Merchant of the Skies

Neutral rating – the game looks cute and polished, but it's a bit too barebones and grindy in terms of gameplay. [h1]The good:[/h1] ➕ Nice pixel graphics, the Majestic Carrot is adorable :) ➕ The game is pretty easy once you figure out the basics. ➕ Time only passes while your ship is moving (or you're holding down the time skip button), so time-related stress is almost completely absent. [h1]Mixed:[/h1] 〰 Trading is easy, but oddly barebones. The core activity is to sail around on your airship and transport products between outposts, buy low, sell high. (Later branching out to setting up production chains yourself on islands you buy.) When I first tried trading, I figured that I would sell items, that aren't sold by a location, for a higher price there, since it's a scarcity product. Nope! For some reason outposts only buy items that they sell themselves O.o Their prices also never change, no matter how much you're flooding their trading post with the same item. So it comes down to re-running the same routes over and over again if you can be bothered. 〰 There is very little story because it's largely a sandbox game. But there's not much to "sandbox" about it either. The island names and distribution is randomly generated, but the gameplay and overall experience would be the same on any run. You get the same handful of different campaign goals in increasing difficulty, but other than those you're largely left to your own devices. [h1]The bad:[/h1] ➖ The music is ok, but each of the 3 tunes are very short and so the constant repetitive looping will drive you up the wall. ➖ Caravans are a pain in the arse to set up and oversee. I know this feature can be done right, because I played Port Royale 3. Here, maybe because of the unzoomable map and the contrived caravan menu, it just feels stifling. Also they need so much resources to set up, but I was never sure they were actually doing what I told them to 🤷 [h1]Final thoughts:[/h1] If you want to try it, get it on a sale I guess? Just don't have high expectations about its (re)playability.

Solid. Could do with a few QoL features, a bit tedious. Charming though.

I kind of like this game but at the same time not really. It is chill and nice but controls on steam deck are tedious, it gets grindy, and repetitive. I played on steam deck. The pros: + the game looks fantastic, the aesthetic fits the theme and the game perfectly + core gameplay it's easy to learn, exploration feels slightly rewarding and resource/fuel management is nice in the early game The mixed: ● some missions are interesting but most of them are repetitive ● the early game can feel punishing and difficult but then you make a bit of money start industries and then get the frigate with the red sails and all resource management and fuel management is out the window Negatives: - story is truly forgettable and apart from some characters like the signing carrot, the turtle island, the giant fish, everything else is forgettable as soon as you close the game - as soon as you buy a good ship you can just fuel at the starting town where the fuel is very cheap as you can fly across the map especially with the blue sails ship with 70 speed - there is no way to see what resources are needed for what buildings to be built (maybe even upgraded not sure) from the map, you have to go down on your planet, see what resources you need, note them down and fly out to get them this gets tedious fast - for steam deck checking inventory and especially quests + prices can get insanely tedious and frustrating i wish there was am easier option to do that - there is no changing economy what is considered expensive in a place stays expensive forever - you can't sell what complicated items your industry produces outside missions - you can't sell certain products in a place that is not wanted - it gets confusing on what building you need to produce something from a mine and realise you also need sand for that and every now and then you move sand there to keep production going - inns require constant food and juice delivery so it can get overwhelming fast, maybe convoys fix that, didn't get there yet. - investing a ton of money in a bank breaks the game. You get infinite money basically It's a shame much of the game will be unknown due to the minuses as after awhile you just get bored of it. Can't recommend it and i don't see it updated to cut down on some minuses as it means major reworks most likely.

i went bankrupt twice and lost

i just wanted to say thanks for a truly amazing wonderful game!!!! i usually play things like Dune or Starfield basically really BIG games, but im SOOO in love with this title! its an absolute gem and whether you play on your computer OR your phone ....cause you can do both!!! this game shines as a truly great game and probably will go down as a classic, not even joking it has everything it needs to go down as one youll always remember and think of fondly.....saying to yourself "Ghosh i wish theyd make a game like "Merchant of the Skies" yeah i know my review sounds fan boyish or goofy....but no joke if you play it you'll see what i mean.,.....this is definitely one that if id played when i was younger, id always remember!!!!

Decent game. If you set up farms early on, it takes away a lot of the late-stage grinding.

I spent almost 200 hours on this game, so addictive, but wish for a sequel and QOL update.

BUY LOW SELL HIGH METHOD

Completed the game in 2 days 8.2 hours in total, was a good experience. didn't really do the caravan stuff because by the time i finished the quest needed to unlock it i was almost done with everything

Good game. There's lots of interesting quests, although you can get stuck in the grind of transporting resources for profit.