All right. So. I know you all wanted me to head southerly in Lost Skies this week. And I did! I wasn’t going completely off-script, despite some of my urges to do precisely that. But I will admit that I was a wee bit distracted for this latest leg of my journey.
In my defense, that’s because there was a sky whale.
Before I got started with that, though, I had to deal with the fact that my airship landing pad had trees spawn around and on top of it. This, in turn, meant that trees grew through my ship and it started to take rapid-fire, screen-rocking damage the moment I was trying to set sail.
This had happened to me at least once before, but I had kind of forgotten that’s a possibility since trees and other such natural resources respawn after time even after I’ve cleared space. This time around, however, the ship was being so violently tilted around that my character was actually suffering from the effects of momentum and she even got crushed and died a couple of times. Eventually I pushed through, freed my ship, and then moved my dock to a flat grassy area.
I want you all to bear in mind that when I died, I dropped a bag of wood and other materials. This will be important later.
With a clear objective (get the disks needed for the next crafting tier), a clear heading (south) in mind, and no more tree-based goofery, I set out to perform my duty. And literally moments after I went underway, I saw what first looked like an island and then started to actually slowly move.
I hope that you can all appreciate the urge for me to try to run this thing down. I mean, it’s a freaking sky whale. Do you expect me to not chase after the sky whale? Because if you do, then I’m afraid you might not appreciate me. And if you’re mad that I chased a sky whale, I don’t know that we can be friends.
Even with my sail-powered skyship, I was able to get within grapple hook range of this surprise encounter. Why was I trying to latch on to this thing like some kind of lamprey? Because if there are sky whales, then there are probably materials on the back of sky whales. And sure enough, I was proven right. Or I confirmed something I probably wrote about this game some years back; I’m not entirely sure.
The material in question was some form of atlas crystal that I’d never seen before… and subsequently ended up dropping a couple of times because I was mining rocks off of the back of a sky whale while it was moving, meaning the materials started to fly off into the cloudy void almost immediately unless I smashed the “E” key rapidly. Still, after a few moments of mining and a bit of grapple swinging around to get a look at this beast, I elected to get back to–
…oh no, my ship. It’s completely gone. I felt like the proverbial dog who managed to catch a running car and didn’t know what to do next. And so, with sadness in my heart and pockets full of ultra-rare materials, I went sailing to my death to respawn on my sky ship.
This not only meant I lost out on a bunch of things I had never seen before (and may never see again), but I was also out of position in relation to my departure, so I did what I did the last time I was lost: I pointed the nose of my ship somewhere and kept flying until I saw the first island I could, though it was in a bit of a southern direction.
Once again this ended up being both a bit of a blessing and a curse because I found myself in completely new islands but ones that had highly deadly threats. Thus began a series of several frustrating deaths thanks to being taken out by powered-up turrets, which were compounded when a combination of a deer smacking and a combat drone’s laser took me out. Then I got lost thanks to chasing a friendly drone in order to find treasure. And then there was the island with an obnoxious laser-and-mirror puzzle. And then the game crashed.
It was at this point when I was starting to ask questions to Lost Skies’ developers as if they could hear me through my computer screen. Why can I not map things out myself? Why isn’t there a map? Why can’t I judge the difficulty of an island until I land and get my shit mixed? Yes, reason stands that going further from the center would lead to more dangerous lands obviously, but how am I supposed to know where the center is without a map? Why don’t you have a freaking map??
OK, fine, Lost Skies. I give up for now.
About a day later I picked the game back up and continued, trying to find the disks I desperately needed and being foiled at nearly every turn, while at the same time I landed on what I believe were a couple of player-made islands, primarily because the datapads on them had misspellings or extremely weak writing. Still, what at least one did have was a far more reasonable laser-and-mirror puzzle that involved aiming the light towards a switch on a floating structure, then flying to that structure to get the goodies.
Or at least that’s what the plan was right until I faced anti-air turrets. But hey, I managed to park the Goldiyacht in a place where she wouldn’t get shot (mostly), clambered over to the turrets, and just used my mining laser to slowly chip them away until they exploded. I wasn’t going to waste my ammo on these things. Work smarter not harder.
It was all worth it when I found a massive treasure trove full of chests and – best of all – the four disks I needed. Score. But then I had to get home.
And that’s when I remembered that I had the marker on my compass that indicated where I died on my home island. I also had a death marker from when I dropped my sky whale treats too, but it was a 50/50 shot in getting it right, and sure enough, I guessed correctly. Home sweet home. Items unlocked. Now I can…
…wait until I get four more disks to be able to unlock engines. Dammit.
As disappointing as that revelation may have been, I still managed to have a good time and make some progress along the way. As of this writing, I’m now one disk away from unlocking the engines, I’ve gotten a few more recipes (yes one of them was for spicy tomato sauce again), and as the polls asked, I adjusted the Goldiyacht – she now has two square sails, some new wings, and a bit of a slimmer profile. Unfortunately I still need another docking bay unlock before I can add more panels to her, but: progress!
With that in mind, I still have to note the frustrations I am also having. I still don’t know how or where to find better armor. I am still intensely annoyed at the lack of a map, which isn’t helped by the fact that player-made maps don’t appear to be accurate anymore. I am crestfallen at the fact that engines are taking this bloody long to unlock. And it sucks that it feels as if nobody else is playing this game anymore, meaning I have to maybe pressgang my family into helping me and I’d rather not do that.
I still have one more week of this game. I am a bit tired. But I am also resolved. I want to at the very least unlock engines but I also need to respect that there are boundaries that I still cannot push yet. Not until I improve my weapons to level 10, apparently.
So that does kind of mean that this final leg of our shared journey is a bit decided in terms of goals, but there is one thing I can ask you all. As I mentioned before, I dropped my sky whale materials and the bag is still apparently floating somewhere near the death plane of the world. I kind of really want those mats, but I also do not trust this game’s level of jank to allow me to retrieve them safely. So what do you all think?
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Polling wraps up at the usual 1:00 p.m. EDT time on Friday, May 30th. At this point I think I’ve gotten a clear picture of how I feel about my time in Lost Skies, but I’m not ready to share those thoughts yet. And a reminder, again, these are just thoughts and not a review. I’m not reviewing anything here. I’m just summarizing my experience for this month.
Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.
