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Gameplay
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Graphics / Interface
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Replayability
See how big your colony can get on the islands in the sky.
Merchants of the Sky from StirFryGames is a fun, colony building game with a rich economy. This is a paid game for the iPad; it has no IAPs, no missions, just you, $10000, and the goal of building a strong, thriving economy. Personally I was drawn to the game for these reasons.
You start off with a single plane. You land on an island in the sky and then the building begins. The game will prompt you with a few hints but you need to start building a colony. You are going to need workers, resources, infrastructure, etc. You move around the island on a train, so you will need to build tracks, train depot, and of course trains: cargo and passenger, for obvious reasons.
Now to gather resources from the forest or the mines, your tracks will need to run near these resources. FYI: You start off with a good amount of tracks in your inventory so you can build pretty quickly. If you are familiar with building type games, you should figure out what to do quickly.
There is a lot to build and consider when growing your colony. The game is broken down into:
- citizen happiness
- products/materials
- research and technology
- entertainment, revenue
- trade routes
You will need to keep an eye on each of these items as your colony grows. The game is pretty easy to understand and the in-game menu makes it easy to see your status, what you can build, what resources you have, what technologies you can explore and so on. If needed, a handy instruction manual can be found online.
When you build anything, it comes up instantly, no waiting which is nice. If you try to build something and do not have enough resources, the game will let you know and offer you the ability to purchase it with your cash.
When you are ready to expand, you can build an airport so you can travel to other islands and grow your empire! (insert evil laugh). Remember your goal is to build the biggest, most profitable colonies possible.
You can save multiple games so you can try something different and if it does not work out no harm.
The game comes with a tutorial which probably is go to run through but if you enjoy building type games, then Merchants of the Sky is for you. I enjoyed playing a game where I can do what I wanted and not have to worry about missions or quests, just good old fashion building. As I said the game has a nice economy built into it, which adds just the right amount of complexity to it. I definitely can recommend this game.
(The only thing I would suggest is to change the icon from the train to the main sign that appears in the game.)
