Skyland: Heart of the Mountain

Skyland: Heart of the Mountain
by Cordelia Games - January, 2019

Available at:
Big Fish as Collector's Edition /
Steam



In an outlandish world, humans abandoned the ground’s toxic soil and settled on the shoulders of sleeping giants. Life essences of these colossal relics proved to be an inexhaustible source of energy that allowed the entire civilization to form.

The crew of aircraft Nightingale was sent to investigate a penal colony settlement in the clouds. While investigating the horrible conditions of the inmates, they find themselves uncovering a plot that threatens the entire world! Can you uncover what's behind the conspiracy in time?

• Learn the backstory of the crew of Nightingale!
  
• Locate airships hidden throughout the game.
  
• Enjoy exclusive screensavers, concept art, music, and more!
  
• Replay your favorite Hidden-Object Puzzles and mini-games.
  

Skyland: Heart of the Mountain (IHOG)

Options include separate sliders for Music, Sound and Voices, Custom Cursor and Full-screen.  There are FOUR choices for difficulty: Casual, Advanced, Expert and Custom.

This would be a good title for someone who's wanting to move from straight HOG's into the interactive, adventure-esque ones, as there is a HELP screen that explains all of the mechanics of the game and how to play.

The artwork is clockwork-steampunk-style, and I really enjoyed some of the incidental details the artists added.  The storyline itself goes well with the style.

There is a fast-travel map, and whether it is interactive or not depends on your difficulty-setting.  We do not have a journal, but everything is pretty easy-to-track, story-wise.

Hidden object scenes can be lightly-interactive (maybe something behind another item), but are mostly find-by-list.  There are the occasional find-by-silhouette, but sadly they underutilized this kind of HOS.

We have a powerful gauntlet, which we will use to fight off steamworks foes.  (These puzzle-battles are skippable)  This is another aspect of gameplay that I feel was underutilized.  Not that I wanted more fights, just that I would have liked to see the gauntlet used in other ways.

Unlike most of the IHOG's I've been playing lately, you will not have to play on Expert to finish off your achievements.

Speaking of which, there are 16 achievements, as well as 29 collectible zeppelins - one for each location during the main story.  The zeppelins morph in and out of sight, so keep an eye out.  There is another kind of collectible, which you do not collect, but will need to click on in order to get an 'cheevo.  Just look at your achievements list if you'd like to know what to watch for.

Bonus Content:

• 13 replayable hidden object puzzles
  
• 6 wallpapers in three sizes each (will save to your documents)
  
• 22 replayable minigames
  
• 7 cutscenes
  
• 5 music tracks (can be saved to your computer)
  
• 12 concept art
  

The bonus chapter takes up not long after the main story ends, but is not necessary to get the true ending.  This chapter simply ties up some loose ends we didn't know we had (although I definitely had some lingering questions.)

In total, the game and bonus chapter took me about 4 hours to complete with no hints or skips, but I did not replay any of the bonus content.

I enjoyed this title and am happy to recommend it to fans of the genre.