Posted on August 9, 2021
What I like about Merchants of the Skies is that I can have different goals – from supplying the inns to exploring the maps to building lighthouses. This offers variety for a single player.
The game’s graphics is simple, but does not not look “old”. It looks intentional as to not make be too complicated, but just interesting enough to be playable. The dimensions of the game include building things, to earning things to moving and encountering different challenges.
Challenges – most of the challenges are pretty simple, as the most complex one is deduction. The player needs to guess what three notes the Octopus is thinking of and in what order (out of 4 notes). This can be done in about 3 – 4 tries, based on deduction. The other challenge is just keeping track of the notes that are played and then repeating it correctly each time – this is about 4 times in total.
The variety I like are that you can collect a variety of “basic” resources and buy their respective islands, which vary in cost, based on how much you can get in the market. The purpose to buying the islands is so that you don’t need to gather by hand, which can be long and tedious and may not be worth it, based on the money I get from it.
Upgrades – there are two levels of upgrades – basic, which vary from getting crates, faster sails and tools/baskets/buckets to gather resources and the other is advanced which thus far, can only be gathered at one location in the Northwest corner of the map. These are specialized and can help in getting batteries, to even faster sails to extracting batteries from storms.
Merchants of the Skies is a cute game to play for a short while. Though it’s interestingly addictive to play – as you try to get just one more part of the mission done or one more building to build – it can end up seeming to become a bit of a drag due to its repetition nature.
A review of Merchants of the Skies from perspective of Person who doesn’t play video games…
Merchants of the Skies, as described best by the Steam Store page: “In Merchant of the Skies you’re the captain of an airship! Sell items, gather resources and build your own trade empire in the clouds!”
I like it for the ease of use, silly “low-res” graphics and for its multi-methods of winning. I don’t like it for its repetitiveness, keyboard & mouse controls and its lack of ways play the game.
Allow me to elaborate…
Ease of use – many things are intuitive and I don’t need to read a long drawn out “how-to” in ordeter to start playing the game. I can just jump right in and get being a merchant. I am able to pick a goal (& ship, depending on goal) and am given enough instructions to move around the map and take actions.
“90’s Style Low-Res” Graphics – The graphics do not usually sell it for me in a game. The graphics have to be good enough to be colorful and varied enough to keep me interested. So, the 90’s style actually makes it easier to play the game, so my brain doesn’t have to “figure out” stuff graphically in order to play. I don’t mind beautiful graphics – for example I love the WoWs – World of Warships graphics, as the ships up close look beautiful and rich in color. I just don’t think it’s necessary or even warranted in a game like Merchants of the Skies.
Multi-Methods of Winning – There are several slightly varying goals and hence winning the game that give variation, depending on what goal I choose – from delivering items to the Inns to getting to a certain amount of coins. With this comes a variation in resources and map size even. I enjoy this variety, as I don’t have to learn a whole new game, but just vary my strategy a bit and get the feel of playing a slightly different game.
Repetitiveness – Though there are different goals, there are still ultimately the same set of actions I have to take, in order to win. And these actions take awhile and got me a bit bored and feeling like I’m working vs. playing a game.
Keyboard & Mouse controls – I like that they have keyboard controls. I don’t like that I can’t do everything with the keyboard. I need to use the mouse for some of those things, which makes game play go slower than I’d like. Also, the keyboard controls are displayed in every scene. It would be nice if the controls were presented when I wanted to see them, instead (e.g., shortcut for Shortcuts).
Lack of ways to playing the game – As mentioned above, I like that there are multiple ways to win the game; however, this may be a façade, as the game play is the same each time – Build up resources to buy islands to build on them to buy more stuff, to build more to buy more islands, and rinse and repeat. It would be nice if there were actual different ways to play the game…
Overall, the game is good for about a dozen sessions, but am not sure it was worth the cost of paying $40 for the game. Then again, I have clocked 80+ hours into it, which is on the higher end for me.
