Fans of the game Tradewinds will love this game. It has nearly all the same elements and is a fairly easy to pick up if you are familiar to this type of game. The twist of course your ship isn't some sea fairing vessel, but one that travels among the stars! You go port to port trading questionable goods, or just go full pirate outright and attack any merchant you see, with the occasional pirate who wishes to test you. there are plenty of good things in this game, I like how simple the trading in this game is, simplified by color of the price of the item so that blue means that it's a good buy and sell price, while red is a bad buy and sell price so that I take less time trying to calculate prices and just find the good deals quickly and effortlessly.(I wish the game explained that earlier, I was completely avoiding trading until I had enough money to make some mistakes.) the game streamlines most things really well like trading, but...some things are not quite there yet. The missions are pretty generic and in clunky, you can take a mission from the starting sector that will require you to go to null, which is a 40+ navigation when you are only level 1...making missions feel very unrewarding and too much of a hassle compared to trading which is much easier and faster. The game overlooks a few details that most games have, a real tutorial that explains everything the game has to offer, I still wonder what those flashing symbols mean right next to my avatar even mean. it took me a while to figure out that those stars are kind of like in Grand theft auto marking you as a wanted criminal and you need to hide out in asteroids for a short amount of time to make the stars go away. another thing the game overlooks if you die in a area where you have little navigation and no planets nearby that sells ships, which means you are stuck in a escape pod and can't go to another sector to buy a ship. meaning you either have to A: trade with 20 slots for exp to level up navigation, or B: start a new game to avoid the hassle. The game does a lot of things well, but lacks a bit on some parts. Don't get me wrong, it is still a fun game and definitely deserves a look.

Black Market is what I would could call "EVE OFFLINE". Black Market is a massive game simplifying minutes into seconds; from buying, trading, questing and even fighting. The execution of each action is simple yet pivotal in your quest to amass the greatest space mass that the game has to offer. Strategy and foresight will keep you from losing millions of investments while going "rambo" will leave you "lost in space" without much of anything left but your wits and a pod.

The game has a stellar soundtrack and the visuals are quite delicious to the eyes. There is a lot of text to read through and they are indeed very entertaining but not mandatory. You can surf in space for hours as every ship encounter gives you a rush. Plus, you have a variety of weapons that you can choose from to mix and match with to aid you in your battles.

The game may be the offline equivalent of EVE ONLINE, but Black Market truly has so much to offer! Do not let this star of a game simply pass you by! Embrace it and let yourself go beyond, through the stars, across the universe!

Black Market has plenty of potential for a sequel so if you want to support any and all developers then pay full price, otherwise just wait for this to go on sale as $9.99 is waaaaay too much. I got it with the Indiefort Promo (3/$3.99). I would say $5 max!

The game itself is ok. If you like space games like Freelancer, Eve, Evochron Mercenary, Star Rangers (which I have also played) then you should be ok with this one but it is certainly not as good as any of them for sure. It has a simple combat system, point and click navigation, graphics are ok, interface is elementary, etc. It is built for passive players. It is also trade focused so don't plan on putting on your war paint as the combat system is not the centerpiece of the game.

Remember, thousands upon thousands of game developers are out there trying to make a few bucks. Most stuff made is garbage, some are average and ok and rarely do you find a hit! This one is just average and you could easily find it in a $5 bargain bin. I can't recommend it as I only do that with games I REALLY like, I'm just glad I did not spend a whole lot.

Wacky storyline and addictive and simple gameplay just make my day with this Indifort purchase.

This is a fun but simple game, that pretty much sums it up. It isn't anything near games like the Guild 2, but it will give some entertainment. The game is played out on a grid of stars and asteroids, and the battle plane is 2D.

Pros: This game has a lot of dialogue, a lot of story, and it's all pretty interesting. The gameplay is fun for the first hour or so.

Cons: Before I was even a third of the way through the story, I had the best weapons, one of the best ships, and was practically undefeatable. The rest of the game was trivially easy and very repetitive.

The story is fun, and the RPG growth of weapons and ships is fun, but the game suffers from a serious lack of difficulty, and by extension, variety in combat. It only took a couple trade runs before I had enough money to outstrip every opponent for basically the rest of the game. I was playing in hardcore mode so when I got destroyed I had to buy a new ship, but I was so much stronger than everyone else it did not matter. Don;t buy this game if you need lots of challenge!

