Reviews from

in the past


zdar ne. Black skylands je top down open world střílečka která začala velice silně. Gameplay to má fakt super, buď jsi na svojí létací lodi ze které střílíš zbraní na přídi nebo kanónama, lítaš v podstatě z ostrova na ostrov a proti tobě jsou v enemácký lodě který jsou ze začátku cool, nebo potom co z té lodě vyjdeš tak jsi na ostrově nebo na enemáckě lodi kde střílíš ze svých zbraní, máš jich max 3 a potom abilitky. Příběhově to začne s tím že hraješ za naši malou protagonistku která se chce stát v podstatě pilotem těchhle lodí, eventuelně se vrátíš do přítomnosti kde ses právě vrátil z akademie podívat se na svoje rodný místo protože už dlouho neposlalo zprávu co se s ním děje. Zjistíš že celá oblast je pod zámkem od chlapíka z nějakýho neznámího důvodu, potom umře zdejší guvernér, což je i tvůj dědeček, řekne ti že to tady máš na starosti a hra začne. Hru jsem hrál 10 hodin a za těch 10 byl příběh ze začátku zajímavej ale úplně si neudržel tempo a začal být moc nataženej, spíš mi přišlo že si až moc šetřily ty mimozemáky na konec, ale k těm se taky dostanu. Gameplayově to je hrozný zklamání, ty získáš všechny classy zbraní a to je všechno, ty je sice můžeš vylepšit ale to je prostě +15% damage, +Fire Rate a -Reload Speed, revolucionární, navíc je získáváš v podobě attachmentů který jsou v lootboxech.LMAO ty deš na ostrov, třeba ho odsvobodíš od enemáků a dostaneš za to lootbox, poser se, to je jedinej způsob jak ty attachmenty získat, kámo jako to kdo prostě vymyslel. Jinak máš tak 4 abilit z čehoš jsou 2 turety, štít, a stun a vylepšení je to samí. Po těch 10 hodiných jsem měl 3 lodi, což jsem měl mít ze základu protože to jsou v podstatě startovaci archatypy (archetypy ? nevim naser si teď to píšu na gauči a nehodlám se zohnout pro myš) jedná je rychlá a má málo hp, další je střed ve všem, a ta poslední je pomalá a má hodně hp. Můžeš si je upgradovat docela extenzivně a jakoukoli zbraň můžeš dát na jakoukoli loď, cool. tak to mělo totiž být i stěma normálníma zbraněma. Celá hra trpí tím že po tom co ti ukáže core gameplay loop tak s tím už potom nic moc nedělá, snaží se o to ale to stojí za pěkný hovno takže ty seš prostě stucklej s tím co máš a jestli tě to nebaví tak gg. Mohlo to třeba revealnout tu obrovskou oblast kde jsou teasnutí mimozemáci ale o tom jekej reveal byl už se nedozvíme protože ta hra se s tím moc šetří a mě už to nebaví hrát. Příběh nic moc a gameplay je cool ale není tak robustní že to budeš hrát 100 hodin bez toho aniž by ti ta hra pomáhala a obměňovala to. Velice se mi líbilo jak hra vypadala a její použití 2d spritů s 3d objektama, mělo to pěknej art style, sound design měl svoje chvíle ale overall to nebylo nic revolučního, a možná to co přispělo k tomu že jsem s tou hrou strašně nevyboval je to že je tam strašně málo hudby.

It's is a cool little game to play on steam deck.
The gameplay is fun, it even compensates the below average plot but it is sufficient to keep it going through the game.
I guess the point that disappointed me the most is the ship mechanics, it is a little clunky and get frustrating sometimes.
I'd recommend this game for fans of the genre (Hotline miami, enter the gungeon, etc).

El juego aprueba porque lo complete y me gusto.

Pero es un juego que se quedo corto. Tenia mucho potencial, pero no se, me quede con el regusto de que fuera algo mas.

Quiero decir, la dificultad del juego, por ejemplo, es casi nula. Puedes llevar un 20% del juego y aun asi ir a las islas finales.

I picked this up because I thought it looked neat, and it is neat, but I have realized I'm not much of a twin stick shooter guy.


