Skystead Ranch Steam Charts & Stats

APPLE SILICON: It works on my M2 MacBook Air despite the warning by Steam "The product is not compatible with macOS 10.15 Catalina or above." Right now, I can't fully recommend this game despite indicating I do recommend the game. It's not a strong "No" or "Yes", just a buyer beware. This game does not have the Early Access tag, and that's a shame because on day 1 release it's pretty rough in some areas unfortunately. -- Camera is a little weird and takes some getting used to. Randomly it will zoom in close or jump around and I have to exit the game to fix. -- Right now there is no inventory, so it's a constant walking sim if you're trying to feed a skylet or start a garden. -- Your character will vocalize the skylet's name with every interaction. It's cute because there are variations to how they vocalize the name, but it get's a little old after a while. -- No rebindable keys (that will come with a later update unfortunately), I don't have a controller but the roadmap indicates support is coming. -- Loading times for entering the world and exiting the world are insanely long. So long that they warn you that things aren't frozen they just take a long time. I got worried when the beachball cursor lasted for a long time because usually that means the app stopped responding and I have to force quit it, but eventually it started responding again. I can understand long load times for entering the world, but exiting to the main menu so I can quit the game should not take that long. If possible, I'd like to see a way of quitting the game without having to go back to the menu if the loading times are going to be that long just to exit. Given the love ToastieLabs has shown their other games, I have no doubt this game will be supported and updated on a regular basis and the more glaring bugs fixed soon. This is why I recommend the game even in the current state it's in.

This game is in a bit of a bugy state right now but the devs are doing such an incredible job and working hard to make it better, especially when compared to games like planet coaster 2. the game itself is wonder full and has so much potential. it makes me happy to see such a passionate dev team.

I was really excited about this game, but after getting through the tutorial and spending some time trying to figure what to do I decided to return it. The game doesn't really explain what you are supposed to do after the tutorial. The goal is to collect the little creatures, but you kind of just have to figure out how to get them onto your farm. This game feels unfinished, and the camera controls are clunky. You can't look up or down, and moving the camera to look around is a pain. Loading also takes forever. I love the concept, but I think this game needs a little more work before I would consider buying it.

A very cosy creature collector with a unique art style, a big focus on farming and terraforming if that's what you're into. The music is so relaxing and changes depending on your island setup which I've never seen before.

i gave it a whirl i but i just couldn't get into it for the price point i really just can't justify it. it feels like an early release game that has potential but it isn't, it's a $25 fully released game, that potential should have already been actualized. i understand that more things will be implemented in updates but when it's things like "gates that actually open" and "functional chests" it's like... come on, man. also this is subjective but i find the player character very... visually unpleasant. you can't change it and you're in third person so you just have to stare at that thing. idk i just kind of feel like i got ripped off i'd refund it if i could

I really wanted to love this game, but I really can't overlook some of the more problematic aspects of actually playing it. As others have said, this is essentially Viva Pinata, with the player needing to terraform the island they are placed on in order to attract 'skylets' . Moving around the island in the first place is excruciatingly painful to do, with the player character moving incredibly slowly, no sprint options and pretty bad camera controls. The general slowness in the game is evident in almost every interaction you might have, petting creatures, opening menus, planting seeds, all of it feels incredibly slow. It's worth mentioning that I'm not a stranger to the cozy genre of games, but there's a certain tedium here that feels more frustrating than relaxed. The only thing that doesn't seem to be slow is how fast the hunger bar on the skylets decreases! Considering you need that bar full to actually tame one, and some of them need quite a bit of food brought to them one piece at a time (there is no bag to store stuff in) it's ridiculous how quickly that bar vanishes. After the tutorial you're left completely to your own devices, which would be fine if so much were not left unexplained. What does the percentage mean at the top of the journal entry mean for individual skylets? It increases sometimes but I don't know why. Is there a way to move skylets to other sections of the island or are they stuck permanently where I tamed them? Overall the tutorial feels kind of unfinished and clunky. Speaking of unfinished, many, many features of this game seems to be completely unimplemented and many of them seem not to be planned to be included at all. No player customisation, House access is on the roadmap but for now the house is just a decorative block, No meaningful upgrades to player abilities, the vast majority of the furniture is decorative and seems to have no function despite some function being sorely needed. The feeding trough won't actually store food, for example, and the separate little homes you can build also seem to have no real function, instead taking up precious space. The chests won't store items either, and there is no inventory, so I just have a pile of assorted garbage in the corner of my island for when I might need it. TLDR; The £20 release price on a game that feels this amateurish and unfinished and completely lacking the early access tag makes me recommend against buying it except at a steep discount if you're particularly desperate for a game that captures that viva pinata nostalgia. I hope that improvements are made and I can change my review in the future.

