Each day, different locations are open to you depending on the available tasks. Once tasks have been set, you head to the map to begin your day. These are useful to help gain experience, earn money, and encounter new demons. This can be stopped by manually moving her again, and honestly, it’s just easier to always move her manually.Īlongside the main story, you will get side quests and tasks from visiting villagers. If there was a tree, or fence, or anything in the way, Vasilisa would just run into this and not move around, essentially locking her in place. I found the auto-run to be slightly problematic. When traversing the open area, you use the left stick to move Vasilisa around and the right stick to highlight points of interest where she will auto-run to. Outside of combat, you will either be in dialogue (which is beautifully voice acted) where you have multiple choice answers when responding or asking further questions or else you’ll be in the open world of a specific area. I found it fun, especially in looking for ways to stack effects or find unique combos to quickly defeat an enemy. The combat is simple and easy to pick up. Depending on what you choose, you can stack effects that can deal extra damage or further protect you. This is where you can select multiple pages, whose effects will all take place in a single turn of yours. Each turn you can combine pages to create a zagavor. Your hand of pages changes each turn, so any unused pages are put back in the book and a random set of pages appear for the next turn. Black pages are usually focused on attacking or negatively affecting the foe, whereas white pages are focused on gaining health or increasing your defence. These moves are on white or black pages, and each page has a single spell you can use. In combat you always go first, and you use the pages of the book as if you would use cards in a deck, to make your moves. It’s turn-based, with the aim to reduce your foes health to zero. On its surface, the gameplay in combat is straightforward. I found these inclusions very interesting, and at times, in between missions, would read through the updated entries to learn more about this world. Throughout the game, there are also instances in which the in-game encyclopaedia updates, providing much deeper information and tales on the subject discussed. There are times in which Slavic terms are used, and these are highlighted in yellow for you to select and learn a description of what they mean. There is a lot of information packed into this game's 20+ hour run time, but Black Book is still accessible for those who have no prior knowledge of Slavic tales. The story and folklore are incredibly fascinating and carry the narrative well, albeit at a very slow pace.
At the time of writing, they have one other released game, The Mooseman, which also draws from Slavic folklore and Russian history.
Throughout Black Book, you play as Vasilisa, facing demons, assisting (and potentially terrorising) town folk, and traversing across a world heavily inspired by dark Slavic mythology and folklore.īlack Book is developed by Morteshka, who are a small Russian independent studio. To do this, she must seek out and use the Black Book: an ancient, demonic text that is powerful enough to grant those who uncover its seven seals a wish. Heartbroken, Vasilisa turns to witchcraft and hopes to use this magic to revive her lost soulmate. This doesn’t last long, as her betrothed suddenly dies. It follows the story of Vasilisa, a young girl who is to become a witch but turns away from sorcery to marry her love. Black Book is a card-based RPG adventure set in 1800s Russia.
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