Sky Tale

[b]sky tale[/b] is an [url=https://steamcommunity.com/id/dohi64/recommended/1046030/]islanders[/url]-like, so I'll be making a lot of comparisons to it (you might want to check the link for my review). this one's on a grid with a bit more to it than plonking down random buildings where they give you the most points. sadly, [b]neither lets you re-visit previous islands[/b] without copying files over, and this only keeps the one currently in progress, not all your previous attempts like [b]islanders[/b]. I was hoping they wouldn't copy this aspect as well... there's an optional tutorial, but the gist is this: there's a random island, cards with random buildings and such, place them until you reach the coin goal shown in the bottom left to unlock more cards, rinse and repeat until you inevitably fail by running out of cards and not reaching the next goal. there's a [b]leaderboard[/b] to see how much better other players are. [b]2 game modes[/b] are available, [i]classic[/i] is the one with progression, while in [i]sandbox[/i] you can do what you want, everything's unlocked and ready to use. so far so [b]islanders[/b], but one of the main differences is, [b]there's only one island per run and you can expand it[/b] instead of moving on to a new one after a certain amount of points. the clue is in the name of the game, they're all floating in the sky and have clouds at their edges. buildings (blue cards) can only go on solid ground, but tiles like fields, trees, etc. (green cards) are to be placed on clouds. placement and grouping are still important, of course, and cards for [b]different biomes[/b] show up eventually (forest, mountain, desert, snow, jungle, etc.). another thing to note is, [b]the game is turn-based, you don't get coins/points as soon something is placed, only when the current hand of cards is used up[/b]. for example, the tooltip for a regular house says you get 1 coin at the end of a turn if there's another house nearby. so place it and your [b]income counter[/b] (mouseover on the circle in the bottom left) gets +1 (even if there are more houses nearby) and you'll get the full amount at the end of the turn. some buildings have additional conditions and only provide money if another related building does too. there are mouseover tooltips for everything, including the scenery, which was a bit weird, I can recognize a tree, thank you. still useful for samey buildings until you learn what's what. however, when you're looking for an ideal place for something, there's no immediate feedback on what that will do as you move the item around, like in [b]islanders[/b]. the highlighter for the currently selected card is also confusing at first, as it's always green. there's a lot of green tiles to place, so when you select a gray rock and it's not gray, it's strange. anyway, [b]you're constantly trying to increase your income[/b] to get more and more money after each turn, but here's another thing to consider: [b]resources on the map get used up[/b], can't profit off a single tile of rocks or a berry bush until the end of time. I didn't notice it at first and was baffled by my 19 income going down to 9 the next turn, without messing with anything bringing in money. the bottom right number shows how many cards are left in the deck, mouseover reveals the number of each category, and there's a [b]third card type: spells[/b]. they let you destroy buildings or replenish resources on the map, or straight up give you cash. [b]the non-rebindable controls work perfectly fine.[/b] no mention of controllers, but wasd, arrows or hold left click to move the camera, q/e or hold right click to rotate, and [b]zooming in/out is possible[/b] with the mouse wheel (found no hotkey for it), a major improvement over [b]islanders[/b] (as in, it's basic functionality, yet missing from that one). the number keys also let you select cards, no tooltips then obviously. the game looks more minimalistic than [b]islanders[/b] but it's still nice, and the sountrack is soothing and fitting as well. it has all the necessary settings besides rebindable controls, so separate volume settings and a mute button, resolutions, windowed mode, graphics settings, v-sync, tooltip and background toggles, plus various languages. while it's still not proper city management (nor does it claim to be), [b]if you liked [i]islanders[/i] but wanted a little bit more meat on it, check it out[/b], the 'just one more run' feeling is still present. and I have to say, it's [b]really nice to see something working properly out of the box and sold at the right price, without a lengthy early access period[/b]. I usually have tons of feedback for most games, but no notes in this case. not saying it's perfect, but if every game came out in a similar state with a similar amount of functionality, it'd be amazing.