What a game! What a lovely game! Yes, this game is so good I have to resurrect old Fury Road quotes. Just the other week, I was commenting on how I liked The Ascent more than it deserves just because dualstick shooter RPG is pretty much my dream genre, but there are very few to choose from. I had Black Skylands on my wishlist, but really, I only bought it because of the unusual top-down camera angle and the steampunk airships, not really realizing that it was going to be an open world dualstick shooter RPG.

It is and I love it! You ride your airship around, take on main quests or visiting side quest islands only to explore or help people out with something or other. You can go fishing for rare fish to trade for weapon mods, for your arsenal of guns with a wide build variety thanks to an enormous amount of mods. I absolutely loved riding my airship full speed into a dock full of enemies, jumping off without slowing down and blasting those fools as my ship drifted off on its own and I did it almost every time I landed on an island. Hell, I loved doing almost everything in this game.

So, let's face the obvious thing. This game is not pretty. It will not attract you with its visuals, and the visuals made me assume that this was going to be a janky like student project level game with neat ideas but awful execution, but the reality is that this is a kind of ugly game that's highly polished. All throughout the learning phase of the game, I was constantly gleefully surprised to find that the game offered this or that feature that made the game more fun and/or convenient. You can fast travel not only between islands and the main "fathership", but directly to your own ship from anywhere on an island, which is just enormously convenient and time-saving when it comes to the boring trek back to your ship after you've cleared an island. The tablet that houses all of your information is clean and easily usable. You can track quests, put down your own markers, tweak your guns and your ship and read lore. All of this is standard stuff in today's market, I know, but those features also tend to show up in major games made by like 300 people with a decade of experience and it's rare to see this large amount of QoL in a little indie team's first game.

The flow of the game is such that you can fly around freely and either follow the main quest or head to the side islands, and I found it naturally easy, in a way I can't quite put into words in this review, to see what would be a main quest island and a side quest island, so it never happened that I had mistakenly cleared a main quest island before I was going there and only once had I cleared a side quest island before the side quest sent me there. You explore the island and solve a few side quest puzzles that I found enjoyable even though I mostly hate puzzles in my action games, hunt for resources used to upgrade your crafting stations at home base and, of course, do lots of dualstick shooting with a large variety of different guns that you customize to your liking with mods, and I liked doing all of it. The level design for the islands is consistently well-crafted, and I especially liked the sections that required you to do some little dodge roll and grappling hook acrobatics to reach tricky areas for a mod chest (which are addictive to collect because you always want that +++Damage in order to destroy pirate fools who dare stand in your way even harder).

I'm just rambling and I feel like I won't manage a coherent and detailed listing of everything I liked about this game, so I'll just summarize and say that I loved almost everything about this game, and playing through it from start to finish was a real joy that never left me bored. I just loved going from island to island, shooting, puzzling, airshipping and looting, I loved that enemies were finite and that defeating all of them liberated the island and reinstated peaceful inhabitants, and I kind of wanted this game to be like five times bigger and longer. Apparently, the early access version was quite different and was going to be more of a survival game with farming, more of a give and take between liberated islands being taken back by pirates and stuff, and the end result is very scaled down in that it's a semi-linear RPG with a clear start and finish and some side questing along the way, and farming has been completely stripped from the final game, but as I never played the EA version, I can't find myself too bothered by it. The idealized version from the early betas does sound like it could've been cooler, but it's understandable that they didn't earn enough during EA to be able to realize that far more ambitious vision and I very much enjoyed what's on offer here.

The worst part of the game is the plot and the writing. I was super disappointed early on when it became clear that the threat isn't actually the sky pirates, but an alien parasite species that wants to devour the world. Theyr'e called "the swarm". Yawn. We've seen that a thousand million times, from The Borg in Star Trek to The Flood in Halo and so on, and so on. Sky pirates would've actually been much more unique and fun and I don't think this game actually needed a spectacular multiverse ending involving alien gods and such. Just a big bad sky pirate to defeat would've been perfect. The actual craftsmanship of the writing is also quite questionable, and it's too often obvious that the writers aren't native english speakers. For example, one of the final mission descriptions is "Go to the Kain's fort", which is obviously some janky english and that kind of broken grammar permeates the whole script. They really ought to have asked an EA backer to proofread the script for them, since the overall good but not quite perfect grammar shows up and ruins the immersion and appreciation of the story nearly constantly. On top of that, there are certain things that translate extra poorly, like how I believe that they tried to write the main character as kind of a stern follower of the rules, but their attempt at writing stoicism just turned out to make her kind of a rude asshole. At several points, I marveled at how, wow, my character is a total dick for no reason, and I don't think that's on purpose since other characters in the game adore her and no one comments on what a cunt she is.

