Black Skylands

Developed By: Hungry Couch Games

Published By: tinyBuild Games

Price: £15.49 / $19.99

Action, Adventure, Open-World

There’s something always so enchanting about the setting of steampunk. You’ll have games like Sea of Thieves, where you have the entire blue of the ocean to explore, and it’s a wonderful time. But to be able to see the entire sky before you, to run your fingers through the misty clouds, is something I always dream of playing in. One of the newest indie games out there, Black Skylands, desires to have us feel that, but did they succeed? 

 

Keep in mind, Black Skylands is in early access, so it has a lot to fix, but there does seem to be a full game here, which is already sucker-punching most other early access titles on Steam.

Shattered Earth

The world of Black Skylands is where the most interest lies. It’s a steampunk world where Earth was shattered into many small pieces now floating in the sky. The people still make do, living on these floating islands and flying their airships, though they still face many problems. The two major problems being blood-thirsty pirates and a horde of bug-like creatures known as the Swarm. 

You play as Eva, daughter to a researcher looking into the threat of the Swarm. One day, while Eva still plays around with the dream of being a sky captain, her father brings home a child of the swarm. This horribly considered decision leads to an incident that changes the course of Aspya. 

Seven years later, the Swarm continues to breathe down their neck. To make matters worse, a group of bandits known as Kain’s Falcons are taking over the many islands in your area to put under their reign. Thus, it is up to Eva to figure out how to stop the Swarm, while also taking back land from the Falcons. 

Overall, the story is fine. It has enough intrigue to carry you through enough of the game, though some of the tedious nature of its gameplay loop might make you lose interest. The characters could be more expressive in their faces than just their words. They speak of horrific things happening with only the most dull of expressions. I would at least prefer them to have different facial emotions for when their sentences change to make them feel more alive. 

Wide Open Sky

The world of Black Skylands is so well detailed you’d expect more in the way of how the characters react. Such love is put into the environments of the world, especially when you notice some objects are actually 3D animated, and it fits so well. You’ll see the beauty in the forests, the lively nature of the cities, and the creatures that lie far below you, almost taking up the entire background. 

All of this is open once the tutorial is over, but there are barriers in the form of difficulty. Across the entirety of Aspya are multiple floating islands taken over by the Falcons. From the get go, you can go out and take them back whenever you see fit. The map is surprisingly large, informing you that there is plenty to be done before you hit the credits. 

It’s so large, in fact, that I do find myself looking at the map every once in a while to re-check where I am on it. One thing I would wish from Black Skylands is a mini-map in the corner to make navigation just a bit easier. It would also help traversing the islands. 

Taking Aspya Back

The takeover of islands basically makes up the core gameplay loop of Black Skylands. You go in, you tear stuff up, you kill all the enemies, you win. Fireworks, flag planting, hurrah! People return to the island and now the population of that island is added to your population total, something we’ll return to. Not only that, but now you can avail yourself of that island’s resources. 

My one problem with this gameplay loop is that they don’t do much to tell you where the enemies are. Multiple times through my playthrough I killed all but one or two enemies on the island. Then my hunt for them started, which would take up to thirty minutes or I could have just given up. One thing I would appreciate from this game is a straggler icon to show you where the last remnants are. That way I won’t be wasting my time searching for the enemies.

Now, though it might be easy at first, takeovers become quite difficult in the later islands. There are two ratings which you should try to fit before hitting such islands. Your Ship Rating and your Character Rating. Each can be increased or decreased depending on what you’ve equipped yourself and your ship with. These are used to measure how prepared you are for taking on specific islands, as shown by them having those ratings as well to match with.

Sky Captain Ready

So you take off. Honestly, movement in Black Skylands feels fine, and it will only improve with further upgrades, but we’ll return to that. On foot, this game is a top down shooter. You run, you dodge, you aim, you shoot, you slash. It all feels as it should. In addition to these basics, you have a hookshot that will bring small enemies to you, you to bigger enemies, and you to whatever structure you shoot it at. This makes traversing the many floating islands to be an easier task. 

One thing I’m not a huge fan of is the zoomed-in camera. It’s a top-down game, so lots of things are dependent on seeing enemies from a certain distance. The distance from which the camera sits is a bit too close, and thus makes enemies outside of my view impossible to spot. Sometimes, they will spot me before I do them, which makes it somewhat frustrating when I’m trying to survive. If the developers could pull the camera out a bit, I think that would make for a better experience. 

