Sky Rogue

Sky Rogue is a very loud, very colorful flight simulator (shooter? arcade fwoosh?) originally released in 2013 by Fractal Phase and is currently still in development. In my minimal research of the game before actually starting I found quite a few articles that I will not read until after this post is done, some very official looking game plays on YouTube that will remain unwatched for the time being, and a general concensus that the whole thing is fun, fast, and bright. Also that it has a twitter profile.

Now, I had next to no idea what I was supposed to do with a flight simulator, and asking my brother is both very informative and a general data dump, so without actually launching the game and searching out the controls there didn't actually end up being much help he could give me. So that left us with actually playing the game. The posted average session on the Itch.io site is a half hour. Small, reasonable sounding. Definitly something I can do without too much trouble.

A Lie.

To bring in some more context, I have a laptop not meant for playing video games on and a determination to play some video games on it. So this means that trying to figure out the controls, even with the very informative tutorial that I stayed in for at least an hour and a half, ended up being a real challenge. Also the fact that if I played for longer than fifteen minutes at a time my laptop's fans would make some very distressing sounds.

Still, I understand how to work visual novels at this point, I figured out how to manage platformers, but this Zoom-Boom Game decided to knock me off a cliff.

After that aformentioned hour and a half tutorial session, I decided to actually try and play the game. This did not end well. I managed just over eleven minutes before being shot down by a drone(?). This is generally what ended up happening every time after, too. I did learn that you can twirl, though, by pressing the 'C' button on my keyboard. I also did actually manage to shoot down some of the enemy planes too! It wasn't just me that died!

Unfortunatly, I saw the 'you died' page a lot.

Still! Even with my desperate flailing around and too often deaths, I can say with full certainty that this is A Fun Game. Like, first of all, the flying? Super smooth when I remember what controls do what action, especially when freaking out. From the right angles, your plane looks like a bird. Those right angles though usually aren't good angles to be in when trying to evade your enemies. I think I almost went into space?

Just, is this what arcade games feel like? Cause if this is what arcade games feel like then I think I'm actually sad about missing out on this?

I also think this is the first time I played a game that didn't have an actual story to it? Like, I think this was just a Shoot-Boom-Die kind of game and this is definitley not something I'm used to playing now. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of [Blank]-Simulator games in the Bundle, but I think this is the first one I've actually played instead of just catalogued.

And it was so fun! Even with all the dying!

Just, I don't really know how to describe this. I guess all that I can really say is that the Developers did such a great job. Like, super kudos to them!

In the end, Sky Rogue is still in development. And, while I don't really understand what that means exactly, I guess I can just speculate on that it's going to be so amazing when they decide that it's done.

Okay, that's enough rambling for tonight.

Happy dreams, guys.