God games tend to be all about control. Managing resources, structures, units, and a whole host of minutiae based around making your subjects happy. Skyward Collapse is going for a different approach; instead of creating a flawless society you’re merely striving for equilibrium. It’s an interesting variation on a theme, but Skyward Collapse’s execution needs a lot of work.
Skyward Collapse’s premise has a lot of merit. You’ve become the creator, and your will is law. Each round you have a set of turns that let you create buildings, develop technology, and all sorts of general god game/sim stuff. The trick is this; you have zero control over your population, and they’re all super homicidal. Specifically, the red and blue populations want nothing more than to kill each other in your name. As a creator, this clearly must be stopped. However, rather than summon forth a burning bush or put forth a mountain range or ocean or something, you simply build up each side so that neither can destroy the other. Rather than causing peace, it’s an ever-escalating war that seems to only benefit you, as more creator powers are unlocked with a developing civilization.
The general idea behind this gameplay mechanic seems cool, but in practice it just isn’t really that fun. While there are goals for the maps and a need to advance your civilization’s technology to deal with banditry and other assorted things, Skyward Collapse never really moves past feeling like playing chess against yourself. Even the power units don’t do much to make things exciting, largely due to the flat presentation of the game.
Skyward Collapse is a 2d, sprite-based game with virtually no animation. Units slide across the map, and jiggle slightly when making attacks. There’s nothing wrong with this, and one shouldn’t expect stunning visuals for the game’s five dollar price tag, but the style isn’t doing anything to help a game that’s already kind of okay at best.
There’s a lot of stuff to keep track of here.
Skyward Collapse is a super cool idea wrapped around a series of mechanics that just aren’t that good. Base building doesn’t seem fun, there are far too many resources to manage, and the game just feels kind of flat. A unique premise like what Skyward Collapse offers should be rewarded, but the way it’s put forth just doesn’t click the way a strategy or a god game needs to. For five bucks that solid core might be all you need, but Skyward Collapse is difficult to recommend to anyone but a dedicated strategy fan.
