The creators of Black Skylands plan to offer us old-fashioned gameplay with pixelart graphics, through which we will get the opportunity to explore an open, steampunk world composed of floating islands. However, is a dozen or so minutes of demo enough to whet the players’ appetite for the premiere at the end of this year?
In January, a small Russian studio, Hungry Couch Games, released the first gameplay trailer for its new product – Black Skylands on Steam . Soon after, the first playable excerpt from the mentioned title came to us. As it is rather a presentation of the framework of the game, and therefore, above all, the basic mechanics related to combat and exploration, I will not be able to say much about such aspects as the plot or the promised diversity of the environment, support for the day and night cycle, etc. . So let’s focus on what can be assessed now!
As I have already mentioned, we are dealing here with a rather dynamic shooter in the old school edition – we see the controlled character from above, while she remains in the center of the frame all the time, which moves with her when we move. Our hero can move in any direction and turn, following the sight with the mouse or joystick. Things are a bit different when we sit at the controls of our airship (which I will talk about in a moment), but it does not turn the gameplay upside down. The concept itself is therefore very simple.
The first time the demo is launched, it makes a pretty good impression – although the main menu is so far rather rudimentary, it has quite nice pixel graphics, and the start of the game is made more pleasant by a polished, “epic” track from the soundtrack. In the alpha version, our task is to visit the so-called Western Island and clearing it of enemies, which is enough for about 20 minutes of fun. At the beginning and end of the adventure, we will see a handful of dialog boxes showing the characters in a style characteristic of the title, already known to us from the menu and promotional images. The graphics during the game are relatively simple, but they do not sting in the eyes spoiled by today’s photorealism. The colors are vivid and the color palette is wide, so it’s nice to look at. The models of airborne ships also deserve praise here,
Hyc from islet to islet, murdering everything that moves …
The aspects that can be looked at closely at the moment are combat and exploration of the world on foot. The first one is very dynamic and after getting to grips with the controls, it is really enjoyable and satisfying. Already at this stage of the game’s development, we will face several types of opponents, both human and animal. These opponents will not let us get bored, because everyone moves in their own way and has a different type of attack. We can find here various ranged weapons, enemies trying to hit or bite us, and even suicide creatures running towards us, exploding at the moment of death. The arsenal on our side also promises to be quite impressive – in the alpha version we can use five guns, some of which even have an alternative fire mode. In addition, the creators were also tempted to implement a decent destruction of the environment, so that the vast majority of objects on the map can be destroyed in one way or another. Of course, the immortal “exploding barrels” were not forgotten either.
The only thing that, in my opinion, needs to be refined is the camera work during skirmishes. When we shoot and move rapidly from side to side, trying to avoid enemy missiles, the screen shakes mercilessly, seriously hindering aiming and general comprehension of the situation. I understand that this effect was supposed to make the gameplay even more dynamic, but for my taste at the moment it only frustrates and introduces unnecessary chaos. And without that, precise aiming at enemies is difficult because when we move, the cursor performs shifts analogous to our character. What I mean? In this type of shooter, standing still means a quick defeat, because the opponents rarely miss themselves. Unfortunately, when we take e.g. a step up without moving the mouse, our sight will also move up one frame, keeping its position on the screen but not on the map. So we can’t target the enemy once, and then run freely – we have to “counter” our every move by moving the sight in the opposite direction, which is not easy with such fast and agile skirmishes.
The exploration is not the most interesting for now, due to the size of the map shown in the demo version, we run quite linearly from one cluster of opponents to the next, collecting ammunition, first aid kits and new weapons along the way. The whole thing is slightly diversified by the places where we have to “jump” between small islands using a jet pack, but it is not anything extraordinary. Perhaps this simple and quite nice mechanic will be better used in the further development of the game.
Anyone can fly, sometimes a little better, sometimes a little worse
I was also very impressed by the short sequence of travel by plane. I guess this is how we will explore the world presented in the full version of the title most of the time. At least I hope so, because this short ride was quite exciting for me, mainly due to the interesting control model and the need to defend against flying enemies from all directions. There was, however, a bit of bitterness, because steering the ship, while intriguing, is neither simple nor intuitive. Especially at higher speeds, it is easy to lose control over the vehicle – at the end of the flight I was literally spinning the tops around my axis, only slightly controlling the direction in which I was ultimately moving. Unfortunately, it is difficult for me to judge Does this element of the gameplay require some fine-tuning on the part of the creators, or maybe the airship becomes less vicious when we spend a bit more time with it than the demo version allows. Closing the topic of the flying vehicle, I have to commend the way it isBlack Skylands approaches its damage – apart from the usual, boring HP bar, we will see that our unit has smoking holes. However, they are not an empty graphic ornament – to repair the ship, we have to let go of the rudder, approach the weakened places on the hull and patch them up ourselves.
Although the fragment of the game presented in the alpha version is not the most extensive, it makes a pretty good impression and allows you to assume that the project will sprout into something really interesting over time. There are still many months until the end of 2020, and the creators’ ambitions seem considerable. Even though I am not a big fan of shooters seen “from the bird’s eye”, I was intrigued by Black Skylands so much that I will follow its further development – which I recommend to you!