When it comes to Open World games, most people think of titles set in modern day or a fantasy-esque setting. We’re used to worming around on the ground, reveling in the beautiful landscapes crafted for us. But how many of us have looked up to the skies and wondered what it would be like to explore the heavens above? Developer Hungry Couch Games and publisher tinyBuild have decided to explore this concept with their debut title, Black Skylands: An open-world airship adventure that has you sailing across the skies collecting resources, upgrading your ship, and taking back the lands from dangerous sky pirates. Keep in mind, we’ve so far only been given the Steam demo, which is subject to change at any point in time. Now, with that out of the way, let’s blast some pirates!
Story
If you’ve ever seen A Bug’s Life then you’ll be pretty familiar with the opening sequence of Black Skylands. You start out living a normal life in your floating town high above the world below when the mayor, your father, is accosted by a skullduggerous group of organized Sky Thugs. They demand that your town produce the necessary resources to support them, or else you’ll all be taught a violent lesson. To your brother’s disgust, your father agrees and rallies the town and prepares a tribute to the black-flagged fliers. Once the time of the exchange comes, your brother loses it for a second and chucks a bomb at the gang like he’s in a schoolyard snowball fight. Without a second thought, the thugs retaliate by killing the mayor, destroying a good chunk of the town, and basically go berserk on everything around them. Shamed by all this, your brother runs off in exile, leaving you to pretty much put everything he messed up back together. So like the heroic sister you are, you set out to find your brother and banish these pirates from your realm once and for all.
Gameplay & Mechanics
Black Skylands has a lot of things going on at once. There is the farming, which allows you to collect and harvest resources to sell for money or supplies. There is the land-based combat where you shoot, dodge, and melee enemies into a million pieces. Then there’s the air travel and flying of your actual ship. So far all of these feel pretty standard with the ground combat being one of the more solid of the three, and the flying leaving a bit to be desired. If you’ve ever played Stardew Valley or any of the Harvest Moon games, the Farming in this title is quite similar. You find seeds that can be planted in gardens, water them, and eventually harvest your crops for profit or supplies. While there’s nothing revolutionary about this system, it creates an interesting avenue for making money.
The gunplay is where the game really begins to show off. So far in the demo, we get to play with several weapon types; pistols, shotguns, snipers, and automatic rifles. Each gun can be outfitted with various mods that add both bonuses and hindrances, forcing you to smartly customize your loadout. The game can quickly turn into a bullet-hell where enemies are shooting at you from all directions. The ship flying, the core component of the game, has a lot of room for improvement in my opinion. It feels okay, which I hope is done on purpose so that you truly feel the impact of your upgrades in the mid to late game.
You have to manage your ship’s repairs when it’s damaged, your ammunition for your ship’s weapons, and fuel all by yourself while pirates on both docks and skyships are shooting at you. I do like how the cannons recoil affects your ship’s movements, but aside from that, I find it hard trusting that my craft will do what I want it to, which makes me hesitant in certain situations. Docking, for example, can give you a heart-attack as your ship never truly feels like it’s come to a complete stop. Instead of connecting to a dock and being held into place, you kinda just bump and grind up against a solid mass and hope you don’t bounce too far away before using your grappling hook to exit your craft. I hope more time is spent on improving the overall experience of the airships as that seems to be the core aspect of the game.
Aesthetics & Sound
This is where Black Skylands begins to shine. The 2.5D pixel-art world crafted by Hungry Couch Games is a pleasure to explore. There are weird avian beings that fly across the screen scaring the crap out of you the first couple of times, cute sprites that animate like a classic RPG game, and small assets that are well put together. Still, because the game is completely top-down, you’re mainly staring at the heads of these sprites: not seeing much else unless they walk or you interact with them to get the full portrait. There were a few times where I’ve mistaken NPCs for rocks or other random items due to it being difficult to distinguish them from the landscape.
One thing that is truly a work of art is your ship and how it animates. When accelerating, the propellers spin and you are thrust through the air. When you turn, fins jettison out from the bow allowing your ship to rotate. Hitting the breaks applies sails in the stern of the ship. It’s a beautiful machine to watch in action. Taking damage leaves holes in your craft that you have to patch up, and firing your cannons too often will leave them steaming red until they cool down. As far as the soundtrack, it is very unobtrusive, which is good because it lets you enjoy other aspects of the game. I’ve nothing negative to say about the sound aspects of Black Skylands and appreciate their less-is-more approach to the music.
Overall, Black Skylands is an interesting title with a lot going on with it. Though I can’t help but draw a lot of comparisons from fully 3D MMO, Worlds Adrift, which has very strong parallels to this title. Hopefully, the base building and gunplay allow Hungry Couch Games to grow the distance between these two titles. Aside from that, I’m left with good impressions and will be keeping an eye out for this game Q2 release on Steam.
Check Out the Black Skylands Steam Demo Trailer:
The playtest is a limited time event, but you still have time to request access to play right now via Steam.
As the (self-proclaimed) King of Casuals, I'm always seeking out new titles to play and experience across all platforms. Eventually, I have ambitions to take the many different styles of this medium to create titles that will wow the masses in fresh, innovative ways.
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