creatures and runic technologies. Once a decade, the greatest huntsmen in the universe gather to compete in a legendary tournament known as the Blacksea Odyssey. Steeped in blood, ancient treasures, and a madness that wills them to delve deeper into the black abyss, these huntsman compete for a chance to claim the ultimate glory of facing a creature of such insatiable ferocity and magnanimous size that its wingspan has been said to stretch across galaxies while it’s breath consumes black holes. A creature rumored to exist only in legend, the Titan of the Stars!

Rip Apart Enemies Piece by Piece: Eviscerate enemy creatures by ripping them apart with your harpoon.

Fully Destructible Everything: Blast through fully destructible environments with your ship or spear.

Twitch based Action-Packed Combat: Reminiscent of classic top-down shooters mixed with modern RPG and rogue-like mechanics.

Hardcore Rogue-like Elements: Featuring permadeath, procedural levels, and incredible replayability.

Massive Bosses: Battle against colossally scaled bosses dwarfing several screen sizes.

Expansive Customization System: Forge millions of runic modifications for your spear and space-board.

I hope you guys will consider checking out our new game! Blacksea odyssey is $9.99 on Steam Early Access, with a new build coming out every week!

Thanks for your time.

-Team Blacksea Odyssey

Blacksea Odyssey is a 2D top-down, multi-directional shoot 'em up with rogue-like and RPG elements. The game features an expansive customization system, fully destructible and procedurally generated environments, and gruesome boss battles with creatures up to ten times the screen size!

You will be able to purchase Blacksea Odyssey for $9.99 on Steam Early Access on March 2nd to become a Beta Playtester and an integral part of the game's development. The Early Access will have tons of content including two biomes, 30+ enemies, 10+ bosses, 100+ items! We're super excited to finally share Blacksea Odyssey with you and hear all of your ideas and feedback!

Enter a vast chasm between space and time brimming with colossal creatures and runic technologies. May the greatest huntsman survive.

Pre-Order the Blacksea Odyssey Early Access Now!

Once a decade, the greatest huntsmen in the universe gather to compete in a legendary tournament known as the Blacksea Odyssey! These brave huntsman compete in capturing bounties for the largest space creatures that exist! Only the sole champion of the competition is awarded the honor of encountering the Titan of the Stars! Legend says no one has ever lived to tell a tale about the Titan. Will the Old Man be the first?

• Sail the dangerous, interstellar depths of the Blacksea galaxy
• Rip massive space creatures to shreds with a harpoon and rune-infused spears
• Unearth hundreds of runic technologies and combine them to craft the ultimate weapon

Puff Daddy

New Crystal boss and eldest member of the Puffer Genome.

The Chomper Genome

Biterfly

The smallest member of the Chomper Genome which can usually be found in packs!

Chompchaser

The Chompchasers function similarly to the Biterflies, but also have a chomp charge!

Chompzilla

The largest of the Chomper Genome because it has a mouth inside of a mouth inside of a mouth!

Great Ghuza

Great Ghuza, inspired by ancient temples, is an elder ancestor of the Shelled Squid Genome!

Audio

Here's another concept by Earl Divinagracia! It's a boss theme song for the Jungle biome. You can also view more Blacksea Odyssey songs on his SoundCloud!

We hope you enjoy all the new content and are looking forward to more! Don't forgot to follow us on our Website, Facebook, and Twitter!

The Blacksea Odyssey beta build has been sent to all $25 and up Kickstarter backers – so check your emails! You’ll LOVE the progress we’ve made!

If you missed our Kickstarter, you can still Pre-Order Blacksea Odyssey!

Thanks so much to everyone that downloaded our alpha demo and provided us with feedback and bug reports! We had a total of over 6,250 downloads!

With your help, we aggregated, analyzed, and applied all of the feedback to Blacksea Odyssey to make it even more fun!

In addition to tons of bug fixing and balancing, we’ve added so much including the Jungle biome, 10+ new enemies, 3+ new bosses, and 20+ new items!

Moonsplitter

Crystal Boss and eldest member of the Icepiercer Genome

Megalarch

Jungle Boss and eldest member of the Shelled Squid Genome

Belch Brothers

Jungle Boss and eldest member of the Croaker Genome

Audio Updates

Let’s not forget the brilliant work of our sound designer Eric Hamel and our musician Earl Divinagracia! You can obviously hear both of their amazing work in-game, but we figured we’d tease one of Earl’s new songs here:

Lastly, you all already know to send bug reports and feedback to:
teamblackseaodyssey@gmail.com.

We’ll also have weekly polls, but more on that later! We’re looking forward to seeing what you think of all the fresh content! Don’t forget to follow our Website, Facebook, and Twitter!