I'm giving this game a very high score because that's how much fun I had with it, which is to say a lot of fun. Is the game perfect and free froim bugs and jank? Absolutely not, but there was nothing big enough to ruin the enjoyment for me, and I loved every hour of this game. As soon as the (admittedly kind of wonky) tutorial was over, I fell in love and never fell out. Maybe the game's somewhat short length, for the genre, at only about 15 hours worked to its favor and maybe I would've been annoyed if the game dragged for 50 hours, but that's just another strength if so. They don't seem to be doing much on social media right now, but I hope the team is quiet because they're hard at work on a bigger and even better sequel, because I can't wait to play more!

Blackskylands is a rather nice game, with a few elements of little interest.

The game is played with a Hotline Miami-style top-down view, and there are two types of gameplay, on a ship and on foot. The combat phases are fairly repetitive after a while, whether on foot or in the ship, you shoot at anything that moves and that's that. There are also a few puzzles to unlock gems for upgrades. The most difficult part of the game, however, is navigating the islands to find your way around, as the game can be a little confusing. You also have to farm resources to upgrade your weapons and ship, but nothing too complicated or in-depth, which is a bit of a shame.

From a visual point of view, the game lacks direction and isn't exactly beautiful, sometimes lacking in legibility.

In addition to these aesthetic shortcomings, the story isn't necessarily incredible and lacks originality.

Overall the game is average plus, it's worth doing if you like this kind of game but it's not very original or very interesting.

This game is currently in the Humble Choice for March 2024, and this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before April 2nd, 2024, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.

A pixel art game that impresses.

I’m not normally a fan of pixel art, but Black Skylands shines. The character models look great, the world looks interesting, and it’s always clear what every object should be. At least mostly. There’s a huge massive world to explore with what appears to be tons of interesting locations. The player pilots a small boat that can shoot cannons at enemies and the player can hookshot between islands, boats, and more.

However, I struggled with the controls. I will say I think it’s more user error, but if it’s not it might take players a while to get used to the game. There are no huge penalties, but it still is a bit frustrating. Also, it’s not always clear what areas are right for the player's experience so I’m not sure if I struggled, or just found areas and enemies that should be fought in the late game.

Pick this up if you like the art style here, and want to explore a large vast world. There’s a lot to discover and find here, and that’s really what worked. I kept wondering what would happen on the next trip. I’d want to continue to play to see where my next trip took me.

If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/PX2c6Gm5Jbg

A game that i should have connected with a bit better, because it has all the elements I like: great pixel art, top-down twin stick shooting, crafting, open world, flying, territory control, and even the story was pretty well told! but it just didn't land for me, and maybe it's because the elements were a bit fiddly (the classic "10,000 of your 15000 to get a 10% upgrade to one of sixteen stats" slog), or maybe its just because I'm not in the right place for it rn

I really love this game. There are really 3 parts to this game. From a top down perspective, you explore islands, collecting materials and shooting enemy pirates in a style that resembles Hotline Miami. Second, you hop each island using your airship, that has guns and can take out enemy aircrafts. Lastly by doing those two things you progress a fun and entertaining story. I highly recommend this awesome indie game!

An enjoyable and cool indie game, I had a really good time, I recommend it.

This was a really fun game. I enjoyed the open world, flying around and killing baddies. Exploring to find hidden chests and weapon mods was neat. The whole weapon mod mechanic was awesome. Not much need to decorate or even visit your house on Fathership. I wish there was a use for the turrets you can buy and place around Fathership though, like some random attacks you have to fend off. English also wasn't the strongest but it was certainly passable. Oh well, small stuff. All in all it was a fun experience. The devs did a great job.