This is a great little space trade/exploration game with a decent main questline and a ton of little sidequests that you can access through people at bars. Trade around, buy low - sell high, wait for market fluctuations, upgrade your weapons, buy bigger ships, fight stuff and take loot. Combat is simple but nice.

If you're having resolution issues with this 1.04 HD version here on GG, you can download the 1.05 HD version at the developer's site and ask for your unlock key. That key will grant you registered-version access to the low-res version on their site as well.

I picked it up as an impulse buy from the indie bundle and have to say that it's a rather nice little space exploration game actually. The mechanics work well, although i feel that the risk-reward balance is off quite a bit. I can make a ton of money by simply running trade routes between the planets, with pretty much no threat whatsoever. I generally felt that the game was somewhat on the easy side of thing and some things are a little bit annoying, like the planet scanning and mining animations, but those are just smaller annoyances in an overall solid experience.

The art style actually is also quite nice, no amazing high end 2D graphics but a fairly high quality compared to many other titles of the same price category

Even though i gave it 4 stars i have to say that it is a weak 4 star rating. It's a solid game, but nothing really outstanding.

An actually fun little space trading game!

Weird story involving more than 1 person, check!

Spaceships up to colossus class(battleship/destroyer), check!

Pirates/Piracy, check!

Easy controls and nice interface, check!

Thoughtfully written dialogues, check!

Now the game is somewhat based on leveling up to get better ships/equipment while going on story. Don't worry, there is also another gamemode with no story involved. Commodity list is neither too long nor too short and you can almost always find new deals in planets. There are also random events that change the price of select commodities found on a planet. But beware of pirates in high level space. You can also plunder other transports and become a pirate yourself and lose standings with factions while gaining standings among pirates. There are also different missions that can be picked up from bars such as smuggling and hunting ships and carrying goods. But rewards often doesn't compare to trading.

What game lacks is the depth of trading and size of available space. Had the space been larger (4 different system clusters with 6 to 8 planets each) and trading and missions had more diversity it would indeed be a magnificent game.

2D graphics and with its easy to use interface it is a game worth playing through at least twice! And with the latest Indie sale, you can get it for a bargain price!

Loved playing it on a friend's computer, and it's every bit as good as I remembered. Give it a try! Not the most exciting graphics, but very solid gameplay.

In all honesty, Black Market stands out pretty much in what it does as a space-sim of sorts.

I had bought the game in part of the Indie bundle pack mainly for Kenshi, but I was pleasantly surprised by how fun it was. Combat was done in a Real-time 2-D side scrolling space shooter of sorts. But instead of enemies advancing down from the screen, you duke it out scrolling side to side. Do you choose to sit still and overwhelm them with firepower while risking damage or do you attempt to dodge the missiles and lasers with skill and counter attack with your own? There's no reason you can't do both of course, or you could just dump your cargo and run.

The catch is, for everything, skill points are required from leveling up. The skills range from Weaponry, Trading, Worm-hole Navigation, and a few more skills I believe. It's actually pretty fast paced so there's no real wait if you were waiting to train your navigation while you focused on destroying pirates for a bit.

Travel is depicted in a 2-d screen overlay and is done by interlocking grid-lanes that run everywhere. The lanes represent galactic pathways to where you can move ranging from the main lanes from which cities and gates meander through and through the asteroid fields where the pirates dwell, but also secrets and treasure mines.

The story was actually really good due to the quality of writing in the game (Your characters? Actually like-able. Well, if you and your "buddy" count.) and the jokes hit the right place instead of falling flat. While it does get more serious later on, it's still pretty light-hearted in the way it takes everything in stride. However, I was unable to finish the game due to technical difficulties so this is based on 4-8 hours of gameplay.

Aside from the aforementioned difficulties and the fact that I was unable to play Blackmarket on my laptop (On the title screen, I was unable to select any option at all) The game worked really well. I hope this review helped, and hope you have a good day.

When I first bought this game, I admit that I wasn't sure what to expect (it was basically an impulse-purchase that I thought would be worth a punt). I'm glad I gave this a go, as it was quite a fun game to play. The character development system and trading system work well, and the battle system does keep you alert.