It should really have been released as an Early Access title as there is still a lot of work to be done. However, it is obvious that the developer is committed to continuing to support the game and listening to the playerbase. I have found the game play to be really satisfying so I do recommend it for anyone who is comfortable playing early access games. It is the closest game I have found to Viva Pinata so far. It would be great if there was a setting to lower the brightness though!

There is no option for an average or neutral review. Let me start by saying I'm not mad at ToastieLabs, just disappointed. This is their first attempt to make a game that isn't essentially a digital activity book, and I've enjoyed all of their other offerings, so I was willing to give them a chance at something new. I also really miss playing Viva Piñata, and I'm not the first one to make the comparison to that series. I had the original on PC, but because it was strictly tied to the XBox Live online system and lost its support, I can't legitimately play it anymore. I thought maybe this could be a suitable replacement, and in some aspects, it is. In others...it really needs more time to cook. The main thing to note is that the game being listed as complete is kind of a lie. I know labeling something as early access can be a big turnoff for some people (sometimes even for me), but not stating it on the store page can be just as deceptive as keeping something perpetually in early access. You can even see the calendar of future mechanics to add from the main menu, which I thought would've ended on the day of the game's launch... Pros (compared to Viva Piñata): - Growing plants don't require you to water them for some reason, so you're not constantly hovering over sprouts to prevent them from shriveling up. - From what I can tell so far, there's no antagonistic force threatening to mess up your work. This means you can actually relax and take your time with everything. - You gain access to multiple plots of land on a single map instead of having to open separate instances of the same map to make a new garden. - You can fish in some areas and even gain access to a house for other activities (though I haven't gotten far enough along to see what the house is like yet). - The creature design and overall style of the game is undeniably cute, sometimes even moreso than their piñata counterparts. Having them announce their names constantly like Pokémon is a bit silly, but I did get used to it. Cons (again, compared to Viva Piñata): - You have to physically visit a shop in order to get anything that isn't wood, stone, or money. This wouldn't be a big deal if it weren't for two things: the shop disappearing at night, and the shop only being accessible from your starting plot. If you're trying to set things up in the mine and find you're missing something, you have to walk outside and all the way back to the pier before it gets dark out. Otherwise, tough luck. It'd be much easier if you could access shops from a menu, or at least have multiple pier locations with different operation hours for convenience. - There is currently no semblance of an inventory system, nor way for items to despawn if there's a mistake. When you buy a plantable item, it's in your hands, and you have to put it down somewhere. The first time I bought berries, I think I accidentally tossed them over the edge of the pier, and now they're just floating in space forever. In Viva Piñata, you had to choose where to put an item before you actually bought it, and it would just automatically be placed in that specific spot. Granted, that game had clutter issues as well, but at least you had the option to sell unwanted items. Here, the only ways to get rid of stuff seem to be either having it eaten or destroyed. - Having an actual playable character to control instead of directly moving the camera around can be cumbersome at times. Petting and feeding the Skylets is cute and all, but that could've easily been handled with a mouse cursor. I'd argue you could even do the fishing and cooking with just a mouse cursor. Not just that, but these days, players tend to expect some form of customization for blank slate avatars, and there doesn't appear to be any for our nameless being...so what's the point? - There's almost no story in this game whatsoever, nor characters to have any engagement in. Sure, you get the cute tutorial and occasional other quips from the guidebook, but that's about it. Some might actually see this as a pro, but I enjoyed the world-building of Viva Piñata because of both the humans and the creatures. We get information on the Skylets, but the only way the info is obtained is through constantly petting them, and only when there's a notes icon over their heads. There's no way to determine progress, no in-game list of quests or achievements. We don't even get a backstory as to why the ranch is in such a decrepit state when we find it. It just...is. - The crook system is...interesting, but weirdly executed, requiring you to hold down keys to even access certain features. Again, this could've been handled with a set of menus and a mouse cursor. - Some areas just seem straight up bugged at the moment. The mine entrance is quite narrow from the inside, and I've accidentally went back outside when I didn't mean to because of it. I also can't seem to open this one Mountain Path area, despite somehow paying for it twice. - There is no in-game clock, unless you count sundials. That means that unless it's daytime and you're outside, you have no way of knowing how much time you have left before things shift. Viva Piñata had a simple clock in the top right corner, and that was good enough. - This game reminds me of how spoiled we've become with loading times. If this were still the 2000s, I might not have been as annoyed at how long the game takes to load. Coupled with things like the accidental entering and exiting issue in the mine I mentioned earlier, and it just becomes a headache. - Planting things isn't as straight forward as it is at first glance. The spacing required for each plant can't be determined until you try to place something in a hole. It also lets you plant regardless of whether other objects are invading said spacing, so you end up accidentally stunting sprouts without enough indication that it would happen that way. Again, this was also an issue in Viva Piñata, though there were visual indicators that something was wrong after planting. - There doesn't seem to be any obvious way to forcibly make visiting Skylets leave once they've entered the garden plot. You end up with a whole bunch of animals sleeping and taking up space at night when they don't even live there! The nests also don't do anything yet, so even the ones that are residents are stuck sleeping outside anyway! Cruel as it was, the ability to smash Piñatas was a necessity to prevent overcrowding and possible loss of residents... tldr: If you're okay with Early Access and the quirks it brings and not too concerned with things like story, you might as well get it while it's still on sale. Otherwise, maybe hold off until some of these issues are resolved. I'm personally not refunding because I still have faith that things will improve with enough time, but even so, I'll probably play something else until then. Edit: The dev team has since responded to my critique and pretty much agreed with most of it. Here's hoping that upcoming patches will make the game more enjoyable overall.

