Skyward Collapse is a recently released god game from Arcen Games that lets you play as a powerful Creator in a turn based world with two human factions and a pantheon of minor gods. The two sides are intent on killing each other, and it’s your job, as the master of their world, to ensure that both sides survive. You control the infrastructure of each race, as well as the land tiles on the map, and you have the ability to influence minor gods to wreak havoc on the world at your command. The twist comes from having absolutely no control over what either human faction does with their military.
Unique Concept
The god game genre hasn’t had a lot of recent innovation, but Skyward Collapse has a fresh concept and does a good job of presenting it in a fun manner. The goal of the game is to keep both sides alive until the end, but you also have to reach a required score by the end of the game. The main way to get points is through destroying units and razing buildings. Therefore, the map is in a constant state of destruction and rebuilding. Even still, balancing the two sides of the war seems like a simple enough challenge at first, however, you quickly find that tiny imbalances between the sides force you to make a tiny correction, which leads to another correction, which leads to chaos. The real fun of the game comes from the desperate attempts to restore order when everything has gone to hell.
Game Variability
The game is well crafted to make sure that you don’t end up playing the same game twice. The landscape is constantly changing and each map evolves drastically by the end of every game. Bandits can spring up at any time or place and wreak havoc in a fast minute. There are also events that take place during the game called Woes that inflict a random event on both sides of the conflict. These woes and the ever changing map make each game completely different from the one played previously.
Price
For a game with such a unique concept to be offered for just 5 dollars is an incredible deal. That’s right, the game is available on Steam for $5. If anything about the above description sounds interesting, you aren’t sacrificing much to give the game a shot.
Game Complexity
There are a lot of tiny details influencing events during gameplay that just aren’t made obvious to the new player. The tutorial does an admirable job of explaining the flow of the game, however there are plenty of moments that I just didn’t know why something was happening.
Narrow Scope
Where the game rules are steeped in complexity, other aspects of the game feel a bit over simplified. There are only two races in the game, the Greeks and the Vikings. A few more races would have added some excitement in seeing different cultures fight each other, however they’re sadly missing. Another major aspect is the unit animation and movement. While the simplicity of the units might feel like a tribute to the original PC god games, at a certain point you just want there to be more animations and interactions between the units.
Game Design Flaws
Every unique new game concept is going to have its growing pains. If you’re a gamer that loves Real Time Strategy, the turn based approach and the lack of control over units might frustrate you. I am one of those players, and it made some moments of the game a bit unfulfilling. I had built cities and then could only watch the sides send units to destroy each other with no regard for what I had built. It led to me having very little attachment to any part of their civilization. There was no pride in what I had built; in fact, the points I needed to win could only be gained by its destruction.
CONCLUSION
The game has a unique concept and interesting premise at such an affordable price that it’s a pretty good investment just for the experience of playing it. That being said, there are frustrating aspects to the game, and it might not be a good fit for you to play if you’re looking for a more standard RTS experience.