The story-mode was well written, although I do feel that it was a tad on the short side. The characters are interesting, and the game was a good change of pace from my usual choice of games. Things are relaxed enough to let you get on without mashing all the buttons on the keyboard, yet there is still an element of faster pace in certain areas to keep you on your toes.

I have tried the free-play mode which is OK, but a bit boring without any story or 'goals' to aim for. Now that I've completed the story mode, I can't see playing this much more for now (at least until I get the urge to play story-mode again).

Side note, I found Kera quite funny. Especially when "spoken" (in my head) with his intended accent/dialect.

Enjoyed playing this game.

The only bad part is, fighting pirates doesn't give you such a good Loot. It's mainly really only for getting Exp.

Trading is fine, so is the skill system.

Story mode I haven't fully played yet. Seemed fine and somehow weird. But that's because your character has no memeroies and you find that out later, I guess.

Rather fine game I'd say.

I'm really glad this game was introduced to me in the IndieFort I bundle. It's a fantastic game that really does its job of making you feel challenged and very accomplished walking away from it. A great story to accompany a nice challenge. Pick it up if you didn't get it in the IndieFort bundle.

Great little game, full of great ideas and innovations. At its core, it is a spacing trading simulation game on the footsteps of Freelancer. The main story is interesting, if formulaic (the usual: ‘Oh shoot I have lost my memory and yet I am so good at this..’). Side stories are plentiful and much more engaging. The battles are challenging and engrossing, you need to be fast or be prepared to be destroyed. Super AI, and only a few minor bugs. Considering this is an indie project, I was very pleased with it.

I got this as part of a cheap bundle I bought for another game, but this has proved to be the hidden gem, not the worthless added-on tat. Bug free, and quite pretty, it's many hours of gameplay rolled enjoyably by. I haven't played Frontier Elite, or Privateer, but would guess this is a very lite version of such space-trading games. But with a script..... oh, what a script!

I played the "Story", and discovered a clever, interesting and above all humourous game that had me laugh out loud at some of the script "moments". Sadly, it's all text-based conversation, with no voice-overs, but don't let that disappointment detract - the script is so good that even professional actors would have a very hard time doing it justice. You (mostly) get a choice of responses, although the story is linear and they all point you the same way in the end. But again, just enjoy the ride, DO read everything (it's not even as hard as reading this review, I assure you!), and marvel at how the author is able to make whichever choice you make as funny as possible. This game really puts the "character" into text-based characters.

There is a darker side to it too. Like any movie or TV series with a plot, you'll be making guesses at what you expect to happen next. Gauging who are the bad guys and the good guys. Where the double-cross will come from, and who's being honest. I wasn't ever disappointed.

When the mission asks to go to a particular place next, you can take all the time in the world, and whatever route you like, to get there. I usually called in at all the planets en-route looking for trade deals along the way. Sometimes detouring to visit my favourite trade spots.

A not-quite-realtime, but certainly not turn based game either. Your ship moves from planet to planet on demand. AI ships move along the same lines randomly, and you can both collide with moving rocks as they cross the space lanes and collect stuff jettisoned from battles elsewhere in the system. You can try detouring around the lesser asteroids, avoiding the main space lanes, to avoid conflicts or collisions. You might even find hidden planets.

Encounter a pirate (or port authority if you get caught trading in banned goods) and a scrolling combat scene fires up. You race side-by-side with your enemies, using your various weapons and defences, with a limited ability to speed up and slow down. You can upgrade everything, and even buy bigger ships for fighting and/or trading at the bigger planets. There is a limited system for awarding "level up" points into three skills.

I got into a bad fight early on, and my ship was destroyed. I lost all my cargo too, and with it, all of my capital. I had taken on a privateer mission at the time, obtained from a bar contact, but this pauses the main story mission until you finish it. I considered giving up and restarting. But decided to carry on for a bit, mainly to see if the game balance worked.

It took a long time to get back on my feet, but I did.

The game auto-saves when you leave a planet or quit the game, but there's no manual gamesave option. If you want to go back because of a bad outcome, I found that "killing the process" in windows task manager took me back to the last autosave upon starting the game again. This would have helped my early fight loss, had I known about it then!

