It's a great day to be a Gamer. Especially a Gamer who gets to play so many games before they hit the markets. We have come a long way in the industry. It use to be a system in which only AAA titles or mainstream games would be highlighted, and to be successful, you have to sell on consoles. But now, and by now I mean within the last couple of years, indie developers have been flourishing and creating a wonderful storm in the industry. Mindhaven Games is such a developer, and it felt really good to see how far games have come in their game Sky Beneath.
Sky Beneath is single player adventure puzzle game that utilizes 360 rotations to control gravity. Yea, I said that. Control actual gravity. Using a rather simple control setup, you must navigate the planet to find a way off it before it spells doom. By rotating the map and altering the actual world dynamics, you will go from walking on the floor, to the walls and to the ceiling with just a few clicks of the controller. Now, I will say that since I suffer from bad motion sickness, it did affect me quite a bit, but it was pretty much worth it to feel dizzy while trying to run through the first development stage of the game.
Graphic wise, the games textures and structures and character designs were pleasant to see. Loved the colors of the game. Being still in development, I'm sure the environment will be fleshed out more, with better lighting particles and shadows, but the core premise was very much great quality. Running through the halls and elevator shafts and doorways while alternating your gravity did get me lost quite a bit after the quick tutorial portion of learning the controls, which I might add, also was very well done in this demo. You really do get the sense of being able to move in any direction, but the caveat to that is, if you're not careful, you can lose track of your position and have to take a minute to adjust.
The audio quality was superb. Though at times it felt like there should be sounds in certain areas, or doing certain things, it didn't spoil the experience. But as I always say, the games we get to test and play at G.Round, are Alpha/Beta games. So to expect them to be well polished is just silly elitist personality in my opinion. I didn't hear much of a soundtrack to the game, wondering if the direction for this will be to focus more on the environmental sounds and less of a soundtrack, which to be honest, I'm not opposed at all. If they do follow this line of thinking, putting soundtracks on key cutscenes or dramatic experiences in the game would amplify the feeling tenfold.
Even though Mindhaven Games has stated that this is the first test, version 1.0, it didn't look like it. They really wanted to make sure that the players get to test out some key features and enjoy doing it. If this is what they call first test, I can only imagine what Mindhaven Games is going to call second test. The amount of well thought out experience and to make sure that here are as little bugs as possible makes me think that the project manager has bold and grandiose visions for Sky Beneath.
All in all, Sky Beneath looks like it's going to shape out to be a top seller in the puzzle genre. Folks who like Portal and Portal 2, and games like it will probably flock to Sky Beneath in my opinion. If they management keeps doing things like this, growing on the concept, finding in depth puzzles that will not only frustrate, but also provoke cognitive thinking like this demo did for me, because let me tell you I got lost a LOT, then I believe the skies the limit for Sky Beneath.
You can check out Mindhaven Games' webpage about Sky Beneath at the link here, but as always, you can check it out on G.Round along with many other great titles by great developers.
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