More dungeons in the sky

Great Dungeon in the sky is a lot of fun, and a really well made game. But that won't stop me from picking it apart - that's fun too.

The first thing worth noting is the balance of the weapons. In GDIS every character has zero to three weapons, and every time any weapon is used, you get a delay until you can use any other weapon again. So, if you fire off your super spell, you have to wait ten seconds before you can hit something with your staff, but if you use your staff, you only have to wait one before you can use your staff again. There are four broad types of weapons, melee weapons, ranged weapons, spells, and other stuff.

Melee weapons recharge relatively quickly, and generally hit whatever is in front of you for a small amount of damage. There are a few exceptions, charge for instance has a really long recharge time but also knocks someone back. And peck has no recharge time at all, but never does more than 1 damage. As enemies typically have 25 health, that means you have to be really fast with your fingers to make it effective, but it can be.

Ranged weapons are slower than melee weapons, but have the distinct advantage that you aren't right next to what you're attempting to kill. As every attack in the game acts a little differently, you'll have to understand how your attack is going to move before you rely on it. Bows usually fire in arcs, bullets fire right ahead, and rays shoot based on how you're moving, and bounce off walls.

Spells are more varied than other things, but follow the same sort of rules. They can fire off multiple projectiles, restore your health, paralzye an enemy, summon a monster, go invisible, change your shape or a lot more. Typically though, all spells have a long recharge time, five to ten seconds. I'll get into why this is a problem in a moment.

other stuff is exactly as you might guess. Things like putting up a rope, dropping a bomb, super jump and, er, making toast. They rarely do damage on their own, but are useful in other ways. there are areas you can only access by super jump or flying, though. their recharge rates vary, but are typically fairly long.

After playing the game for a long while, I've decided that the best thing to use is melee weapons, as the recharge rate is the lowest. enemies will attack fairly slowly, so if you're quick with your fingers, you can kill things before they have a chance to hit you, and you can hit multiple things in one swing to boot. the best melee weapon is the staff, as it hits for 8 damage, twice, and only has about one second of recharge. The best ranged weapon is shock, because it seems to do the same amount of damage as every other ranged attack, but recharges slightly faster. It's a ray too, so it bounces off walls and you can aim it downwards to shoot at monsters below you. The best spell is healing, which isn't much of a contest because it's only got a five second recharge time, and nearly all other spells don't do half enough damage as to be worth their weight in salt. ten seconds to wait after shooting three 8 damage rays (two of which are into the air - where no enemies stay), when i can do twice as much damage in one second with a staff? I don't think so. The best other ability is... well, I haven't found one. Then again, now that I've found someone with flying and a staff, I hardly need to be able to jump extra high.

That brings me to the other factor in the characters you select, their attribute. Most characters don't have any, but some do. They include fast, slow, flying, strong to fire, and no combat. While the other options make for a more challenging game, you need flight to actually unlock a bunch of the content - so there's no real point in picking any attrubute other than that until after you've unlocked everything. Especially, because that means you no longer have to worry about all the tricky platforming bits. Okay, sure they're fun, but as I've said there are something like a hundred levels, and missing the same jump thirty times flight is glad to have - it's just being able to jump even when you're in the air.

the best character I've found is the birdman tribe leader. He flies, has a staff, and a three-ray spell. there are a lot of other good options, all depending on your play style, but strength wise it's birdman tribe leader, all the way.

I’d also like to put props to the music in the game. I normally play games without music, as I play most of my games in a room with other people and they get annoyed, but the music and sfx in the game are wonderful. There are a half-dozen tracks that shuffle so you never listen to the same one twice in a row, and it both fits in with the game wonderfully and loops perfectly. I’m thoroughly impressed.