Ahoy Space-Huntsmen! We hope everyone had a great holiday season! We’re glad to be back to work after a long Kickstarter campaign. Thanks to you, we raised $12,300 which will help us finish the game!

We’d also like to thank everyone that has contributed feedback. We’ve been fortunate that tons of people reached out via Twitter, Facebook, email, and the contact form to share their thoughts and ideas about Blacksea Odyssey. We’ve been hard at work tweaking the game according to this feedback, but we’re going to spend this blog post talking about a jungle enemy genome that we have yet to touch on – the Shelled Squid genome. :)

The Shelled Squid Genome

Now we’d like to introduce to you three new enemies of the Shelled Squid genome which can be found in the Tropical biome! Shelled Squids draw inspiration from squids and hermit crabs! The Shelled Squid genome consists of the Shelled Squidlet, the Shelled Hulksquid, and the Shelled Megasquid.

The Shelled Squidlet

Shelled Squidlets navigate around their prey by firing poison projectiles which propel them forward, shell first. This enables them to make abrupt strides across the screen, allow them to catch the player off-guard. Depending on the player’s position, Shelled Squidlets attack by either firing a poison projectile at the player, or trying to ram the player with it’s thorned shell. They’re smaller and quicker than other Shelled Squids, making them more dangerous in packs.

The Shelled Hulksquid

Shelled Hulksquids share many similarities with their smaller, Shelled Squidlet kin. The major difference revolves around size. Shelled Hulksquids have larger bodies, larger shells, and fire larger poison projectiles. Their large strides across the screen can be more invasive to the player, especially when already in combat with other enemies. Thankfully, it’s less common for Shelled Hulksquids to travel in packs.

The Shelled Megasquid

Shelled Megasquids are the most dangerous of the Shelled Squids genome. They function similarly to the Shelled Squidlets and Shelled Hulksquids in both movement and attack patterns. However, Shelled Megasquids have three pores from which they fire poison projectiles as supposed to only one. They’re also angled slightly, giving it’s ranged attack a spread effect. Furthermore, the three pores can fire both simultaneously and randomly – making for a more unpredictable attack pattern.

Thanks for reading and hope you’re looking forward to fighting these squid-like, poison spitting creatures! Don’t forget to follow our Facebook, Twitter,Twitch, and Website for more information.

We reached our funding goal!

Ahoy Space Hunstmen! First off, we just want to give everyone a huge thanks that supported our Kickstarter and helped us get to where we are now! It was a close campaign, but we did it! We couldn't be more thankful to everyone that supported us and are excited to finish development for Blacksea Odyssey. I'm sure that together we'll make something great.

Last Day Twitch Stream

Facebook Event Page

For the last day of our Kickstarter campaign we'll be streaming all day from 10 am to 8 pm EST. We'll be playing other developer's games, talking about Blacksea Odyssey, as well as hanging out with some of our fans! Feel free to come by the stream and ask us any questions about the game or anything else you may be interested in. We look forward to seeing you there!

For a detailed list of our guests, check out the schedule here:

A couple of additional special guests that may be dropping in with us at random times to talk about our game as well as theirs are Sean Young the creator of Magicite and Roguelands, and Adam Bohn the founder and CEO of Artix Entertainment.

Join the Twitch Stream Facebook Event Here!

Lastly, we're still a few supporters short of our Thunderclap goal! The Thunderclap is to announce the last 48 hours of our Kickstarter campaign and it ends tomorrow. If we don't reach our goal by the end of tonight, the Thunderclap won't announce. :/ It only takes a second and is an easy way to help us reach one of our stretch goals!

You Can Join Our Thunderclap Here!

Once again, a huge thanks to everyone that supported us! We'll see you next time in the Blacksea, huntsmen!

Ahoy, Space-Huntsmen! Our Kickstarter campaign for Blacksea Odyssey has been going better than we could of hoped for. With only 4 days left we’re nearly 90% funded! At the current rate we’re confident we can finish our campaign successfully but will need your support to get there.

We decided to make this video about a day in the life of Team Blacksea Odyssey for the last week of the campaign. Share, like, and comment on it!

A Day in the Life of Team Blacksea Odyssey
The Croaker Genome

Now we’d like to introduce to you three new enemies from the Croaker genome which can be found in the Tropical biome! Croakers draw inspiration from frogs, toads, and other lilly pod hopping amphibians! The croaker genome consists of the Skittish Leap-Frog, the Thorned Tri-Frog, and the Whaletongued Bull-Frog.

The Skittish Leap-Frog

Leap-Frogs bounce around their prey frantically trying to find an opening to attack. Inside their tongues are glands full of poisons that deal deadly blows to their enemies. In groups, the Leap-Frogs can create a grave threat as they hop from location to location all the while attempting to stick you with their deadly tongues.