The damage done to your ship by colliding with rocks when travelling (or fighting) is auto-repaired as you dock, and the costs auto-deduct from your balance. So, some trading is necessary to fund your campaign. Simple colour-coding of galaxy-wide prices (buy when blue for a bargain, sell when red for big profits) means it's not hard to make profits, but these are eroded by the repair costs. You'll need to be patient, hanging on to cargo for many planet visits, to make the money-doubling trade that gets you ahead for buying weapons, better ships, or just the more lucrative cargoes (cargo space is limited, so the more valuable cargoes accelerate the profits).

Some systems don't work that well, but they work, and don't get in the way of enjoyment. Likewise, the cutscenes arriving at or leaving each planet (every one is unique, by the way) are just long enough to enjoy, and not so long that you insta-skip. Which you can, if you really want to. Everything moves along at a quick enough pace to be enjoyable, not frustrating.

The hidden depth of this game is not really in the gameplay, but in the highly entertaining script of the "story" mode. While you can simply go privateer, and take on random missions from people you meet in the taverns on each planet, I'd recommend avoiding these, and play the story instead.

While it's probably a four-star game, I have such fond memories looking back, that I can't be that mean. My five stars are awarded because of this game's completeness, entertainment, and thoroughness of the script, with everything functioning and nothing obviously broken. It won't redefine gaming, but isn't trying to. The (somewhat risque) humour hits a spot long since missing from games or TV.

At normal full price it's probably only average value. On any sort of sale, it's a bargain.

Entertaining space trading game, in the vein of Escape Velocity or Privateer: Ascii Sector. Trading system is very functional, not hard to profit, but not easy to scam. Graphics and soundtrack are great. The battle system is fairly simple and involves very little skill on the player's side, but is visually quite rewarding.

Actually a very fun space merchant simulator. The story is actually interesting enough to follow, even if it does seem pretty simple. The merchant parts also work well, with the price of merchandise being dynamic and can be changed be events. The combat works well and is fun, and you need to purchase weapons and combat upgrades for your ship on planets.

Black Market is a spacing trading sim game. It's similar to Freelancer with its trading elements and gameplay. I got it as part of the Indiefort bundle and the game was okay but still needs work. The main storyline is that you are a man who has forgotten who he is (as in many games) and is pretty much a tutorial for freeroaming mode. When I play, the game was still being worked on and there were definitely bugs. I encountered a gamebreaking bug in the storymode where I had infinite money, which made trading pointless and the game much more boring. The side goals (other than making money to buy bigger and better ships) include fighting baddies which was fairly boring. It's difficult to lose in a battle unless you are a potato. If you like space trading sims (which I am), you have probably bought this game and came out fairly disappointed. Its an average game that needs work and innovation.

Fun game. I spoke wtth the game owner on his website, and he was great for helping with some info and unlocking my game for me. Worth your time to get and play if you missed it in the indiefort bundle.

Black Market at a first look seems a simple game (maybe a too simple one), but after some hours of play you will find all the complexity that lays beyond the surface. From exploring asteroids, or dead planets, to assaulting as a pirate the merchant ships. Well done is also the gunnery system. Still the game has some problems. One are the quite common crash to desktop which, since the game autosaves frequently, are not so dangerous. The other is exactly the fact that the game saves every time you move and the fact that you can't save in multiple slot to try different paths.

This was a pleasant experience for me. It does not have the most in-depth gameplay or leveling system but it is nevertheless surprisingly fun, quick battles, and a decent trading system.

This is not EVE:online if you are looking for that type of game, bit I found it amusing and believe it to be worth its cost.

This is a very simple yet addictive space trading/combat game. The 2D artwork is nice to look at and the sound does do the job it's supposed to. While fun to play I found that after a while the missions began to get a bit tedious and started pirating. This shifted the game to a more combat orientated role and was soon wishing that there were more ships and weapons to play with.

When you reach the later stages of the game and start coming up against ships that look like black monoliths the difficulty shoots through the roof. I had a seemingly matched ship and decided to take one of these on and found myself floating through space in my pod, wide eyed with surprise as my ship was pretty much one-shotted.

It's a great little title with alot going for it and is rewarding enough to play even short bouts.

A great little space trading game, it's a good game to just pick up and play for 20 minutes or so. The combat is pretty simple and usually resorts to just spamming missiles (maybe this changed later on). I can see it getting a little repetitive, but the story line will keep you going with it.

