SkyBoats Reviews

ok

Even the tutorial does not work!

2nd Worst of Braingoodgames

So so game. Developer doesn't support his games (won't fix bugs), so I won't be supporting his future games.

Love this game. The puzzle of figuring out teh right supply routs to maximize profits = Win!

Bought this game because this company also made Solar Settlers, which is an excellent game. This is close to unplayable though. Bad UI, hard to read text, some UI bugs, and overall poor feel. OOPS, turns out it starts out at lowest resolution. Once I fixed that, it looked much better. However, I didn't like the gameplay very much. Seems a bit too simple and boring. (Unlike Solar Settlers.)

It hurts to give this game a negative review. I kinda like the game, but the question is whether I [b]recommend[/b] the game, not whether I like it. The BrainGoodGames games I have played so far (in order from recommended to not-so-recommended) are Axes & Acres, Militia, Minos Strategos, and SkyBoats. They are all good games, but, unfortunately, the other three are simply better than this one. If you've played them all and like them, then by all means get this one, but even then you might like to wait until it's on sale. The game has two modes, the Breezy mode (the main mode) and Classic mode. Breezy mode is simple and straightforward -- too much so. I reached rank 22 without losing a single game, though I've had one or two close shaves. That put me at #8 on the leaderboard (both Current and All Time). I kept playing long enough to get this far mostly to see if the game would ever challenge me. It's getting challenging, but it's taken so long to get to this point that I'm kinda tired out. And, despite having played this much, I still haven't even unlocked all the game's content. While the Breezy mode is too easy, the Classic mode, which was the game's original ruleset before Breezy mode was added, is too complex and not a lot of fun. It's hardly a wonder that Breezy mode replaced it as the main mode; Breezy mode is just better. It just needs a steeper difficulty curve is all. I think this game could become a perfectly fine game with a patch or two, but unfortunately it's old enough and unpopular enough that this seems unlikely. Quite a shame, really. But I'm not giving up on BrainGoodGames and I'm looking forward to playing their other games. They've already got two I've yet to play, and I hope they make many more.

These guys, BrainGoodGames, make some wonderful boardgame-like strategy games. Their newest one, Skyboats, is in the Euro game genre, and it is simply outstanding. The developers are very clever, and have obviously playtested the heck out of this design. I can easily see this as a multiplayer boardgame, where everyone is racing around trying to deliver goods and collect victory points. However, I digress. This is a single player PC strategy game, and it is brilliant. The tutorial explains everything very nicely, and you get into playing your first real game pretty quickly. Their leveling/ranking system keeps the games competitive, even though there is no A.I. to be found. You're basically trying to play as optimally as you can, in a limited amount of rounds, to collect enough victory points to win the game. Then, if you win, you move to the next rank, and it gets harder, either by requiring more VPs, less rounds, possibly some other conditions that I'm not aware of because I haven't played enough yet. Anyway, the game is lots of fun, quick playing, and there is definitely enough choices to make each turn to please even the hardcore Euro game grognards. Give it a try. You'll become a fan of BrainGoodGames. Then get Axes and Acres and Militia, their other brilliant games.

As always with BrainGoodGames, this game is lots of fun and very challenging. It takes a while to grasp the rules but once you understand them you will appreciate the complex strategies you can use. The tutorial will get you started but I recommend turning on practise mode to really learn the rules and not lose ranks. The support from BrainGoodGames is great as always.

After being excited about Axes & Acres (~120 hours) and Solar Settlers (~50 hours and still going), I really wanted to support this developer more. I also already had Minos Strategos but that's not really my thing although it's a good game. So I bought all of his games that I didn't already have, just to support him. I didn't really expect much from this game. But I was wrong. This game is really good! I agree that the concept is a little bit weird and it takes some time to understand how it works, but it has a fun and challenging concept. In short: you are a captain of several sky ships/boats and the sky has cities that buy stuff that can be found everywhere if you look closely enough. By looking closely enough, I mean that things spawn there on specific occasions. You can sell goods for a specific price (changes every turn) or sell three of the same goods for a fixed contract price. The hard part is getting around this map: you only have little fuel, not at all enough to just fly around the map and that's where wind magic comes into play. Every good has a special magical power that generates a trail of wind which you will follow if you get onto it... but also if you don't want it, you will travel with that wind. You can override specific winds with new wind magic. It's a fuel saver. You have a limited amount of turns in which you have to sell enough to get the required number of victory points. The game is a bit weird in the beginning, but it's certainly fun and challenging!