Black Geyser - Finds a Publisher

The Black Geyser devs team up with V publishing for the furhter development and release of the game.

Thank you for being patient with us. We are very excited to announce that we have partnered with indie game publisher V Publishing. We're excited to work with a publishing team that has years of experience promoting and developing games.

As a team we felt we needed a partner to help us deliver a great experience and provide valuable insights into the marketing and final gameplay experience, but did not want a traditional publisher to come and take away the creative control of the game. That is why we have teamed up with V Publishing. It is a true partnership, and we are working to see the original vision of the game come to life as intended. The team at V will be helping us improve many aspects of the final game and they have already started putting multiple plans in place, including regular development updates, more community engagement and activities, and of course announcing plans regarding launching the game.

Michael Brown, the CEO of V Publishing, wanted to pass on a quick message to all our community members: "As huge fans of games like Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate, the whole team at V are looking forward to helping improve and deliver a great indie CRPG with depth, and a narrative experience that will be memorable. We hope to add huge value to GrapeOcean's team and start getting the game in the hands of you all later this year. We are excited to also become members of the community and having fun with you all in the coming months."

As for our team here, we hope this announcement gets you excited for what we have coming up. We'll be launching the Steam page and releasing new content details in the coming weeks so stay tuned for that!

Thanks MAHak

More information.

HAHA!

Doubters.

I never doubted so right back at you.

Now wonder if it will release this year?

Anyway I never heard of V publishing before.

Link - https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/VPublishing

Now I know why not to many games under their belt.

This one is going straight to the top3 of my wishlist as soon as it hits steam.

I'm currently playing through "Expeditions:Viking" and greatly enjoying it, so this one'll join "Exp:Rome" right up at the top.

Good to see that this is moving forward. I was very disappointed with Realms Beyond being practically cancelled so this has to compensate.

Originally Posted by Giovanni1983
Good to see that this is moving forward. I was very disappointed with Realms Beyond being practically cancelled so this has to compensate.

Is Realms Beyond canceled? I'm not following any news about, but that's a bummer.

I remember seeing many threads in Steam quoting their discord server. This is one:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/76255…5448996860277/

Originally Posted by Giovanni1983
I remember seeing many threads in Steam quoting their discord server. This is one:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/76255…5448996860277/

Ok. It's dead. So dead.

I hope this serves them well. It'll be curious to see how this all plays out in the end.

Originally Posted by GabrielMP_19
Is Realms Beyond canceled? I'm not following any news about, but that's a bummer.

A better explanation of what happened.

For reference: HobGoblin42 (aka Peter) is the programmer & co-owner of Ceres Sheihadul (aka Timothy) is the level designer / business manager & co-owner of Ceres Tharagavverug is the lead writer / quest designer

Because Hobgoblin & Sheihadul are both 50% owner of the company they need to agree on major business decisions. Hobgoblin told us on Discord that sometime last year they were very close to making a deal with an investor which would've let them keep working on the game full-time until they were ready to sell it on Steam Early Access. He felt the deal was fair enough, but evidently Sheihadul disagreed as he pulled them out of the deal at the last minute.

After that, they came to an agreement that Hobgoblin would focus entirely on the programming & Shehaidul would focus on the business side (managing finances and negotiating with potential publishers / investors). They apparently had several interested parties so things still seemed optimistic at that point.

Earlier this year HobGoblin told us he was concerned that he hadn't heard from Sheihadul in an unusually long time. Hobgoblin has since heard from Sheihadul but he is basically not answering questions specific to RB's financial status anymore. It seems like he simply doesn't care about the project anymore.

Since they do have a working engine / toolset and lots of assets, Tharagavverug came up with a backup plan to create a small standalone adventure module that they could finish in the relatively near future with little budget. They'd be able to give it to backers and sell it on Steam to everyone else for a reasonable price. If this was successful they could create other mini adventures with the goal of raising funds to get the main game in a state where it's ready for Early Access.

HobGoblin likes the idea. The problem is they need Sheihadul to agree before they can move forward or he could legally shut it down (as 50% owner). They've proposed the idea to him but as of now he has not agreed to it. Again, seems like he just doesn't care about RB anymore.

You may recall Ceres got a government grant of 100K Euros after the Kickstarter. However, they've only actually received 40K. The reason is the govt. expects progress to be shown (i.e., an upcoming release of something) in order to get the remainder of the grant funds. HobGoblin has said that if action isn't taken soon (either by making a deal with a publisher or proceeding with the backup plan) Ceres will probably have to declare bankruptcy by this Summer.

What happens if Ceres go bankrupt?

HobGoblin apparently personally owns the game engine & tools and some of the 3D character models, so he'll keep those no matter what. However, the IP and the rest of the assets / content that has been created is owned by the company so if it goes bankrupt, these will be auctioned off to pay down any debts. It is unlikely another game co would be interested in purchasing existing pieces of RB (especially since the engine won't be for sale). So in theory, Hobgoblin could buy back some or all of the assets if he can afford to.

Unfortunately that seems to now be the best case scenario. If he can get enough assets to complete a small adventure module they could attempt the backup plan with a new company sans Sheihadul. Seems like a longshot but maybe third time's a charm.

It's fair to say the game was overly ambitious and horribly mismanaged. But I wouldn't call it a scam. Crowdfunding is always a risk. But a "Scam" implies that money collected was used on something other than developing the game and I've seen no evidence of that.

I've played the combat beta, it's very good (albeit still with some bugs and missing features). They've hired a lot of people to work on the game. Composers, writers, artists, level designers… including the artist / cartographer who created their world map (which was one of the stretch goals).

TLDR: Yes the game is in serious trouble due to one half-owner of the company seemingly giving up on the project.

I remember Hobgoblin when he posted here. Yeah, it doesn't seem like a scam. However, it seems like we'll never see this game. It's not a big surprise, as it was soooo ambitious.

Nod Gabriel, I too remember the name. I hope he's able to pull it out in the end, for now I'm keeping the faith.

And now I think we should return to discussing Black Geyser.

Hey someone asked a question and I answered, Sorry it bothered you.

Funny, I never realized they didn't have a publisher to begin with. I guess I don't really pay attention to things like that. Good for them I guess.

I'm only mildly interested Black Geyser at this point. I haven't seen anything yet that sets it apart.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
Hey someone asked a question and I answered, Sorry it bothered you.

No, it didn't bother me at all and I think it was good to show the other watchers the state of Realms Beyond. But that's done now.

This game could be a good time-filler while waiting for other interesting things, seeing it's an isometric cRPG taking after Baldur's Gate (and pretty much ripping off its storyline, from what I've read in different other threads). For a while I thought this was actually close to release. Now seeing they just got a publisher I really don't care. If it releases, fine. If it doesn't, fine as well.

I am not a backer but I have been following this game since early and it has a lot of potential. Not a waiting game for me but one on its own right.