Interface is pretty much Ios\Android oriented, combat sequences are pretty easy for PC game, but story is great, characters are well made and in-game jokes are pretty cool too. If you like EV Nova or Freelancer this game will take your interest for some time, but remember its not serious, just a simple free-time consumer.

Enjoyable space trading game. For an indie game this is a very polished effort. Graphics are good and clear. Gameplay is interesting an addictive with a good deal of exploration and fighting involved. Although fighting is limited to shooting at the enemies without control of your ships speed or distance still is fun .

If you like space trading then i would recommend it.

Black Market is your typical casual, simplified, easy and badly balanced 1-playthrough game that'll give you about 10-15 hours of amusement if you play it for the story (in story mode). About 1-2 hours if you don't care about the story, in which case I would advise against buying it.

There are a lot of games nowadays that don't even aim to be anything deep or engaging as far as the game mechanics go. I call these "casual" games, because they're made either for non-gamers (who feel intimidated by the complexity of serious games) or gamers looking for a quick brainless break away from the deeper titles.

These games are usually based around either some simple but fun core mechanic with some weak excuse of a story tacked on (e.g Angry Birds) or an interesting story with some weak game mechanics tacked on to make you feel like you're doing something, which makes the game feel more like an interactive book.

Black Market is the latter. It's more of a short interactive novel than a space privateer sim. It has an interesting story, though nothing spectacular, but enough to make you play it through to the end. As I said, about 10-15 hours of amusement. Consider how much that's worth for you - might be worth buying on sale.

There. That concludes my review. If you're new to the gaming scene, don't ready any further.

Anything beyond this point is an addendum meant only for the eyes of a select few: the fellow desperate space sim fans who're having such extreme withdrawal symptoms from the lack of any new, decent entries to the genre that they're still considering buying Black Market just for its space simmy promises (and not the story).

Don't do it guys. I know it's tough, I know the screenies look tempting, but it's really not as deep as you think. Trust me, not even close.

The mechanics are extremely simple, nothing like the old classics of the 90s/early 2000s. Don't believe me? Okay, let me recount:

- Combat is so simple you could probably win 98% of the battles with your eyes closed - seriously. Enemies die in 1-2 seconds (except for the 2 largest, colossus class ships, which manage to last 4 and 7 seconds respectively) and they hardly ever bother firing at you during their brief existence. And even when they do, it hardly makes a dent in your hull. A space sim veteran will grow bored of this within 2-3 encounters, just like I did. Oh and did I mention enemies never drop anything valuable either? Trading is the only feasible way of earning money.

- Ship customization is equally simple - you can only equip your ships with two types of gear: weapons and support devices. Support devices are useless, so that leaves you with just the weapons really play around with. At first it seems like you have a couple of choices to make here - flak guns, rockets, torpedoes, cannons, mines, etc...However you'll quickly find out that most of these are also useless and the only weapons worth using are the cannons (and the end-game mines), so arming yourself basically comes down to filling every weapon slot with the best cannon-type-thing your weapon skill allows.

- The only other activity you can engage in apart from fighting weak, endlessly respawning pirates/traders/bounty hunters is trading, which is basically the most simple form of the old buy-low-sell-high routine we're all so familiar with. Last but not least, the only thing you need money for is buying ships (of which there's only about 9-10 - and you'll use maybe 3-4), as equipment is so cheap, you won't even notice its price on your wallet after the first few levels.

Conclusion: Fellow space sim fans, unless you're so desperate that even the illusion of playing a space sim can give you the much craved waves of sinful privateering pleasure, don't buy Black Market, it wasn't made for us. ;)

I loved the combat, despite being easy, it's something that I found to be entertaining during the story mode, and there are enough little side quests that will require to up skills like PILOT & Navigation to get to the planets/ships to do some along with trade to enable easier access to some materials, but no matter how ya play it it's rather fun, and most pirates are avoidable if you pay attention, and it's much funner to just chase them down :P

Black Market is fun and easy to get into without draining you too much. For me, it's a great game for kicking back and knocking out a few deals or missions in between all the whenevers throughout the day. I'd say overall, it's non-taxing rather than too easy.

The story campaign is fleshed out with great humor and character. Everything fits together so well and has a great charm to it like Privateer or Anachronox or other classics. Black Market is just one of those games you get to know like someone interesting you meet at the bar and have a few drinks with.

