Skyward Collapse, created by Arcen Games, is a unique take on the god sim genre that has been rather stagnant and almost non existent for some time now and features a unique premise. The game has you controlling a god in command of two rival civilizations, the Greeks and the Norse, but you don’t have direct control over the two factions. Instead you build up each civilizations cities and keep a balance in power throughout the world using mythological creatures and keeping them both alive for as long as possible. There are multiple phases through the game starting with the age of humans and ending long after the age of humans when there are few turns left to make in the game. There are two game modes for you to choose from, single player mode or multiplayer where you can go against up to 8 players in one map making for some rather intense gameplay. When creating a new game there are multiple options open to you including the map type, number of turns, the civilizations in the game, game difficulty, woe frequency and score requirement.
Once you’ve setup your game it’s time to jump in and take on your role of keeping peace in the world and keep your minions in line. Much of the game has you constructing new buildings and placing unique resources and tiles in the game world. Each civilization starts with only a certain small area in which you can construct new buildings and expect your front line of buildings to be destroyed easily and as buildings are destroyed you lose valuable space to construct new ones so choose your buildings wisely in the beginning or one of the civilizations will fall and you will lose the game. If one faction happens to become stronger than the other and wipes out the other faction it’ll be game over for you and keeping a balance in power is key and the scale can tip to either side easily. Each civilization has its own set of turns each round and allows you to take many actions. Actions within each turn need action points to be able to do and each civilization starts with only 3 but by taking over forts or special areas in the game they may get lucky and acquire more but this only affects one civilization and can easily tip the balance allowing one civilization to carry out more actions than the other. You will also notice that as you progress through the game more and more tiles will begin forming the world around you allowing for a larger world for the people of the world to battle over. You are also able to place land tiles in many forms ranging from lakes to mountain ranges to add-on to the world itself.
There are many different buildings for you to construct and each have an impact on the resources your civilization can produce. This includes stone quarries, a barracks for mêlée units, archery ranges, siege buildings, bakers, pig farms, butchers and many other options open to you. If the balance is tipping in favor of one civilization you can also take matters into your own hands by placing mythological creatures in the game world that will combat each faction and each civilization has their own unique mythological creatures that can be placed ranging from elves to minotaur. Mythological creatures will also randomly appear during certain turns as well and will make the world that much more hostile for both factions and as you progress through the game the more hostile the world will become. Aside from mythological creatures you can also place god tokens in the game world that allows a faction to control a god and a faction that controls a god is granted new abilities in the god token menu. There are a variety of different gods that each faction can control based on their mythology, the norse have Yggdrasil for example. You also have options to interact with the game world as well including the ability to repair buildings, upgrade a unit, destroy a tile in the game world or give a specific unit a command.
Overall, while much of Skyward Collapse consists of constructing buildings and upgrading units that you don’t have much control over yourself, the game offers a unique take on the god sim genre and features a great soundtrack and addicting gameplay. The game probably isn’t for everyone however and some people may get bored with it fairly quickly due to its indirect nature, that being said, it’s a fun game and is definitely worth giving a shot.