Black Future ’88 Guide – Beginners Tips and Tricks

Run for your life.

Black Future ’88 is a roguelike, and you know what that means: tough enemies, complex mechanics and permadeath. The game doesn’t explain a great deal to begin with, so fill in the gaps with our helpful beginners guide full of tips and tricks for mastering this cyberpunk action shooter.

You can shoot or hit most bullets mid-air

As well as dashing to avoid taking damage from bullets, you can also usually shoot or melee them to destroy them in mid-air. The best defense is a good offense. 

Look out for environmental hazards

It’s not always obvious, but as well as the enemies, some of the platforms in Black Future are trying to kill you too. As well as the likes of rotating saws and automated turrets, some platforms have scalding-hot components or blow out deadly steam so you’ll have to watch your step. A good rule of thumb is that these hazards are typically coloured yellow.

In a similar vein, be careful of hot weapons and hot enemies. Combining the two can cause explosions – powerful, but also dangerous!

Grab ammo, cash and health off the ground immediately

The world of Skymelt is powered by an AI. While the enemies it throws at you are fairly generous in the cash and ammo they expel on death, you’ll have to be quick – after a few seconds, they get absorbed and will increase Skymelt’s level. Each time Skymelt goes up a level, it introduces new rules and more enemies, so you want to avoid this where possible. Weapons, thankfully, hang around indefinitely, so you don’t have to take these straight away. 

Avoid killing enemies over chasms

As an extension of the above tip, be mindful of how you fight flying enemies and try not to kill them while they’re hovering over gaps in the platforms. If they die, all of their cash and item drops will fall down the hole so you’ll miss out, and Skymelt will gain experience.

You don’t have to explore everywhere

With just 18 minutes on the clock, Black Future doesn’t give you much time to explore its levels. Firstly, make good use of the plentiful teleports for when you need to backtrack. And as standard, follow the skull (boss) and question (special room) markers rather than entering unmarked rooms – unless you’re desperate to farm extra cash and items. Or, there’s one more reason to explore…

Should you ‘press the button’?

Sometimes you’ll find a room in which you have the option to ‘press a button.’ This spawns a Hunter, a powerful enemy who’ll appear in one of the next rooms and follow you through the area. If you’re already low on health and ammo, you’ll want to give this a miss. However, a Hunter is guaranteed to drop a weapon, and often these are pretty powerful – so if you’re in a position to fight one, it can pay off.

What does triggering the alarm do?

Similarly to the above, some rooms have an alarm you can choose to trigger. This immediately spawns a group of enemies in that room, so again, you’ll need to be prepared to face them. If you’re in need of more cash and weapons, this is a way to farm for them. You can trigger the alarm more than once.

What do Repair Stations and Obelisks do?

There are two types of structures in Black Future that give you extra perks: Repair Stations and Obelisks. Repair Stations cost 25 seconds of your Deadlock time and let you choose from a selection of buffs. Obelisks cost 60 seconds and the perks are cursed, so aren’t often as favourable. 

What happens when your blood is infected?

Your blood can become infected from receiving too many curses and using stims. One bar of your health will turn red, and this will explode when depleted, potentially killing you. You’ll also feel less benefit from healing items. Look for a blood purifier from the shop, a relatively inexpensive item that can remove infected blood.

What does the Map Maker do?

There’s an unusual, alien-like NPC called the Map Maker who asks if you can explore the area for them. The reward is a Nano Chronoinjection that adds an extra 1:30 to your clock. If you’re relatively healthy and have already explored part of the area, this might help offset the time spent exploring the rest while you’ll hopefully pick up some more cash and items along the way. Teleport back to the Map Maker and speak to them to receive your reward.

“It looks safe and I want you to have it”?

An NPC can be found that says, “It looks safe and I want you to have it.” If you choose to speak to them, you’ll be able to pick from a selection of curses. Not so safe after all, then – but at least it doesn’t cost you any time like an Obelisk would. 

Watch out for buffs/curses, weapons and items that drain your resources

Many things in Black Future are double-edged. The Tempest Core: Deep Shadows perk, for example, uses your ammo. Melt Core gives constant dashing ability but drains your deadlock time. Vagrant Core also drains it. And some weapons use your cash as ammo. Read the fine print! The codex is very useful if you’re unsure what something does.

Best buffs and curses

Saving Grace

One of my personal favourites. Your dashes travel extra distance, and when you dash through bullets you have a moderate chance of being healed. This can be a lifesaver.

Meat Nickels 

Receive more health from heals, plus bonus armour.

Uber Core: Ground Slam

Lets you slam into the ground to do area of effect damage. Dropped by Uberheim.

Juno Core

Dashing leaves behind a hot trail that damages enemies. Dropped by Juno. 

Second Thoughts and Remorse Suppressor

Second Thoughts lets you dash an extra time, while Remorse Suppressor recharges dash immediately when you get a kill. Because dashing is so useful for avoiding damage and maneuvering in Black Future, these can be worth picking up.

Sequence Optimizer

When you’ve racked up a combo, you can fire your weapons freely without expending ammo. But it’s cursed.

Night Piercer

Dashing can take you through walls and hurt enemies when you pass through them – but it’s also cursed.

Mix and match weapons and perks for synergy

Not only is it generally best practice to try out lots of different combinations of weapons and perks to see what’s more effective, you can also discover secret synergies. For example:

Needle Threader (Saving Grace + Heavy Night Nail)

This will let you receive more healing by dashing through bullets. As if standard Saving Grace wasn’t useful enough! A great combo. 

Night Piercer Set (Night Piercer + Night Nail)

This simply increases the power of your Night Nail, which is good – it’s a strong weapon to begin with, after all. 

Still finding the game too hard?

If all else fails and you’re still really struggling, there’s an Assist mode that makes combat less deadly and does away with some of Black Future’s crueler mechanics, like curses. Select it at any time from the main menu.