Review: Black Book
Have you been hankering for a historical, Slavic demon card battler with strong narrative journey and roguelite elements? Well, have I got a game for you! Blackbook is a game quite unlike any I’ve played before. Developer Morteshka, a Russian indie game studio, creates games based on old-world central Asian folklore. Black Book is based heavily on real-world bailichka, Slavic myths and superstition concerning the spirit world. It drew me in with its beautiful hand-drawn cards and characters mixed with a low-poly aesthetic but what really kept me interested was the rich cultural influence and interesting storyline.
In Black Book you play as Vasilisa, a young woman who dedicates herself to becoming a witch, under the guidance of her grandfather, in order to resurrect a recently lost lover. In order to do so, she must break the seals of the Black Book, a magical tome, that holds the key to her quest. The road to becoming a kolden or “knower,” as witches are sometimes referred to, requires conspiring with chorts or demons that inhabit the world mostly to cause calamity. In return these chorts provide you with steady income and, in the case of a few more powerful demons, they become integral in your journey to break the seals of the Black Book.
GameplaY
While the main quest of Black Book is mostly on-rails, as you follow the story of Vasilisa, there are also many elements which you can choose to play as you see fit. The primary objectives are achieved by journeying through the Russian district of Perm, where you collect cards, “pages” for your Black Book which can be used to fight chorts or other kolduns you encounter in your travels. In battle, you fight by combining a limited set of keys and orders to create spells which can be used for defensive or offensive tactics. The deck-building aspect of the game was well developed, in my opinion, though it can be a little difficult to master. I found myself constantly tweaking and building new decks around new enemy types or bosses. As you progress through the game, the enemy types and cards get more and more advanced and so your strategies for winning battles also grow in complexity. I fully utilized the three deck slots given to counter very different types of enemies, who in the later game, became quite challenging to counter.
Along with the main storyline, there are plenty of other avenues to channel your abilities as a knower. You can gain favor by helping villagers who come to you with small tasks such as un-cursing a milk cow or finding a relative lost in the woods. Additionally, you command a group of lesser chorts that carry out evil deeds, like convincing children to set a house on fire, in return for a little coin or occasionally helpful herbs. However, doing so results in accruing sin, a currency that affects the final story and endgame content. There is also another strategy card game within the game called duruk, a classic Russian playing card game, that can be used to wager and earn extra coin or even occasionally in lieu of traditional battles.
Graphics
There is something special about Black Book’s aesthetic choices that lended itself well to the folklore it was built around. The low-poly graphics for the scenes mixed with hand-drawn art for the characters, cards and maps fit together in a way I found wholly endearing. A theme that comes up often in the story is the movement away from the bailichka and toward Christanity. The world is changing, magic is being lost to technology, you run into people all the time who don’t believe in chorts or old-world superstitions. Although low-poly graphics aren’t exactly an old-world aesthetic, for me they share a mystical charm. They harken to a time when video games felt like magic and when three dimensional worlds relied upon a lot of imagination rendered to their simplistic geometry rather than high fidelity character models with pores and sweat and lush environments so realistic you could forget they’re not photographic. It may be a stretch, but I think Black Book captures something quite interesting and even magical with this particular combination.
Soundtrack
One thing that really made me stop and put down my controller was when I encountered a group of singing villagers on my journey. If you choose to have Vasilisa sing with them, the game removes all of the user interface and simply focuses on the lamplit houses in the village, silhouettes of black birds flying from roof to roof over the full moon, then to a pedestrian bridge connecting purple farmland to the township over a silvery river as you listen. This was one of many encounters where you can collect folk songs to play later and it really took my breath away. If you’re interested in some beautiful and dramatic choral folk music, I found the OST on YouTube; I would highly suggest starting with the song El Elushka.
In fact, the soundtrack for the entire game was quite excellent. Moody and atmospheric orchestral strings follow you on through the loneliest parts of your journey, interrupted by exciting, percussive battles. The musicians did not shy away from dramatic crescendos for story climaxes or somber melodies for parts where you have to make tough decisions. It was obvious to me that a lot of love and care was put in the music for this game and I think it really pays off.
Story
Black Book is entirely voice-acted, bringing to life a group of highly memorable characters, and while the English voice acting was a little cringey at times (I’d suggest the Russian voice-over with subtitles, personally), I thought they illustrated them well. Vasilisa is fiery and stubborn, unafraid to speak her mind, her grandfather is blustering but kind-hearted. You employ two chorts along the way, a crow and cat respectively with distinct personalities and storylines. Most of the characters, including Vasilisa, grow in interesting and unexpected ways throughout the journey.
The main story arc deals with your decision to pursue the path of resurrecting your lost husband and the negative implications of becoming a koldun. You sacrifice a lot and overcome some very tough challenges to do so, but ultimately you must decide Vasilisa’s fate. There are multiple endings and, I think, mixed outcomes with any decision you make which to me feels very true to the story as a whole. You are constantly faced with situations where any decision you make has negative and positive consequences. You can play as a cunning witch, with lots of power, but you’ll lose the trust of your community. Similarly, gameplay-wise you can put points into skills that reduce the sin received and mischief of your chorts but you’ll sacrifice points you could have spent increasing much needed battle prowess. In my playthrough I felt the balancing act of all these elements constantly pulling me in different directions.
Conclusion
Black Book is a truly unique game with lots to fall in love with. I could pick on small things that I didn’t like such as having to read through texts to decipher riddles for experience points that often felt opaque, or very difficult card battle puzzles that interrupted the flow, but honestly I think the good far outweighed these smaller issues. And also, the developers have been taking feedback and actively implementing patches for quality-of-life improvements which I really like to see. It also helped that the game was fully controller supported so I could play from the comfort of my couch. I would highly recommend Black Book to anyone interested in a challenging deck building card battler or anyone even remotely interested in Russian folklore.