This game is obviously someones first game so I tried not to be hard on it but I couldn't get past the tutorial. $25 is a LOT for a game that isn't finished and is not really polished at all. Its not even in early access on steam idk why. Pros: 1. Cute animal designs 2. A good concept (I love viva pinata and that is basically what this is) Cons: 1. The menus. They take FOREVER to fade in and out. Like a full few seconds. Its super jarring and weird. 2. The camera. You have to scroll to zoom in and out and right click to move the camera. It feels so clunky and weird. I know other games do it but this game just doesn't do it well. 3. The crook (your main gameplay mechanic). You have three separate options for your crook terraform, build and utility. They each have radial menus (that take forever to pop up). You have to fight the camera to use them. They are weirdly organized (ie the dig tool is in utility which is an axe icon even tho the terraform tool icon is a shovel?). 4. EVERYTHING TAKE FOREVER. Petting an animal take 5 whole seconds. Opening your book takes just as long. This gets worse if you uncap your fps. So if you do play play at 60 fps lol. Overall super disappointed. I just found this game while scrolling through steam so I didn't really have any expectations.

Bought this game because I am a big fan of cozy farming games, and the devs other games are some of my favorites. This one, however, is not good in its current state. The control + movement + camera scheme is just awful. Simply positioning my character and camera while moving around the map was a constant chore. Everything in the game feels like it lags like I'm playing a multiplayer game on dial-up in 1998. I'm also not a fan of the in-game dialogue acknowledging that I'm playing a game. Stuff like "it wouldn't be much of a game if I just gave you all the spells" from the magical guide book is very off putting for this genre IMO. Still comes across as an early access game, especially given how many of the questions in the Steam community are answered with "we haven't implemented that yet."