Skigill

It's passable and fine for a couple hours, but the choice to not have any text in the game leaves the game a challenge to recommend. I don't know how to evaluate if some unlock is good and what to pick up without a lot of trial and error and it just gets exhausting over time. The game basically becomes brute force through levels a bunch of times until you can buy the permanent meta upgrades... which you also have no clue what they mean or do, but I assume they make you start stronger by default? I want to make meaningful choices I want to go "I should buy these upgrades because I want these kinds of weapons, and these icons mean things that help me" but I don't know what "98 Bow" means on a weapon, how is that different than "05 Bow With 3 Arrows" and does it have anything to do with "40 Sword + 05 Blue Sword with a +" and how does that work with "+80% Fist"? Some are more obvious like the magnet is pickup range, and the arrows in a circle is cooldown reduction, and there's the Fire/Lightning/Ice magic damage types. But It's hard to parse how strong any individual purchase is like how much stronger does "5 Fire" make me? Basically I don't know how to evaluate what is even good or what anything does without trial and error and it just gets exhausting. Otherwise it's passable but I can't recommend it without the game putting a guide of some kind in the game so you know what things mean.

I am heavily biased toward show, don't tell gameplay these days. I don't want to sit through hours and hours of exposition dumping, tooltips, or have to read a f***ing manual to understand how a game's mechanics work. I want to FAFO, and I love this game for it. Is it difficult at the start, since there's NO tooltips, explanation, or text of any kind to show what you're picking up and what it does? ABSOLUTELY. Because the game is forcing you to figure it out for yourself, to find what works and use intuition, rather than explanation, to determine what the sigils mean. Give the game a chance. I only have five hours in it and I've already cleared runs based on what I've learned. It's five dollars. People pay more for games that do a lot less. Also, your currency is a cool S, and you can't ever go wrong with a cool S.

This is a highly conditional endorsement. Skigill is a bullet heaven in the mold of Vampire Survivors. However, it definitely makes its own path. The key difference is the power-ups are literally on the game board and you walk on them to get them. It's a good mechanic, and probably the best thing about the game. However, there are design decisions that make it hard to endorse. 1. Gameplay can be pretty opaque. There is absolutely no explanation given for what the icons mean. Most of them make sense pretty quickly (the flame increases your fire damage, for example), but some of them might be entirely unguessable. Fortunately, there are websites that document them all, so a quick perusal will resolve those questions. 2. Color choices, or the lack thereof. It can be pretty challenging, especially late-game when there are hordes of enemies, to figure out what's going on. This is common for bullet heavens, but Skigill's monochromatic pallette, and no ability to filter out weapon effects, mean that late-game you better trust your weapon combo, because you sure won't be able to see what's going on. 3. The difficulty curve feels pretty high at the start. I did manage to get over it, but for a while, I felt like I was getting absolutely no progress. And in the end, I wasn't sure I had fun doing it. And what's the point of the game if not to have fun? In short, I'm not sure I had fun figuring out Skigill's quirks, but it does execute on it's core premise. For the price, it's worth experimenting with if you like bullet heavens, just be prepared for some frustration around the design of the game.

This game is fun. Great meta progression system and gameplay.

Honestly pretty terrible, Skigill is vampire survivors if the develop didn't want you to know what any of the upgrades, stats or even icons on the menu do. You'll spend a lot of time guessing what everything does, it's not a surprise if you never figure out what some of them do either. The artstyle looked lovely from the trailers, but actually playing the game makes you want to rip your eyes out, everything is yellow so it's extremely painful to play through after 10-15 minutes and a smaller windowed mode is required to prevent the pixel art from getting too distorted.

this game, truly a gem of the genre, succeeds in an area where all the other survivor-likes ive played have failed: it actually feels like there is room for skill and strategy, beyond merely your choice of weapons. it does this by putting a big emphasis on positioning. instead of mindlessly kiting huge packs of enemies around, you're constantly thinking about which direction to move on the skill tree, and occasionally abusing the pathfinding to create slim openings to activate a node. not to mention how many of the weapons have directionality as well!

I had a lot of fun playing Skigill. The presentation and method of progression is unique. Many people complain about the lack of help and text since this game uses only simple icons to give you clues. It isn't some mind-bending puzzle to figure out though. A few hours and a little patience and possibly a small bit of trial and error is all it takes to understand.

Visual clarity is terrible (all yellow), no descriptions for anything so you have to guess what items and upgrades do. Reasonable game loop, but in an oversaturated space it doesn't stand out.

pretty underwhelming. most game elements are represented by symbols and numbers, not text, and never explained. its very trial and error, try every spell, but most felt weak and useless, some are frustrating to aim or have clunky animations. you just walk in circles killing enemies. upgrading spells doesn't change them much aside from damage and cooldown, no unique feeling of powering up, just bigger numbers. some things just feel lazy, like the color pallette, everything is yellow - enemies, exp, spell effects, your character, damage numbers that only appear over the same yellow enemies, the path and nodes... but maybe appreciated by others. probably never finding out if this one "gets good eventually"

So far I'm really enjoying the game. It is fairly straightforward, runs are quick, and there is meaningful meta progression. I've really only scratched the surface, but again I'm enjoying it quite a bit. For the people who are complaining that there are no words and you have to figure things out... that's the point of the game. Deciphering the symbols, experimenting with builds, and figuring out what works is the crux of the gameplay. There are still lots of symbols and abilities that are a mystery to me, but I hope that through continuing to play and learn I'll figure them out in time. Others were really obvious at the outset... but if you have even basic RPG experience you can make educated guesses as to what symbols represent. I can't wait to see the game continue to grow. Looking forward to the full release!