Played the demo and while that one was arguably better, this game is still pretty good.

A fun indie game where you get to be the captain of your own airship! Had a fun time with this game in early access and can't wait to see what the devs add to it.

Had a solid game loop and enjoyed my time with it. Great visuals and character designs, below average story, great core gameplay, great exploration.

Overall I felt it didn't drag on too long or have too much bloat. There were just enough options for weapons and abilities which made for a decently customizable play-style. Story was straightforward, though underdeveloped, overall not disappointed. Definitely some mechanics outside of the core "bullet hell" gameplay that were underbaked and underutilized. Satisfying amount of exploration and sense of completion when liberating islands, though this does quickly become more of a checklist.

I have a huge pileup of games, the way I get through them is by putting them all on a wheel and spinning what I play, sometimes it's horrible and I get something like Assassin's Creed Odyssey, but sometimes I get something like this that I didn't really care about playing but I'm glad I did.

It's just a really solid game. I think the art design was really good, especially on the creatures. The gunplay was simple but fun. I wasn't as much of a fan of the ship controls, it occasionally felt a bit jank but never got to be annoying. The dialogue was kind of robotic at times. But overall I really enjoyed.

it was all right, enjoyed my time with it, have no desire to continue with the end-game raid challenges, so i'm done!

there's some drama around the fact that it apparently removed a lot of mechanics from early access - notably base-building stuff, like farming and whatnot - and you can tell! there's references to it, there's little decorations you can buy and place around your base ship, but honestly none of it feels missed as someone who didn't play the early access version

i really think the devs just realized it was all superfluous and distracted from the main game, cause i can't imagine having a farm would feel... useful or impactful

that said, it also speaks to the game's biggest flaw, which is a lack of depth - it does feel shallow and kinda tedious at times, but it's short enough that i didn't mind too much i suppose

the story was the worst aspect imo, just extremely straightforward implementation of common tropes, and making eva a bug woman felt... ultimately pointless... maybe a sequel could expand on that in interesting ways, but who can really say unless it happens

The gameplay loop becomes monotonous. After putting in around 10 hours, I abandoned exploring and side quests to focus solely on the main quest until completion.

The top-down view is not ideal and a different perspective of the character would be more appropriate.
Additionally, the camera is too close for effective use of the sniper rifle outside of some boss fights. The majority of enemies are melee fightersv so you will use the shotgun or submachine gun most of the time anyway.

The story is okay. Nothing special. The twist came kinda unexpected, but is just whatever. The game feels longer than necessary and could have been finished sooner.

Combate bacana, tanto de navio quanto do próprio personagem, jogo tem sua profundidade na gameplay que o torna interessante, mas o looping de gameplay logo se torna repetitivo. Visão de cima pra baixo não favorece, qualquer outra visão do personagem imagino que seria mais adequado. Jogo está bem bugado, é possível finalizar, mas as vezes tem falha no controle, trava a tela, fecha sozinho...
O jogo é mais longo que deveria, poderia ter terminado antes

Fun time. Gave me Farcry vibes a bit. I really liked the ship management and weapon customization. Story is pretty alright. Enjoyable experience.

Great game. Love the concept of sky pirates. Would recommend this game to anyone looking for a simple exploration bullet hell.

But many of the features from the beta versions were cut and it's obvious once your near the mid-end game. There are too many useless resources in the world you'll never use because the crafting system was striped to its bare parts. There is no gardens anymore. Will less stuff to spend currency on, you won't ever need to farm for any resources unless your impatient. And pretty sure you can fully upgrade your weapons and buildings early if your dedicated enough.

Overall, I'm disappointed with all the missed potential.

Da série "Jogos de pixel que são perfeitos". Ele é realmente uma joia escondida, poucas pessoas já jogaram esse jogo, mas certamente quem jogo não se decepcionou.

Black Skylands possui mecânicas de progressão de barcos e de personagem muito boas, sendo muito recompensador a exploração e o Grinding.

Com uma história envolvente e com personagens carismáticos Black Skylands entrega o que promete.

Obs.: Vale ficar de olho em atualizações futuras.