The Black Pool
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About the Game
The Black Pool has taken you to a remote and unknown galactic system. Make your way across a number of diverse and randomized worlds to try and make it back home.
Throughout your journey, you will learn to master supernatural elemental abilities. Carefully select powers from a large pool of possibilities, complimenting existing abilities and those of your friends. Strategically upgrade these abilities to maximize your potential. There are thousands of possibilities, can you become powerful enough to face what lies ahead?
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 pace / skilled action will plunge you into each attempt to battle your way out.
THE JOURNEY HOME
In each attempt to return home, you will traverse across a random sequence of highly diverse worlds. Throughout the journey, you will unlock supernatural abilities from randomly selected sets of elements, and upgrade these selected abilities from a set of randomly offered options. This procedural sequence of worlds and offerings of abilities and upgrades yields a highly replayable roguelike sequence. Each playthrough presents a randomized set of choices that ensures that every session is completely unique. Committing to decisions and improvising an effective build is core to the game.
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 enhancements that are permanent and persist across playthrough attempts.
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 team spells, coordinate stuns and team buffs, create barriers, and much more. In The Black Pool, co-op play can be much more than simply playing the same game together— you are rewarded for actually working together to be successful.
Game Discussion
Steam User 19
Dope music. Crazy ability combos. Requires a lot of experimenting initially to learn the abilities.
Steam User 7
UPDATED: Developer responded to my issues within a day and was able to use some information provided to find a specific engine error that was happening. They patched it hours after and it runs great now. 10/10 Smug Marmot for customer service and care.
Game was unplayable for me. System is a 9800xt, 9070 and 32 gb ram but using any dark or decay ability caused 400ms frame times and shader issues that were blindingly green. My friend had a similar system with a 4070 and had no issues at all.
Steam User 4
This is a really sick game made with heart. Offers some of the trippiest most unique visual experiences I've ever had in a game. Returnal vibes
Steam User 2
Danger, Will Robinson!
Imagine if Returnal had 4 player co-op, ran into Lost in Space at a Taco Bell drive-thru with Stranger Things in the trunk and early 00's Sci-Fi music blaring through the stereo of a Toyota Camry. The Black Pool is everything I love about Steam. This game is nearly two years old, I've never heard of it, and happen to discover it on April Fool's Day. Boy, do I feel like a clown for having not played this before. Every ounce of this gem oozes vibes of mystery and adventure. Surprisingly runs quite well for an Unreal Engine title, not the most breath taking visually, but certainly not an eye-sore. Gameplay feels a bit weightless and twitchy. While that may not sit well with everyone there is an audience for this type of game. The standard price of $19.99 is a smidge high, but $4.99 is a steal. The variety in biomes, enemies, and builds display the passion and love poured into this by the folks at Smug Marmot studios. The Black Pool is worth grabbing a few friends for a cannonball into the deep end, you won't be disappointed.
Steam User 3
This game is really fun with friends. There are tons of engaging ways to build your character and support your group, which keeps every session feeling fresh and cooperative. I’m genuinely surprised it hasn’t gotten more attention — it’s one of those undiscovered gems that you can easily lose hours in.
Sure, it could use a bit of polish and optimization, and the single-player experience isn’t nearly as strong. Sometimes your build doesn’t quite come together, and it takes a bit of time to experiment with what you like and what combinations actually work — but that’s part of the fun, right? Finding that perfect synergy with your team feels super rewarding once it clicks.
When you jump into multiplayer — whether with friends or random players — it’s pure, chaotic magic. The group play is absolute chaos in the best way possible, and it’s honestly what makes the game shine.
The only real downside is the small player base. It’s next to impossible to find a lobby unless you’ve got your own group ready to go, which is a shame for something that can be so fun. Hopefully it catches on one day, because it truly deserves a bigger audience.
Steam User 2
Mechanics and gameplay are so fun, but the aesthetics remind me of someone over-modding their car with RGB, paint, custom wrap, accessories, fancy lights, ALL CHROMED UP. (like you respect it, but it's much to its detriment and even performance because of how over-accessorized it was.)
Few quotes from the friend i was playing with
(I can't help but somewhat agree.):
"Unironically the most single A studio feeling game I've played in my life."
"This game feels sauceless aesthetically."
"What kind of blend of shader hell is this? the game feels unoptimized"
"All the songs feel royalty free..."
Steam User 0
It's a fun coop game with friends with interesting synergies and cool builds.
Each element has a niche and honestly this game is great for a friend-slop adjacent experience with some more legs than a lot of games with that moniker.
Performance can be a bit iffy but I believe this game is UE5 which tracks.