Black Skylands

I have played this game elseware for a bit and all I can say is that it's a great idea with a lot of potential. Could easily turn into something very special if the devs play their cards right. If I had to put a label on it I would say it's an open world action/adventure RPG, but its actually very genre-blending, there's a lot in the mix. Top-down shouting combat, either on foot or airborne, an open world that requires exploration, gathering resources and crafting, customising your ship and loadout etc... Other than the gameplay, the other thing that makes it stand out (rather obviously), is the beautifull pixel art and the inspired sky-nomad setting. Soundtrack is quite interesting as well. I'd say its pretty clear that the game has pretty good art direction as well, to sum it up. A very promising title that you should definitely have in your radar if you're into open world action/adventure games!

First bought it on steam, repurchased it here despite the in-dev status. I was expecting to like this game, but it was even better than expected. The gameplay is simply tons of fun. Whether you explore the vast skies with your trusty airship or whack enemies on some of the islands there's always something new to find. The game has a gearing and upgrade system for both your character and your ship - the weapons and gear are either crafted from resources or purchased from vendors in game, weapon mods are found in chests you have to fly to your home base to open, meaning the game encourages you to do lots of exploring. There's also a base building system but it's mostly used to gate the crafting - "Have you managed to progress to this story mission and acquired these materials? Good, you can upgrade this then." This isn't a bad thing and somewhat necessary to not outgear everything through sheer grinding, but there's lots more that could be done with it. Despite being in dev the game has a good bit of content and actually feels somewhat complete at this point. There's a big satisfying final mission and boss fight followed by endless play, but apparently the developers still have more story planned. The story itself isn't anything special, but it's entertaining and functional, if a bit vanilla. But the gameplay is the real star here anyways. If there's anything I'd put on my wishlist it's multiplayer, be it coop or versus and... more. More of everything. The gameplay doesn't seem to require a lot of tweaking past its current state, so I want as much content as the dev can crank out. Bigger map, more missions, more secrets, more puzzles, more diverse and interesting weapons, gear and mods, more enemies - just more, more, more!

The game did not receive any updates since 2023-08, devs decided to publish the 1.0 version without a third of the planned content. So they (devs) are trying to fool gamers with statements that Black Skylands is a complete game. But it is not! Do not waste your money on such an awful project, and do not sponsor developers that trying to fool gamers!

There is a demo available so go and check it out to see if the gameplay is to your liking. I usually wait till the full release but there are very few reviews so I’ve decided to play a bit and share my experience. At the time of the review I’ve played 1h18min and have beaten the first boss. The languages you can choose from are English, Russian, French, German, Spanish, Chinese(I think) and Portugese Brazilian. There wasn't any text missing in English but the game is still in development so that might not be the case for the other languages. I’ve encountered two bugs so far. Half of the time when I tried to exit the game, it just freezes and I cannot even get the task manager so I had to restart my PC. The other one was when I was on a trader’s flying ship and I was browsing the shop menu I found that I can move and I fell off the ship and died while in the shop menu. The story begins like a child’s cartoon but soon turns into Starship Troopers. The characters remind me of anime personages with exaggerated traits and everyone is taking stuff way too seriously. As a whole it is OK. To get a feel of the gameplay you really need to play the demo. The short version is - you have a base that you can build structures that provide some benefits, you fly between the different sky islands fighting enemies and collecting resources and liberating them. With the resources and items you find you build the base structures and upgrade your ship and weapons. I haven’t played that much so there might be some other mechanics I haven’t encountered. I like what I’ve seen so far. For me the game is more than the sum of its parts. It is easy to see that it is not a finished and polished product. The base building, the bullet hell combat, the upgrade system and world exploration are nothing special on their own but all of that combined with good pixel art and good atmosphere makes for a pretty interesting game. In my experience the bugs were not game breaking but your mileage may vary.