This a good, elite style space trader game. Either play the campaign or enjoy it as an open world where you can trade your way to the biggest strongest ship around while fighting pirates or be a pirate and roam the galaxy looking for plunder. Buy bigger and better ships and upgrade them with dozens of weapons and items. The campaign is enjoyable with several entertaining conversation scenes but feels a bit short to me.

This would be an easy 4 stars for me if not for some serious technical issues, mine mostly coming in the form of frequent crashes.

It's a fun little space trading game. It's a bit simplistic (combat and trading both), but it is entertaining for a while. The story mode is funny and I enjoyed it. Although it ultimately boils down to repeating the same few actions throughout - get cargo, deliver cargo, kill ships - the story behind it kept me entertained for a few evenings regardless. I'd say it's well worth the buy if you like this kind of game.

A big plus for me was that I was able to go through the story without once feeling the need to stop and grind levels or money - I made plenty of cash and xp just trading and fighting along the way, and got steady upgrades as I went. I just let my level points build up, and every time I needed to buy something I didn't have the trade level for or navigate an area that needed more navigation I just applied the points and kept going - putting excess into weapons and piloting every so often to get a bigger gun or ship.

Also, you can try out the web version free up to the end of the first chapter (and max level 18) at the developer's website. If you enjoy the first chapter, you'll enjoy the rest of the game too.

Black Market is an enjoyable trading and combat sim set in space. The gameplay is addictive and easy to get into, and the fantastic writing will keep you up to the small hours of the morning to find out what happens next. This game is an absolute steal in the Indie Bundle, but I'd still give it a hearty recommendation if I had purchased it a full price. Lots of fun!

Black Market is a short term addictive game that can caputre your interest in the beginning. Features an interesting story that can take many hours to complete, with even more side missions you can do in the mean-time. But overall its to simple. The features being fighting, Trading, and Missions, but thats really all to it. It will get boring, maybe before you even finish the story.

This is a game of the 'Space Trader' genre, so its roots stretch back to Elite. Basically, you travel from planet to planet buying and selling cargo, dealing with pirates, smuggling, and carrying out various missions. With the money you earn, you can customize your ship or save up to buy a new one. It is fun for a while, but can get a bit repetitive, and eventually it feels like there's not enough to spend money on.

Everything is in 2d, and the graphics are gorgeous. Sound and music are both appropriate. The battle mechanic is realtime but simple: select weapons (which have cooldowns) and click on enemy ships. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a real difference amongst the different types of weapons (apart from DPS), which is a missed opportunity to present the player with more tactical considerations.

All in all, a fun game, but one that doesn't risk straying too far from the formula.

Black Market is a surprisingly polished, independently developed space RPG incorporating combat and trading. You navigate the game world on a 2D map and on fixed lanes. You can land on settled planets and visit shops to buy and sell goods, mechanics to upgrade your space ship, bars to get new quests and ship dealers to purchase better ships. In the game world you encounter lots of other ships, some friendly, some unfriendly, such as pirates. When you engage in combat, the view changes to a side-scrolling one, showing the ships involved in the battle flying side-by-side, exchange gunfire and missile attacks. By defeating enemy ships, you gain money, loot and experience points which you can invest in different traits, allowing you to pilot more advanced ships, install more powerful weapons and discover further trade lanes.

The game has both a more linear story mode (with pretty funny dialogue...) and an open-ended free mode in which you are free to be a trader, bounty hunter or pirate.

I recommend this game to fans of space RPGs and of polished indie titles.

The game has a massive trade system that is very easy to get into. It has a simple combat system which is very fun. The writing is very clever and funny which makes up for the lack of voice acting.

Worth picking up for £6.95, there's a good day's play in this. The artwork's good, the gameplay's pretty open ended. Want to just mooch about, trade and do random missions? Yup, go right ahead. Until quite late on in the game, it's happy to let you wander off at a tangent. Unlike many Indie games, the writing's solid, and while possibly not the most original plotline in the world, it's good enough incentive and decently handled - it's consistent all the way through, with no hideous "wait, *what*?!?" moments in it, and definitely a couple of laughs. I enjoyed this, played it through to the end, and was satisfied with the finish. Combat's simply handled. but surprisingly engaging, especially when outnumbered/ outgunned. Give it a go, it's better than you'd expect.