The Thorned Tri-Frog

The Thorned Tri-Frog is something of an abnormality among it’s kin. With it’s multiple heads each acting independently of one another, it can sometimes be difficult to tell when it will lash out next! Like it’s smaller sibling the Leap-Frog, the Tri-Frog tongues are also jam packed with poison. A slap from one of these tongues will heavily damage most huntsmen.

The Whaletongued Bull-Frog

The Whaletongued Bull-Frog is a massive monstrosity among croakers! It leaps about the battlefield with elegant ease, carefully blanketing space with it’s massive body. When it finally lands, it unleashes it’s whale-like tongue in a reckless furry, destroying everything that comes within it’s path! Watch out for this great Tropical beast. Encountering one of them may be your last time in the Blacksea, hunstmen!

Join our Thunderclap for the Final 48 Hour Push!

For the final 48 hours of our campaign we’re launching a thunderclap to raise awareness of our kickstarter campaign.

A really easy way to help support our project is to join our thunderclap campaign. Simply click the link below and click the red button and then choose which social media outlets you would like to support our project with.

Thunderclap Campaign Link

Thanks again for reading huntsmen and will see you in the next update!

Concept Artwork

Enemies

The enemies above portray both visual and behavior ideas for creatures that could be found in the Tropical Biome. The bottom left enemy shows a possible scenario for enemy health distribution in regards to it's weak-points.

Characters

The first image is one of the original concepts for the Old Man as a biker. In the middle is the initial concept for Rade Lawson. The top right image is a concept for the Old Man Pirate Skin. Lastly, the bottom right concept was the very first concept for Emerald Jones.

Promo Art Ideas

Here is a photo of various potential compositions for our Kickstarter promotional artwork. Peter experimented with various perspectives and ideas before we choose one to flesh out.

Promo Art

Here's a side by side of the promo concept we decided to pursue and the final asset. Peter tweaked the perspective while working on it as we felt the original concept was too flat.

Queen Verminess

Here's a side by side of the original sketch for Queen Verminess and a screenshot containing the final asset in-game. Peter altered the proportions and scale to better compliment the gameplay.

We hope you enjoyed these concept artworks and understand a little better of how we go from idea to final asset in regards to art. If you have any questions about our process, don't hesitate to leave a comment below!

Thunderclap - The Last 48 Hours!

In order to raise awareness of our Kickstarter campaign for the last 48 hours, we've decided to run a Thunderclap to help us spread the news about our campaign.

How it works

1. Click this button:



2. Once the webpage opens, click each of these buttons on the website:



3. A popup modal should appear. Click this button on the popup:

It takes only a second of your time and makes a world of difference for us. When there are only 48 hours left for our Kickstarter campaign, this announcement will be posted on your social media feed if you join.

Greenlight

We're excited to announce that Blacksea Odyssey we've been Greenlit our first week! :D

Rune System

There are five different rarities of runes which you can discover in the Blacksea. Each rune type has a rarity associated with it as well as a description of what the rune does.

Common Runes (White)

Uncommon Runes (Green)

Rare Runes (Blue)

Epic Runes (Purple)

Legendary Runes (Gold/Red)

As you can see we follow a system of rarity similar to other RPG games like Diablo and World of Warcraft. As the runes become more rare, they also become increasingly more powerful. The rarest of rune types - Legendary Runes - are always named runes with no other variations of that specific rune type. Additionally, only one Legendary rune can be equipped at a time. However, less rare runes like the attack speed runes may have multiple levels of that rune type. For example in our game there are four different attack speed runes - for various rarities. The greater the rarity, the more powerful the rune.

Inventory full of Runes

Lastly it's important to note that the player can only equip four spear runes and four boat runes at one time. This limits the player from equipping an absurd amount of runes at once, so you'll have to pick and choose which runes fit your intended build the best.

So what makes this all special?

When designing the weapon system for Blacksea Odyssey, two words came to mind for us: flexibility and replayability. We wanted players to be able to invent there own cool ideas and builds to play around with as they theory-craft designs. We were heavily influenced by the game Path of Exile and it's rune system. While our system is not as extensive as theirs, there certainly is a lot of similarities between our rune system and theirs. Namely, mix and match as many rune types as you would like without being limited. For example, if you wanted to have four attack speed runes to turn your spear chucking Huntsmen into a hovering gatling gun, you could do that. Or if you wanted to build a high damage but slow firing weapon with a chance to land a critical shot that would one shot some bosses, you could do that too. The possibilities for runes builds in our game are limited only to your imagination. We're planning on having over 100 different runes in the game which put the number of potential rune build combinations over a million.

Attack Speed II + Rune of Dyrnwyn + Split Shot III + Poison III

Above is an example of a combination of several runes equipped. As you can see this build is very strong.

Anyways, we hope you enjoyed this breakdown of our rune system. If you have any questions about it, feel free to drop them in the comments below.