Not only can you upgrade yourself, but you can even mod your weapons to their fullest extent. First, you can equip yourself with a growing variety of gear to improve your health and other such stats. In addition, almost every weapon, sans the special ones, can be equipped with a modicum of weapon modifications you receive either through taking mod boxes back to your home base, crafting them, or buying them. These offer significant advantages and sometimes disadvantages, but it does help raise your Character Rating and thus makes taking over further islands easier. 

Ship Fully Equipped

The ship, on the other hand, is fairly unruly. However, that does seem to be the point, especially as time goes on and you get upgrades that improve how the ship runs. Otherwise, you’re going to be treating it as if it were an actual ship; with a slow turning radius, and cannons that actually make the ship move. Ship combat isn’t my favorite, as it does feel a bit clunky to operate, but it was the best way they could do it, so I can’t give them any fault for it. Though, when you get the ability to have forward firing cannons, that gets pretty fun. 

You will have to take good care of your ship if you want to sail the skies without fear of death. It needs fuel to keep going, fully stocked cannons for defense, and constant repairs to keep it from falling apart. These can all either be scavenged from the world or purchased from fueling stations. These stations also act as fast travel stations, allowing you to quickly travel to other fueling stations that you have discovered. 

Your ship is obviously an important part of Black Skylands, so upgrading it is quite important if you’re to brave the skies. Things such as fuel efficiency, turning speed, regular speed, durability, and more are dependent on upgrades. You can even change the type of ship you have, each of which come with their own benefits and issues. 

The way to get all these upgrades is through your home base, The Fathership. Throughout the entire game, the one place you’ll be returning to is your home. Here you can refuel, customize your ship, sleep, and a modicum of other activities. You can even move objects around like lamp posts to mold it into how you want it to look. 

Home Is Where The Upgrades Are

However, the most important aspect is cleaning it up and building new facilities that will assist you in your journey. You’ll be able to build armories, farms, ranches, ship workshops, and more. Not only that, but you can upgrade the facilities to allow you access to higher tier items. All of these will be able to provide you with the necessary upgrades to keep yourself alive as you delve deeper into Aspya. 

Of course, all this requires resources, and those vary in how you can get them. Mostly, you’ll be finding them across the game world, extracting them from wood piles or rocks. Other times you’ll grow them from the farm at home. And the rest is taken from enemies, which mostly consists of scrap metal and parts. All of these will become important eventually, as it’s imperative to have the best gear to take on the world. 

In some cases, you might need to just buy some resources, in which case there is a trading system. While the common currency, oil capsules, will buy you just about anything, you will have to trade items for items just to get what you want. Of course, this means more exploration, more gathering. 

Exploring The Clouds

Luckily, they make certain aspects of exploration easier thanks to your moth. Yes, you have a pet moth, and they do a lot of literal heavy lifting. At the press of certain buttons, they can carry you back to your ship, or gear back to your ship’s hold. Safe to say, this option certainly made it easier to play Black Skylands, as I couldn’t bear having to go back and forth to bring resources to the hold every time I found one. 

So, safe to say, you’ll be spending a lot of time out there, scavenging, gathering, fighting, and you’ll have a good amount of downtime in between. Well, the music doesn’t provide enough of an interesting sound to drown out some of the dull expeditions, but they do sound nice to at least listen to. It’s good music, I just can’t really remember any of them well enough; they were kinda forgettable. 

The audio design is fine. I can’t really complain except for the few times the audio clipped from multiple sounds playing at once. Guns have a nice punch and the ships sound pretty authentic. 

One weird audio design decision, and I haven’t seen this anywhere else, is that there is one character that has voice lines. Just one. And it’s the merchant at your home base. All he does is greet you. No one else has voice lines, which I found immensely odd. 

Now, as I said, this game is in early access, so some problems I have may instantly vanish the next day. For instance, I had problems with enemy AI breaking and enemies just not being able to die. Sure enough, recently they had fixed those. The devs are quite transparent and always available to talk to, especially through their Discord. 

Set Sail

Overall, Black Skylands is a promising game in the indie game market. It offers a surprisingly open world in an intriguing setting, even if the characters might not show much interest in it. The combat feels great while the ships feel realistic, providing you an immersive experience to take on these terrifying skies. There are problems with navigating them, but it doesn’t detract too much from the experience. 

For the price you pay, Black Skylands is well worth the price. And with a promisingly active developer, any problems you may have could be fixed before you know it. I would most definitely recommend Black Skylands. 

 

Verdict

Recommended

 

Did you enjoy this review? Check out our reviews of Boomerang X and The Chameleon. Do you enjoy what we do? Check out our Ko-Fi, and consider dropping us a coffee! If you want to do what we do, we’re looking for new writers and editors! Fill out the form here if you’re interested. Thanks!

Reviewed by Freelance7. Game provided by tinyBuild Games.