Design Notes
April 02, 2016
Blacksea Odyssey Now on Steam
Blacksea Odyssey is a violent, top-down, rogue-like space RPG... and it's on Steam RIGHT NOW! Every week, travel across the galaxy with the BlackSea Odyssey team as they release new updates, exploring spacescapes and hunting down enormous space-behemoths.
Being gamers (and game developers), we're always on the hunt for games to play and draw inspiration from, and we want to support the efforts of other indie game developers... especially when they're friends of Artix Entertainment! Team Blacksea Odyssey is a wicked-talented group of developers and designers based out of Orlando, led by Peter Milko. Since they met, he and Artix have traded ideas, stories, and more than a few Energy Potions in their brainstorming marathons!
Inspired by the classic arcade game, Asteroids, and the novel Old Man and the Sea, the team built the first prototype during the 2015 Game Jam. It's been getting a lot of positive feedback from the community and internet ever since, and I can see why -- exploding ships is REALLY satisfying at the end of a long day. (All you MechQuest, EpicDuel, and BioBeasts players know what I'm talking about!)
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Blacksea Odyssey: The Story
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!
Blacksea Odyssey: Features
- 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 spear or harpoon.
- Twitch based Action-Packed Combat: Think classic top-down shooter 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.
Blacksea Odyssey: Reviews
- "If it [the player’s harpoon] strikes its target however, it’s satisfying to then wrench it back out, pulling a fin or a jawbone with it."
- Graham Smith, Editor-in-chief, Rock, Paper, Shotgun - "I love how the harpoon can tear off huge chunks of enemies and send them drifting off into space."
- Ben Davis, Destructoid - "Space-whaling with total badasses on space-bikes chasing after the vicious space-fishies who will spike and claw you to space-shreds if you let up for even a second? Now that’s a proper challenge!"
- James Cunningham, Hardcore Gamer - "You surf on a missile and use a harpoon to rip limbs off of giant space monsters in Blacksea Odyssey. If that doesn't pique your interest, then I don't know what will."
- Joel Couture, Indie Games - "The harpoon, is remarkably gory with space blood spraying out of your prey..."
- Corina Dee, Alpha Beta Gamer - "Hemingway may have been onto something with The Old Man and the Sea. Namely, that whole “man vs. nature” thing. However, it might be more entertaining if it was set in space, and the old man had cybernetics, and he was hunting massive space creatures for competition. Blacksea Odyssey gives players just that."
- Evan Spadaccini, Indie Game Magazine