Skyhill, the game not the band, is a point’n’click survival game developed by Mandragora and published by Daedalic Entertainment. Following a survivor as he makes the long climb down from a VIP suite of a 100 floor hotel, full of infected enemies of varying shapes and sizes. Battling both the undead and hunger you must make it through all 100 floors of terror to escape the Hotel Skyhill.
Story
During World-War III you have made a good amount of profit, allowing yourself a stay at quite a fancy hotel on its VIP suite at the very top, it even comes with Biological locks and safety in case of bio-nuclear war… lucky huh. Just as our character sets in suite the bombs drop, killing or mutating those around it’s blast radius, luckily the hotel isn’t damage but unluckily it isn’t left unaffected. Safe in your penthouse you have security and health… but a lack of food forces our character Perry Jason to venture outside, into hell.
Nipping out for a bite, whilst dodging those who wish to bite us, Perry will find mobile phones, documents and computers that tell stories of past survivors as well as giving us a deeper look into the goings on behind everything. We will find an AI inside one of the computers, a serial murderer on the loose, hints to the war and more through all 52 journal entries we can find, along with cassette tapes about a daughter Nikki.
Being a roguelike you’re bound to spend a lot of time in the beginning area due to constantly dying and respawning from the start of the game. If you are to survive, getting from floor 100 to floor 1 will take around 2 hours of game time. I got to floor 64 on my very first run on medium with a few runs after that of not so good success. Ending with a few successful runs. As you get further down, whenever you die you will unlock new perks, both passive and activated, making the game slightly easier. After completing the game I only had 12/52 collectables so a few playthroughs are needed to get them all, along with the 3 separate endings.
Gameplay
In the same fashion of some recent roguelikes, Skyhill sticks to a dark and dreary aesthetic and storyline, the same can be said for the gameplay. You click on a room or object to interact or move to them as well as clicking on enemies to attack them, the entire game can be played by mouse which is very relaxing in comparison to the atmosphere. Collecting items like a survival or point and click, whilst making sure to keep an eye on hunger/health bars as well as deciding if you should explore more or keep yourself safe.
Attacking enemies takes on a VATS style or a random hit style, you can select a body part, between 2 or 3 different points. Depending on where you hit you are given a % chance to hit with differing damage values. You can just click and it will hit normally but this isn’t always going to be the best option. Headshots/vital shots can do up to 2 times damage with only a slight decrease in accuracy so it’s going to be worth it more times than not.
As you explore you will find food, healing items, weapons and materials. Combining food together increase their effectiveness, the same goes for healing items, whereas weapons can be combined with materials to make better weapons or tools for both you and your room. Hoarding is quite a good strategy to have in this game, as the little change in numbers could be the difference in death. Upgrading your kitchen is one of the best things to do since it allows you to cook meat and add 1.5* to its food value but requires a Brick, which depending on the luck of the draw might take 30 floors to find.
Every floor and room is randomly generated so no playthrough will be the same, I had one game where I got to floor 94 without a single battle whereas others I got to floor 98 and fought one with no weapons. Some games where I got a brick first off and another where I got it around floor 70 meaning I had no kitchen to speak of for a large portion of the run. Sometimes you just need to accept defeat.
Overall thoughts and feelings
The music and sound effects in the game blend wonderfully, adding to the spooky atmosphere as well as the depravity of the situation. Birds’ suiciding into the windows and the smash that accompanies it really shocks you the first few times, making the game so much more immersing. Battles are accompanied by some nice change in music, adding to the action of the fight as well as the fear that comes with them. There is also an old timey perk that changes the music to being a bit more upbeat and 70’s-ish.
Being completely random, besides the 10 passive and 10 active perks you choose, Skyhill really tries to push the boundaries of the turn based point and click genre, but it is quite hard to push those boundaries. You are constantly going for the low accuracy high damage attacks as they are more times than not going to be the best choice due to mathematics. Random loot can mean that a run will be considerably hard or easy depending on if items drop for you or you find the mysterious strange to trade with.
The monotony and boringness can certainly catch up with you in this game as it doesn’t do too much new and exciting. If you are not into slow games this might not be for you, finding the best strategy and sticking to it really is the best way to go as one slip up can mean having to start from scratch. You’d only really get 1 playthrough out at a time due to frustration or becoming bored and going on to play something else.
Skyhill gets a 3.5/5, it is quite short for what it is but the background and story really adds to the overall game itself, allowing for multiple playthroughs to become a big consideration. The combat is easy to learn but can become quite monotonous when you’re hitting the same place over and over. Tactics are evolved during gameplay as you learn strategies and setups but rely too heavily on item drops. Difficulty eases upwards as you go downwards, with a sudden jump below halfway. I’d say around £10 is worth it for this game if you like Roguelikes, but if you’re new to the genre this might be a bit off-putting.
Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.
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