A casual RPG it seems. The player goes around in his/her ship and can get into side scrolling space fights with very awkward controls that really make combat into a turret segment (but not horribly boring ones). The player can also get involved in simple trading, piracy and exploration.

There really isn't a heck of a lot to this game, but it is also very casual based it seems (as I stated earlier). It is still a lot of fun and great if you have 15 minutes to burn.

Black Market is a fun game, with a nice art style, easy-to-learn interface and controls and some rather catchy music.

However, it is filled with rather repetitive content. Even with your basic ship, the combat is often far too easy and the missions get repetitive pretty fast. It does have a story mode, though, so there's that.

Fantastic Game, Reminds me of playing Elite 2 with the flying around and trading, doing missions etc.

The battles are great and the weapons rock!

Would suggest this game to anyone

This game is VERY slow paced and it seems like you HAVE to put basicly all points into navigation elseway you wont get anywhere.

And lack of map makes it hard to navigate at all...

Combat is quite enjoyable, but WAY to easy at start.

The fact that you can only have one quest up at time is also quite frustrating..

Overall a fine game, but not worth the 8€ (?) it currently costs..

Very well done example of the genre, you fly around trading, fighting fullfilling missions. The Game does not only come with the common free mode, but even with a nice campaign or story mode, which as well explains the game and functions as a tutorial this way.

The game's elements tend to repeat after a while, but far less then in similar games of this genre; the graphic is (for 2D) execptionally well done; music and sound effects are not irritating (whichs is actually a lot...)

So averall rating 5/5, but only if you like this type of game, otherwise I presume it would become boring quite fast. Have fun with it!

A very interesting game although small it features a decent amount of ships, parts and enemies that keep this entertaining. The play time is quite small compared to some other indie games. When you get to the stage of having 4 'Spear' torpedo guns on your ship, you will then discover how boring the game is. Have those 4 guns attached to you is an unlimited supply of rockets. It destroys a vast number of ships quite quickly making the game less challenging.

Good game.

Pros:

1. Great music and sound

2. Intuitive gameplay

3. cool story

Cons.

occasionally crashes for no reason

Black Market is a simple yet engaging space trading/combat game. You can either take part in story mode, which provides a structure and narrative to your actions, or play through the game in a sandbox/free to roam mode. Combat is straight forward, navigatio through the spacelanes easy to grasp and dialouge is well written, humerous and well worth taking the time to read. Don't forget to talk to the people in the bar, even ones without quests! Be sure to visit all of your environment because you don't know what you'll find.

There is one minor issue I've encountered, occassionally on my system the game would lock up for up to 30 seconds or simply fail to respond however this is infrequent and the game saves itself regularly so you don't lose out on much if it does happen.

This game is worth playing, especially if you can pick it up at a low price say as part of an indie bundle. I've also done a video review of the game over at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXKu1Q__vCY

Black Market plays like half of a game. Nothing in it is quite enough to really sink your teeth into. The combat is simplistic, the trading is pretty basic, and the story is the same thing as most other loner-trader space games, but with less interesting characters.

The game itself is good and fun.

It is very new player friendly since everything is easy to understand as long as you take the singleplayer first with the story line, since if you just go out and just play and ignore the story line then it will be a bit harder to understand how to play the game.

It is just easy to complete and gets borring in the end, since it becomes a bit to well to much of the same thing.

This game is basically freelancer without the joystick combat. There is a story mode and a free mode, you basically travel from one place to the next buying and selling goods, fighting pirates (or becoming a pirate yourself). Buying bigger ships, bigger guns, combat is easy to learn and works well. If you have been longing for a space-trading game, but cant comprehend the complexity of other space-faring games (X3: the Reunion etc.)this game is for you!

Black Market has a realy nice art style and the battles can be fun but after a couple hours of generic missions to earn money so you can upgrade your small selection of weapons and upgrade to rediculously expensive ships, theres nothing realy left in the game.

The ships can get pretty large and with no zoom feature it can feel like shooting flys with a hand gun and magnifying glass. There also seems to be no obvious way to change any significant settings which includes key-bindings.

The areas are small and just as uninteresting as the small amount of things you can do within them, and the NPC ships seemingly just appear around you and are completely lifeless.

Lastly, the campaign (while having some humorous dialogue) is a poor tutorial and still bound to the games core mechanics, so youre still left with an uninteresting game world with boring missions and nothing realy worth the $9.95.