The sky may extend forever upward, but it’s usually got a hard stop at the bottom when the ground comes into play. Dirt below, air above and people live sandwiched in between. The journey into the sky is only ever temporary, which is probably for the best seeing as falling out of it can be a major problem. If there’s no ground, though, this becomes both less of an issue and one of existential dread, but it does make living among the floating sky islands a more attractive prospect. Claim an island, rig it up with sails and steering, and adventure awaits out amidst the clouds.
Who Needs Continents When The Sky is Calling?
Aloftis a first-person base-building adventure game with a gorgeous gameplay hook in that your home is not only an island, but a skyship as well. Waking up alone with nothing but the clothes on your back it would be easy to think that there’s going to be a wait before getting to that point, but the first cluster of islands have all you need to get the basics down and rig up one of them to go exploring. Wood, leaves and stone are enough to make the first few tools, at which point the resources come as quickly as you want to harvest them. Sticks and leaves can be crafted into a personal wingsuit/glider, allowing the first island to be left behind quickly, and knowledge stones scattered around the rest of the cluster provide instructions for building the tools and components needed to get a start on setting up a homestead.
Building a Better Habitat in the Space Wreckage of Astrometica
Astrometica is a first-person survival game where a lone explorer starts with little and slowly builds their way up to a comfy home.
The tools ofAloftstart off as your standard survival-game fare: the pick breaks up rocks, axe is for trees, hammer builds things, etc. The sketchbook is where things start to get interesting, because that’s the tool that lets you copy bits of the ruins that tend to be found on the islands for use as components of your own base. Wood structures are everywhere while stone is more scarce, but targeting a bit of wall or floor while holding the sketchbook will light it up to let you know if it’s one you’ve got access to or not. Each sketch uses a page, which is an item that’s expensive to craft, but not all that uncommon out in the world if you keep your eyes open, and once used gives permanent access to constructing one of the many modular components needed to build up and decorate the home island.
Construction is your basic “snap the parts together until it looks right” process, with placement options being either to snap items into place or set them down anywhere, and it’s not hard to build a nice-looking house to put all the necessary crafting stations in. Most components come in a variety of styles, such as different types of doors, windows, walls, etc, and mixing up stone detailing on wooden walls or vice-versa is an easy way to add a bit of visual flair to even a basic box-with-windows construction. There’s no noticeable penalty for not putting a roof on, so if you want to end an in-game day by flying into bed, that’s certainly an option, but it feels weird to go to sleep while being doused by a rainstorm.
Build Stuff To Find Better Materials, Find Better Materials To Build Better Stuff
Construction is also helped in the beginning by an inventory system that feels generous before eventually becoming restrictive once you’ve explored a few islands. Wood, the different types of stone, and various basic and crafted components can go into specific stockpiles for full access wherever you may be on the home island, but it’s still too easy to get the “Your inventory is full” message when out in the world. Somewhere in the universe is a person who enjoys the challenge of a restricted inventory and needing to plan out where everything goes at home base before setting off on the next expedition, except that’s a lie and this theoretical being doesn’t exist.Aloftgoes the extra mile with this feature by having four separate inventories for different types of materials, quadrupling the chances of being told to go back to home base and think about what you’ve done before continuing the adventure. To be fair, every crafting game fromMinecrafttoNo Man’s Skyto hundreds of others limit inventory space too, but it’s gotten old as a mandatory fun-killer mechanic.
AndAloftis good fun when the adventure gets going, letting you divide up time between exploring new islands or building up the one you chose to rig with sails to pilot out on the adventure. One of the problems open-world survival games have is that it can be a long way back to base, but when you’ve turned an island into a mobile settlement the issue simply doesn’t exist. When one cluster of islands is explored and it’s time to go to the next one you can unfurl the sails, adjust altitude and abandon the helm to run tasks around the base as it’s carried forward by the wind. Tending the farm, feeding the livestock, crafting components or just kicking back in third-person view from the ship’s steering wheel and planning a building expansion or two fill up the travel time painlessly and it’s unlikely the ship will bump into anything in the wide-open skies.
That’s not to say the adventure is a sight-seeing tour, because some of the islands have a broken ecology in need of fixing. The easier ones just need a few diseased trees cleared away, a few extra plants and bugs introduced, and maybe a few seeds scattered over the land. Once done the island’s resources can be harvested, including any fancy treasure chests or knowledge stones, so it’s usually worth the extra effort. The infected islands, though, are a whole different story and they actually take combat to clear out. A variety of fungus-based enemies protect the corruption nodes and the combat system has a surprisingly varied number of special moves for a game that’s generally more relaxed. Charge strikes, dash attacks, ground-pound and several others let you dominate the fight, but in the event you do run out of health, there’s no penalty other than waking up back in bed at home base to try again.
Aloftis good fun when the adventure gets going, letting you divide up time between exploring new islands or building up the one you chose to rig with sails to pilot out on the adventure.
The combat is more of a nice bonus than a focus, though, and at heartAloftis almost pure open-world base builder. Explore, get resources, craft resources, even automate a bit after unlocking the windmill functions, but the point is to make a dream home in the sky. The islands may not be terraform-able, but the flexible construction system makes up the difference, including using foundations to expand the island’s buildable area. Exploration is as much about finding new crafting recipes as it is seeing what the sky’s got to offer, but the bigger islands can be mini bite-sized adventures in their own right. There’s jank to clear away asAloftgoes through Early Access, like the way it hitches when loading in the details as you get close to a new island, but the game has been well-received enough in the time it’s been out that it seems highly likely to get the attention it needs. It’s a large, endless sky begging to be explored, and the only thing better than going on an adventure is doing it without needing to leave the comforts of home base.
