Skyhill

 PC
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Metascore
63

Mixed or average reviews - based on 24 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
5.8

Mixed or average reviews- based on 42 Ratings

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  • Summary: Skyhill is a roguelike story about staying alive when there is no reason to. You are a resident of Skyhill hotel,who survived biological catastrophe. Goal - is to get out of your penthouse in search of other people and salvation. But all elevators in the building are off and floors areSkyhill is a roguelike story about staying alive when there is no reason to. You are a resident of Skyhill hotel,who survived biological catastrophe. Goal - is to get out of your penthouse in search of other people and salvation. But all elevators in the building are off and floors are flooded with hazards. You are not sure is there any other survivors, as far as you know everyone in the building died, or… changed beyond recognition. Those who provided room service and pushed buttons in elevators for you not so long ago… well now all they want is to rip off your flesh to get to your tasty insides… So much for customer service. You face the dilemma: on the one hand you have to get out from the damn building, on the other hand your hotel suite is your only “Fort” that protects from the horrors of post-apocalyptic reality.… Expand

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Skyhill - Announcement Trailer

Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 5 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 16 out of 24
  3. Negative: 3 out of 24
  1. We Got This Covered
    Oct 5, 2015
    90
    Skyhill's set-up is a harrowing reality, while the challenge it offers players is both terrifically fun and nightmarishly difficult. It is a true test of your gaming endurance.
  2. Hooked Gamers
    Oct 9, 2015
    80
    If you want a punishing but fun experience, you may yet consider booking your suite at Skyhill. If you can push on through all the frustrations, all the randomly generated 'F-You' moments you'll have to endure, and every inevitable death just to get a little further each time, then Skyhill is your game. If you can't, well, then you probably aren't a roguelike fan anyway.
  3. Destructoid
    Oct 6, 2015
    70
    When you get right down to the core of it, see how the elements work in your favour or conspire against you, Skyhill admirably creates this tense game of hubris and courage, one that never lets up until you escape or, far more likely, die.
  4. PC Invasion
    Oct 6, 2015
    60
    Flawed in a lot of ways and with some ideas that don't seem fully fleshed out, but a gorgeous and idly entertaining roguelike romp nonetheless.
  5. Brash Games
    Oct 19, 2015
    60
    So.. Is the game a massive flop?….No. It just needs tweaking slightly in the right areas and given a patch or two to unlock it’s true potential.
  6. RPGamer
    Dec 29, 2015
    50
    Ultimately, Skyhill is best played in short doses, well past bedtime. Its psychological strengths are enhanced, while its more soporific mechanics become less vexing.
  7. Quarter to Three
    Oct 6, 2015
    40
    It’s clever enough, I suppose. But is it worth 100 floors of bare-bones rogue-like? Hardly.

See all 25 Critic Reviews

User Reviews

Write a Review
Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 6
  2. Mixed: 3 out of 6
  3. Negative: 2 out of 6
  1. Quarex
    May 11, 2021
    8
    If you ever wished Elevator Action were a horrifying Roguelike with crafting, this is the game for you. I never in my life would have thoughtIf you ever wished Elevator Action were a horrifying Roguelike with crafting, this is the game for you. I never in my life would have thought of that particular combination myself, but it is amazing how well all the elements come together to create an enjoyable game. Skyhill is a great combination of simple gameplay with interesting underlying systems keeping you trying new combinations of crafting and exploration strategies to see what will finally work and get you to the bottom of the skyscraper. I probably only played for about 20 hours before deciding I had probably seen most of what the game had to offer, but I was always excited to play again every time I launched the game.… Expand
  2. hileger
    Dec 10, 2022
    7
    простенький инди выживач залипалка по моему неплохо ...........................
  4. Koblihozrout
    Oct 11, 2015
    7
    It's short 2d rogue like, turn based RPG, with emphasis on resource management.

    You go through rooms and floors find scraps, food and    It's short 2d rogue like, turn based RPG, with emphasis on resource management.

    You go through rooms and floors find scraps, food and monsters, upgrade your VIP hotel room and customize your equipment (basically only weapons). And try to stay alive, and don't die of hunger.

    Without basic know how the game is hard, once you understand mechanics it's not that challenging. I managed to finish it on normal on fifth try. The game is extremely short, around 5-6 hours of gameplay combined. I finished it once and uninstalled, it has minimum replay-ability value.

    Graphics, gameplay and atmosphere are adequate for small indie flick, and it was fun while it lasted.    … Expand
  5. someone132
    Oct 14, 2016
    5
    Skyhill is certainly an interesting game. It has a repetitive structure you would reasonably associate with survival roguelikes, and yet itsSkyhill is certainly an interesting game. It has a repetitive structure you would reasonably associate with survival roguelikes, and yet its design is full of unexpected highs and baffling lows, which altogether produce an average game that could've been much more.

