How can you make this game fun?

[helenedwards]

Ok, I build up both sides, take care that they are balanced (mainly by building the same stuff for both sides) and click next turn.
I did that for 30 turns or so and I was bored out of my mind!

What is there to do? There is no enemy apart from yourself and you lose if you win!

I don't get it ...

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Relax : bollywood ringtone, country ringtone, dance ringtone

[ptarth]

Think of it more like Tetris than like a 4x strategy game.

Skyward Collapse is a puzzle game where you build up "combos" to score points. Except your combos aren't blocks or shapes, but little guys with swords. And then a dose of magic and chaos every so often. If you can find a friend to play with, challenge them to "keep up" with you while you build your side. (of course, if you 'win', then the game ends... )

[Logorouge]

Ok, I build up both sides, take care that they are balanced (mainly by building the same stuff for both sides) and click next turn.
I did that for 30 turns or so and I was bored out of my mind!

It's been a while since I played, but I do remember two things:
-Bandits show up after a while, as a third party you have no control over, throwing wrenches into your plans (and making things more interesting).
-Keeping things balanced will make you lose. You're basically a god of chaos. If things remain controlled and quiet, it won't generate enough chaos (aka score) and you'll end up not reaching your goal and lose at the end.

So the solution to both reaching the higher score goals and having fun while doing it, is simply to go wild and embrace the chaos. (Use those dangerous items/powers!)
One last thing: Make sure the difficulty level is not too low. Things tend to get a bit dull/slow while on lower difficulty levels. I had a much more enjoyable time once I raised it a bit.

Hope that helped.

[Sounds]

Ok, I build up both sides, take care that they are balanced (mainly by building the same stuff for both sides) and click next turn.
I did that for 30 turns or so and I was bored out of my mind!

It's been a while since I played, but I do remember two things:
-Bandits show up after a while, as a third party you have no control over, throwing wrenches into your plans (and making things more interesting).
-Keeping things balanced will make you lose. You're basically a god of chaos. If things remain controlled and quiet, it won't generate enough chaos (aka score) and you'll end up not reaching your goal and lose at the end.

So the solution to both reaching the higher score goals and having fun while doing it, is simply to go wild and embrace the chaos. (Use those dangerous items/powers!)
One last thing: Make sure the difficulty level is not too low. Things tend to get a bit dull/slow while on lower difficulty levels. I had a much more enjoyable time once I raised it a bit.

Hope that helped.

Most definitely requires ratcheting up the difficulty and letting the chaos fly. The fun comes thereafter, as you try to play the god of both law and chaos at the same time.

This game is rough around the edges, but is still a hoot to play for me. Pity there wasn't more expansion packs.

[Misery]

I'm gonna echo some things already said:

Firstly:  Up the difficulty.  A lot.  The base difficulty is bloody mindless.  This was a problem with Bionic Dues as well.  I seem to remember complaining about this back during development of this game.  For BOTH games, that issue pushed some people away, which is a real shame.

Second:  Er... you really don't have to do that much more to make it more interesting.  When the difficulty is higher it FORCES a lot of chaos on you.  More bad things will happen, more bandits will show up,  your score needs to be ever higher to progress from one phase to the next, and all in all, things will get more than a bit wonky.  It becomes easy to end up in a situation that's rather out of control. 


Also, as Logorouge says, you HAVE to keep the violence and chaos happening in order to win.  You must achieve a certain score before the end of each "age", or it's game-over.  This is only done through actions that inherently cause more chaos. Units dying and buildings (that are yours) being destroyed are the most basic things that increase your score. If you're just sitting back and letting your guys very slowly punch each other equally, you're not going to win.  At least, not if you upped the difficulty as suggested.  Only by unbalancing things can you manage a high enough score.  For instance, if your buildings ARENT getting smashed up, you're not doing it right.  Each side should be doing significant amounts of city smashing.  Keeping that under control is part of the challenge, but it's absolutely necessary.  Same for dealing with high-power, rampaging units.  You have those mythical units for a reason; they're worth a lot when they go down, but they tend to do an inordinate amount of damage to basic units on the enemy side.   Placing them strategically (since they can be placed directly, unlike normal units) is important.

So, yeah, again, keeping things balanced is actually the direct wrong approach.   The whole concept of the game is that you're not only keeping this war going, but you're TILTING the balance back and forth, but trying to keep it from going TOO far before tilting it back.