‘Airborne Kingdom’ review

(Disclosure: The Wandering Band provided a copy of the game for the review)

Airborne Kingdom offers a unique twist to the city-builder genre: you’re in charge of an aerial metropolis that sails across the clouds, high above a sprawling desert land, collecting resources and forming alliances with ground kingdoms. 

While it sounds quite gimmicky, the concept actually translates well to the moment-to-moment gameplay, adding a few extra layers into the core loop. 

It might seem like a pretty standard city-builder at first: you manage a number of resources needed for your city’s survival and expansion, including food, water, wood, and clay. But running a flying city is not the same as running one that’s on the ground, and it doesn’t take long for the game to show you why.

For starters, you always need to keep track of your coal reserves in addition to the other aforementioned resources. Coal keeps your city afloat. Use up all of it and your entire city crashes. 

Collecting resources involves building a hangar, a place where your workers can fly down to the surface and get what the city needs. Much like in reality, though, resources can be depleted. 

Once that does happen, you’ll have to fly your airship to other plots of land as you wait for the game to replenish what you’ve previously taken (yes, your city can move). That means you’ll be constantly exploring the game’s randomly-generated map and finding new places to collect resources from, which makes the whole collection process feel a bit less mechanical. 

Airship intricacies 

This being a city-builder, you’ll obviously be using resources to construct buildings. However, again, because you’re in a flying city, there are a lot more complexities to construction than usual. 

For instance, you have to lay down paths along buildings and connect them to one another starting from the town center, the very first building you’re given.

The Wandering Band

Then, you’ll have to take into account balance and tilt. Have too many buildings on one side and your city becomes lopsided, which can make people unhappy and slow the entire thing down. 

Aside from this, your people do not want to live beside industrial buildings, which emit toxic fumes. So you’ll also have to figure out ways to ensure your housing blocks are outside the vicinity of, say, your adobe kiln. 

On top of all this, each building you construct adds what the game refers to as drag to your city, slowing its overall movement speed. The slower you move, the longer it takes to get from place to place; the more resources you consume. To counteract this, you have to put in propulsions as you continue to expand your city. 

All these gameplay elements might feel overwhelming at first, and they can be for anyone going into this expecting a run-of-the-mill city-builder. But it’s actually these added layers of micromanagement that makes Airborne Kingdom fun.

It’s easy to lose countless hours working out the intricacies in deciding where to put each building in your city; or in charting an efficient path to collect resources. It’s in these moments where the game feels like it has something fresh to bring to the table. 

Friends in high places

Of course, you’re not just expanding and keeping your flying city afloat for no reason. Your goal is to unite the distant ground kingdoms, whose relationships have been fractured by greed, and restore harmony to the world with the use of the so-called flying technology of the Ancients.

That simple premise ties into another gameplay element: building alliances. As you explore the game’s map, you’ll encounter kingdoms on the ground. Each kingdom gives you a number of missions to gain its alliance. These missions range from extracting an artifact at a marked location to providing resources. They’re generally pretty simple, but they at least give some direction in how you progress. 

The Wandering Band

Kingdoms can also trade resources with you and give you access to plans for new buildings. And once you’ve gained their trust, some of their citizenry might even join your journey. 

Speaking of citizenry, the ones residing in your city have to be kept happy. You need to make sure every single one of them has their own home. You have to make sure they are safe. Also, you’ll have to build centers of faith to satisfy their spiritual needs. Keeping your people happy makes it easier for your city to grow and recruit new members along the way.

As with most city-builders, micromanaging all of these things can seem like a repetitive task. That’s why it’s very important for the core gameplay loop to be very enjoyable. And for the most part, Airborne Kingdom actually delivers in that regard. 

Personally, the game could use certain scenarios that shake things up in your city and keep you thinking on your feet. There aren’t many twists and turns in your journey that might force you to go outside of that rhythm you develop a few hours in. It’s definitely not a dealbreaker, but it can make progression less interesting as you sink more time into the game.

When it comes down to it, though, Airborne Kingdom is a worthwhile and well-polished city-builder that’s not afraid to experiment with new ideas. Sure, these games aren’t for everyone, but indie developer The Wandering Band deserves credit for crafting an experience that feels new in a genre that’s been around since the early computers. 

Something to note: As of writing, the game is only available on the Epic Game Store. – Rappler.com