    Upon launch, Skyhill immediately greets you with an ugly polygonal 3D city panorama in the menu, which (thankfully) has nothing to do with any of the in-game graphics, which are in a pleasant cartoonish 2D style, and are pretty fluidly animated. The game then begins with a rather poorly drawn comic strip cutscene outlining the biohazard - and surprises you with the voice acting. It's not great, but it's present, and not only in the voiceover, but also in the audiologs you can occasionally find, which makes the game feel a lot more expensive than it really is.

    The writing of these audiologs is quite disturbing and immersive, and same goes for the various kinds of notes (My favorite is probably "From the window, I see birds outside. If only I could be free as a bird! Free to fly, and free to eat! Yes, EAT!", though notes written from mutants' perspective are also cool.) Protagonists non-voiced thoughts (i.e. "I feel like this skyscraper will never end!") are also fitting. The 3 default endings are all poor, though; patched-in fourth one based on a fan's idea at least has more drama and more gameplay to it. Unfortunately, the immersion you get from the graphics, the story notes and the sound design (the few musical themes are very well-fitting, and many monsters have really disturbing heavy breathing sounds) is often undone by the gameplay and its contradictions.

    First, the good. The game is turn-based, with any movement from room to room taking away a hunger point (and/or a health point if you're starving or poisoned), which gives you plenty of time to think. Stuff is randomly placed only once, at the start of the game. This means that the enemies do not respawn, and their dead bodies stay where they were, giving you the satisfying feeling of truly clearing that damned skyscraper. The crafting system is surprisingly large and can be really pleasant to operate. It's split into 5 categories: Weapons, Food, Health, Other, and Suite upgrades. Health and Other ones can all be done on the spot, while Weapons and Food crafting generally requires using workstation/kitchen back in Suite, and upgrading them via Suite upgrades to unlock better recipes. Once you do that once, you'll get so many weapons schemes and cooking recipes you'll feel like a trainee cook or weaponsmith. As for combat, it's simplistic, but serviceable, mainly due to the sounds and animations. It would've been great if the player had actual skills to use alongside the (only occasionally helpful) ability to target body parts, but at least the enemies sometimes do different attacks, one can run away to be encountered, wounded, later, another spits poison, etc.

    The bad: Upgrading Suite any more after that is pointless, as you'll usually not get enough resources to craft Tier 3/4 weapons or food anyway. The resource placement is simply too random and not balanced well enough, given that there's no item regeneration to correct its mistakes. Crafting for each category always has a certain base resource that crops up in most high-level recipes (Cloth for "Other", Wood Planks and Scrap Metal for Weapons, Water for Food and Alcohol for Health), a resource that (with possible exception of Scrap Metal), simply doesn't crop up anywhere near often as required for them. Either the item spawn should've been weighted more towards these resources, or the crafting recipes should've been better at letting you use the kind of miscellaneous messes you'll generally end up with.

    Either way, the game really should've had the ability to break unwanted item down. Believe, there's nothing more frustrating then finding many complete weapons in the lower-middle floors, long after you've crafted a superior Tier 2 one and have literally no use for them. You can't break down Saws to get their Scrap Metal, and neither can you get a Blade from Kitchen Knife. Actual recipes can be outright nonsensical too - crafting Gears requires combining Scrap Metal and Insulated Wires, with normal Wire somehow not good enough.

    Then again, nothing harms immersion as much as the nature of crafting resources themselves. You're supposedly in a luxurious hotel, yet all that Scrap Metal and base foods would feel more at home in a multi-storey storage depot, or at least, in an explosion-dilapidated tower block. It's even more notable given that there's no paper money to be found, only occasional coins, which are roubles (even though character and hotel both appear American.) These are needed for vending machines, which can't just be smashed because...yeah.

    So, on the whole, the game is rather average. It can be fun, but that depends on the kindness of RNG more often than on anything else.    … Expand
  6. Avejant
    Jul 8, 2020
    4
    First hour of walk-through this game was intriguing for me. I tried to collect all notes, manage my resources and reach bottom floor. I likedFirst hour of walk-through this game was intriguing for me. I tried to collect all notes, manage my resources and reach bottom floor. I liked simple design and artwork but game-play disappointed me because of big infliction of randomness.
    Really: no matter how good equipment you had you still have a big chance to die from one hit. And sometimes you even can't evade it.
    Could recommend it only as experiment for rogue-like fans but buy it only with a big discount,    … Expand
  7. punish
    Oct 18, 2015
    1
    A mediocre approach makes this roguelike unbearable - it's neither fun, nor scary. There's no exploration. The difficulty curve is simplyA mediocre approach makes this roguelike unbearable - it's neither fun, nor scary. There's no exploration. The difficulty curve is simply boring and based on chance unlike better representatives of the genre, like Spelunky, where you can NEVER blame the game for being unfair. Highly unrecommended.… Expand

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Awards & Rankings

7
#7 Most Shared PC Game of 2015

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