#REVIEW AIRBORNE KINGDOM FREE#

See, your ultimate goal is to create your airborne kingdom by forging alliances with all the cities on the ground, unifying the world. The only place the breeziness becomes a problem is when you're dealing with other cities.

It's hypnotic, though I suspect actually living there would be a lot like living in a carnival that never ends, perpetually surrounded by weird noises and arcane machines, which sounds quite stressful. Even the buildings can't sit still, and they have a tendency to flap and spin and generally make the city look like a madcap contraption built by an out of control toymaker. It's constantly buzzing with life, from the narrow streets, to the skies around the city. Sometimes I like to just slow things down to a crawl and stare at my magnificent creation. Much like Oskar Stålberg's enchanting Townscaper, you can approach city design as an artist as well as a planner. This goes beyond building placement, too, since you'll uncover lots of paint schemes that you can apply to buildings individually, by type, or all at once.

#REVIEW AIRBORNE KINGDOM FREE#

While there are plenty of concerns that will shape your city, you're also free to follow your aesthetic tastes. You're not just building a city-you're creating a weird architectural marvel. Importantly, this pleasant pace gives you plenty of room to flex your creative muscles. Those aren't typically adjectives I seek out in management games, but it's really kept me too focused on scouring the map and working on my own projects to notice that the challenges are infrequent and tension rare. For the most part, it's light and breezy. There are complications, crises and plenty of ways to cock everything up, but the first biome has all the resources you need in abundance, letting you build up a nice stockpile, and while scarcity can become an issue, you can return to a less challenging area pretty quickly and recuperate. The map is presented as a literal map, with little embellishments like curling, torn edges, and provides just as much eye candy as the city.ĭespite dabbling in survival management, Airborne Kingdom maintains a relaxing pace. There are small settlements and cities waiting to be discovered and traded with, plenty of hidden bounties, and a few secrets that can be used to unlock wonders that will make your already very impressive city even more enviable. Instead of giving you more places to build, the world exists to be explored. While Airborne Kingdom doesn't lean into its survival elements as much as, say, Surviving Mars, the relationship between the world and the survival mechanics is as strong as it is with a pure survival game. To keep your city fuelled and fed, you'll have to constantly stay on the move, sending down workers in planes to gather up what you need. Absolutely everything you need to build with, continue flying and keep your people alive is found on the ground, and you can explore the entirety of the map at your leisure. The world below still plays an important role.

Instead it's something built out of my reactions to imminent disasters, my experiments, my experiments to fix the problems created by my previous experiments, and a few cosmetic flourishes. I had a plan for how I wanted my city to look, and it now looks nothing like my vision. The result is something dynamic and organic, constantly shifting to meet new needs. These limitations have forced me to spend a lot more time considering how my city should grow, and it means no section is ever really complete-I'm always redesigning them. All of these things require resources, workers and space, of course, which might inspire yet more adjustments. If all the new buildings are creating too much drag, some more propellers could give you a bit more propulsion. If the city is lying a bit low, maybe chuck in a new fan or some wings.

You have to build methodically, and then make lots of little adjustments. You've got infinite space, but thanks to physics you can just keep expanding in whatever direction you want.

Geography is a defining feature of a city, and thus city builders, but it loses its impact when you can soar above it all. Physics ends up being an excellent replacement for terrain.

Review airborne kingdom