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[[quoteright:288:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/blackmarket_title_9588.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:288:Fight, fly, trade, die.]]

->'' "It’s a fair trade."''
-->--'''The Black Market'''

''Black Market'' is a sci-fi trader/RPG developed by Big Block Games (the creators of [[http://web.archive.org/web/20131114183507/http://www.rocksolidarcade.com/ Rock Solid Arcade]], [[http://web.archive.org/web/20150214183805/http://bulletproofarcade.com/ Bulletproof Arcade]], and [[https://sideque.st/ Sidequest Software]]). Inspired by the likes of ''VideoGame/{{Elite}}'', gameplay revolves around space combat and commodity trading, as the player slowly builds a fortune to spend on bigger guns and better ships.

The game also features a sizable campaign, which tells the story of Vincent Wake- a man with no memory, no hair, and a talking eyepatch. Guided by the incredibly untrustworthy ghost of a former trader and general pervert named Hardgrove, Vincent find himself swept into the conflict between an ambitious Megacorporation, a hostile Confederation, and a very angry robot. Things in the Galali system are about to take a turn for the worse.

Why? The answer lies with the mysterious force that calls itself the Market...

[[KeepCirculatingTheTapes Both the Flash and PC versions have been removed]].


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!!This game provides examples of:

* AIIsACrapshoot: Played with; AIs are portrayed as being just as varied as humans. They also suffer serious social prejudice. The Campaign for Equal Sentience, a pro AI-rights group, appears to be doing more harm than help. Then there's Robin Good...
* TheAlcoholic: Hardgrove- trapped, to his frustration, in a body that doesn't drink.
%%%%%* TheAtoner: Hardgrove.
%%%%%* AllianceMeter
* AllThereInTheManual: The flash version of the game comes with an encyclopaedia sidebar, which contains ludicrous quantities of background fluff.
* AndIMustScream: Averted with a group of [[spoiler: pirate ghosts, who react to their disembodied afterlives by wishing for a TV and some female company. Just for conversation, mind, not for any disgusting fleshy reasons.]]
* AnimalThemeNaming: Interceptors are all named after types of insect.
* ArtificialAtmosphericActions: NPC ships are constantly shuffling back and forth along the tradelanes, occasionally offering the player deals. Important events sometimes happen to planetary ports, which the player is informed of on landing.
%%%%* AsteroidMiners
* AsteroidThicket: Many of them, all mineable.
* AttackDrone: Combat Drones can be purchased. Interceptors and Bombers also fulfil a similar function.
* TheBattlestar: Buy a Colossus. Buy lots of fighters. Win.
%%%%% "It's in the title! " is not context.
%%%%* BlackMarket:
* BountyHunter: Apparently, the closest thing to law enforcement on the frontier. Molder and Sook are at the forefront of their profession.
%%%%* ButThouMust:
%%%%%* CasualInterstellarTravel
%%%%%* TheClan: The Nassad Family
* CosmicHorrorStory: A mild Lovecraft parody pops up as optional reading material during the main campaign.[[spoiler:One possible explanation for the Black Market is that a group of interdimensional cosmic horrors has developed a taste for free-market economics.]]
* CorruptCorporateExecutive: Averted by Tricorp which, while very shady, does not seem corrupt per se.
* CopyAndPasteEnvironments: Some backgrounds are recycled.
* CriticalExistenceFailure: Averted. Ships show visible damage in battle.
* CrypticBackgroundReference: While the encyclopaedia sidebar goes into a lot of detail about the backstory, it never explains why the Cerberus Incident was so terrible that it stopped a hundred years of interstellar war. The Century War timeline is similarly full of obscure references.
%%%%%* CyberPunk
* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: They don't, but they might give you someone else's soul, which will try to get you drunk. It is supported by the pirates, who love both cybernetic implants and hurting people.
%%%%* DeadpanSnarker:
%%%%%%%* DeflectorShields:
* DerelictGraveyard: Huge clumps of starship wreckage will occasionally drift into the middle of battles.
