The Black Pool
Release date: Jun 19, 2024
Developers: Smug Marmot Studios
Publishers: Smug Marmot Studios
Genres: Action, Adventure, Indie, RPG
Categories: Single-player, Multi-player, Co-op, Online Co-op, LAN Co-op, Steam Achievements, Full controller support, Steam Cloud, Family Sharing
Supported languages: English, Spanish - Spain, Spanish - Latin America, French, German, Japanese, Russian, Simplified Chinese

The Black Pool is a 3d action roguelike to be played solo or preferably with up to 3 of your friends. Each attempt to make it back home will take you through a gauntlet of different worlds. You will discover different elements, abilities, and upgrades. Striking visuals, an electrifying soundtrack, and high-paced skilled action will plunge you into each attempt to battle your way out. THE JOURNEY HOME The Black Pool has taken you to a remote and unknown galactic system. In each attempt to return home, you will traverse across a random sequence of highly diverse worlds. Throughout your journey, carefully select powers from a large pool of random possibilities, complementing existing abilities and those of your friends. Strategically upgrade these abilities to maximize your potential. This procedural sequence of worlds, offerings of abilities, and upgrades, yields a highly replayable roguelike sequence which ensures that every session is completely unique. There are millions of possibilities. Committing to decisions and improvising an effective build is core to the game. Can you become powerful enough to face what lies ahead? IMPROVE WITH EACH ATTEMPT With each attempt you will learn how enemies behave and what their weaknesses are. You will learn how each of these supernatural abilities work, and synergistic ways to use abilities together. In addition, you unlock permanent enhancements that persist across playthrough attempts which make you stronger, and also enable varied play styles. BRING A FRIEND While you can try and make it on your own, it may be more fun to bring a friend, or three. The Black Pool has been designed to maximize the cooperative multiplayer experience. Many of the abilities contain game mechanics that deliver fun and rewarding interactions between players. Redirect friendly attacks, amplify each other's spells, coordinate stuns and buffs, and much more. In The Black Pool, co-op play is more than simply playing the game together— you are rewarded for actually working together to be successful. ARENA SURVIVORS GAME MODE The Black Pool patch 1.2 introduces an entirely new game mode: Arena Survivors— a fast and intense battle arena featuring rapid progression and randomized waves of increasingly more difficult enemies. It delivers a fun and highly replayable “survivors-like” spin on The Black Pool gameplay and also provides a quick way to experiment with abilities and builds without the time commitment of a full playthrough. A successful Arena Survivors attempt will take around 30 minutes, compared to 90 minutes for the full game mode. Four unique arenas have been developed for Arena Survivors, each presenting varied and evolving layouts, hazards, and challenges. WHAT’S IN THE GAME 10 unique worlds, consisting of over 50 unique levels which dynamically adjust based on procedural selection. 90 unique abilities and augments derived from 9 elements: Fire, Light, Ice, Decay, Terra, Wind, Lightning, Void, and Chaos. 99 upgrades for abilities and augments. 18 upgradeable device powers which enhance player progression across playthrough attempts. 55 enemies, including 11 unique multi-stage boss encounters. Original musical score consisting of 7 dynamic tracks which seamlessly progress with the playthrough sequence, and 10 tracks for the Temple hub world. 4 multi-tier endgame challenge modes (3 options for each). Randomized event challenges that reward players with augments and other special upgrades. Cooperative multiplayer up to 4 players. Recovery for disconnected or uncompleted playthrough sessions in both single and multiplayer.