Aloft

I loved this game until the 0.3.3.22 patch that made our save incompatible with new content. 60+ hours rendered obsolete. I suppose I'm glad that I'm able to still access it via the Legacy branch, but not being able to carry it into the new content is really a bummer. Unfortunately, I'm never going to get to see any of it. In my humble opinion, the Early Access model, which already takes advantage of free playtesting while forwarding the cost to the consumer, should require backwards compatibility. If you're going to require us to spend money to help you make your game, you should at least respect the investment of our time enough to preserve the fruits of our labor with each iteration of the game we are helping to produce. All of that said, I won't let my jaded perspective leverage a negative review as some kind of revenge. This game is fun. I adore it. It's AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER (sans bending, just Aang's glider and getup, really) mixed with a build/craft games like VALHEIM and RAFT. It's cozy and encourages creativity. You can create a verdant conservationist paradise, or do what I did and entirely convert a tiny floating boulder into a floating stone fortress with scarcely a mote of green in sight. Your imagination is really the limit. (As you can imagine, reflecting on this heartbreaking for me, since my efforts have been relegated to the archival Legacy basement.) The combat is a bit wonky. Some of the power-ups can be a bit finicky to pull off (I often found myself accidentally performing the flying uppercut attack when I meant to do the charge), but the animations are fluid in first-person. Third-person is nothing to write home about—it's kind of stiff and seems like an afterthought. In short, I enthusiastically recommend this game for newcomers who get to see where this gem is headed. At the same time, I lament the fate of all those islands built by early adopters who cannot fly them into the future.

Having only a thumbs up or thumbs down, I'm not going to give Aloft a thumbs down, but I'm not necessarily recommending it either. It's okay at best I think? There's definite potential, but you have to question if it'll ever get realized. I was a late addition to the party and left underwhelmed. Flying is cool enough. Turning an island into a makeshift airship base is strange but different. There's a handful of things that set it apart and some in fun ways, but at its heart the core gameplay loop gets old pretty fast. Travel to a cluster of islands, fight a couple things to cleanse it, repeat a couple times, hit another island for an upgrade, start the cycle over. The islands all look roughly the same, and despite some temples increasing in size I just couldn't find much that kept the exploration side interesting. That goes for the story also, where I had to ask myself a moment ago--wait, *was* there a story? There was, turns out, just not one that grabbed me. I saw folks compare this game to Raft a couple times, and I've got to push back on that. Raft is a masterpiece in the survival space. To its credit, I think Aloft has plenty of room to build on its cozy vibes in fun ways, but nah--as it stands its nowhere close to Raft. Worth it if the gameplay looks fun to you maybe, but I'd wait for a deep discount.

performance is way too bad to enjoy this at the moment. I will wait for the development and give it thumbs up when performance is better.

В целом игра то не плохая, но через чур душная, и крайне не оптимизированная, 25-30 кадров в натяжку? нет, ну правда... в общем пока игра скучная, и трудно играемая, с коопом тоже беда, из 10 попыток 1 удачная

Optimization is TERRIBLE! Game constantly stutters. Performance on Steam Deck OLED is also terribly optimized. Operating System: Windows 11 CPU Brand: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-14900HX RAM: 64 GB Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Laptop GPU Primary VRAM: 8 GB

For now is a not! Do not wasted your money on it, I was expecting a free world but they forced you to follow their story and tbh I hope they fix that.

Really fun to play with friends. So many different islands to discover and recipes to unlock. The animals are very cute as well. A really good couple game or even one to play alone. Still in EA. The combat is really repetitive and uses the same monsters over and over, so it would be nice for them to add more in the future. Finished? No (still in EA) Steam Achievements? Will take awhile to grind them all. Steam Deck? Haven't tried! Rating? 8/10 My curator page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45865425-CozyAriGames/ Full videos on Youtube

The game leans into a "rewarding good decisions" philosophy rather than punishing mistakes, and that makes a huge difference in how it feels to play. No hunger meter nagging you every five minutes: food gives you buffs instead, which means you actually want to cook rather than cook out of obligation. It's a small design choice that shapes the whole experience. The co-op is where this really shines. Sailing your island with friends while managing sails and windmill output is genuinely fun. The ecosystem restoration loop (clearing fungal corruption, planting seeds, releasing animals) is satisfying the first several times, and the atmosphere throughout is consistently gorgeous. If you're looking for a brutal survival experience, look elsewhere. But if you want a chill, creative, exploration-focused sandbox with a genuinely fresh setting and great co-op potential, Aloft is absolutely worth it. See you in the clouds.