* AnEntrepreneurIsYou: The player is a trader, after all.
%%%%%* TheEmpire: The Confederacy, or so Tricorp claims.
%%%%* EscortMission:
* EyePatchOfPower: Or rather, I-Patch of dubious advice.
%%%%* TheFederation: The Confederacy, or so the Confederacy claims.
%%%%%* GameplayAndStorySegregation
* GhostInTheMachine: Hardgrove, in the main campaign- although he's more a Ghost in the Human Being. A few of the sidequests feature more literal examples.
* GrayAndGrayMorality: Several sidequests offer options of varying immorality, with no real punishment for taking the less ethical path.
** Neither Tricorp, the Confederacy, or Robin Good are as well-intentioned as they would have everyone believe.
%%%%* GreatOffScreenWar: The Century War.
%%%%* HostileTerraform: Apparently a common tactic in the Century War.
* HappinessInSlavery: One sidequest features a robot trying to explain to a group of equal-rights activists that he'd rather be happy by machine standards than free by human ones.
%%* JerkAss:
* LawEnforcementInc: Tricorp stresses that it doesn't want to be seen as any kind of official legal authority, but at the same time, it will maintain a prison planet if necessary. One of their executives can be called out on this.
* IntrepidMerchant: The traders, who largely consider themselves above petty concerns like planetary law.
%%%%%* MacGuffin:
* MacrossMissileMassacre: Missiles are fired in batches.
* MegaCorp: Tricorp, though their desire to avoid repeating the (terminal) mistakes of past Megacorporations has led them to at least ''trying'' not to be actively evil. The Confederacy is not convinced
* MuggingTheMonster: Partially averted, in that players can call on their reputation to scare overambitious random encounters away.
* Nanomachines: According to the backstory, how pretty much everything works.
* NegativeSpaceWedgie: Weird flashy space clouds are an occasional navigational hazard.
* OhCrap: [[spoiler:Vincent and Hardgrove's simultaneous reactions at the end of Act II.]]
* PortalNetwork: Inhabited solar systems are connected by artificial wormholes.
* QuestForIdentity: [[spoiler:Initially subverted, in that Vincent's past is of no consequence.]]
* RandomlyDrops: Exploding enemy ships drop cargo, which can be tractored aboard and resold by the player.
* ReligionOfEvil: The Brotherhood, who anxiously wait for the day when their berserker machine gods have consumed everything in the universe.
%%%%%* ReligiousAndMythologicalThemeNaming: The Thrace system.
* RebelLeader: Robin Good, in her crusade against Tricorp.
* ScifiWritersHaveNoSenseOfScale: Ships battle each other at a range of approximately three feet. The backstory makes some attempt to justify this by invoking electronic jamming.
* SingleBiomePlanet: Horr is an ice world, Turin is a desert world, Sigma Khan is a city world. Averted in other cases, where port information specifies that some planets do indeed have multiple environments.
%%%%* SpaceClouds
%%%* SpaceIsAnOcean
* SpacePirates: Pirate gangs are the main source of trouble on the tradelanes.
* SpaceFighter: Player ships can deploy fighter support.
%%%%* SpaceMines
* SpacePolice: The Confederacy seem to think of this as their mission, more or less.
%%%%* SoulJar:
* TakeYourTime: The player can wander away during any campaign mission and embark on sidequests, or just plain trade. This creates some odd moments of dissonance if the situation is supposed to be urgent.
* Terraform: Every human-populated planet has been terraformed by World-Building Engines.
* TimedMission: [[spoiler:Not a mission, but the countdown to Galford Gate opening.]]
* TwoDSpace: Well, it's a 2-D game...
%%%%%%* UsedFuture:
* VideoGameTutorial: Hardgrove is interrupted in the middle of giving one and never really gets back on track.
* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Hardgrove. One dialogue option reveals that a lot of his so-called "information" is actually made up on the spot.
* WallOfText: There's quite a lot of talking, for a browser game. Sometimes it can be a little much, though skipping is always an option.
* WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture: Averted, the currency appears to be in dollars.
* WideOpenSandbox