Infinity Skies Build Demo Review
Primer: This is a review of the Infinity Skies build demo where players can test out the building gameplay aspect of the game.
Introduction
Infinity Skies recently released their build demo to the public, which allows users to test out a very early version of their game. There are 4 aspects of the game - Adventure, Social, Build, Trade - and this is just one of them. If you’re into building and decoration, you should really try it out. All you need to do is to register a free account here, download the game (currently available on PC only) and off you go!
Gameplay
Have you ever played Sims? I had fond memories of that. The ultimate cheat code for Sims is to hit “Motherlode”, then you’ll have lots of in-game currency to be able to buy all the decorations and refurbish your dream home in any way you want it to be.
This build demo is almost the same thing. Since it’s a demo, it gives users a chance to build anything available without having to pay for it. Some choices are locked but it’s still plenty of things to play around with. You can go as crazy as you want on it lol
Adding Land
For Infinity Skies, you begin with a very small but empty plot of land. There are grids on the land where you can place things on. Situated at the centre of the land is a portal to other islands, but is currently locked in this early version of the demo. The land that I start off with is too small for my imagination to run wild. It’s kind of restrictive to me or perhaps I just have wanted a grand version of how my sky castle should be like. Hence the very first thing I did was to add more land.
Actually, I wonder if the actual in-game experience in buying land will be the same. Do we spend some tokens to add another plot of land? Or do we earn the land through playing? I’m not too sure at this point in time, but I doubt I’ll be able to afford such a super big plot of land when we have to buy it in the future! Let’s just go crazy and add lots of land around the portal while it’s free to do so!
Courtyard: Intuitive drag and drop interface
I wanted to go for a huge courtyard feel where the portal is situated. I decided to use two different patterns as a nice mosaic feel to accentuate the beautiful tiles. Throughout this experience of building the courtyard, I had some issues with the walls. There’s always some gaps around the corner that I can’t fill up with walls. After a couple of minutes of messing around, I got the hang of it. It’s all very intuitive. But if you’re ever stuck, there are some small hints on the bottom right corner of the screen to help you get through. Most of it can be learnt through experimentation. You can always delete elements of the design if you’re not happy with the outcome. It’s all a matter of dragging and dropping the design elements and rotating them to fit in where you want them to be.
However, I do wish there’s an UNDO and REDO button because sometimes I just want to see how the elements fit in without really committing to it. That will be one big quality of life change.
I really want the courtyard to stand out, so I added four fearsome dragons facing the portal. You can rotate the elements in the orientation you want. I added a few blue lamps on the ground level to create a circle of power around the portal.
Here’s how the final look of the courtyard is like. This is the first thing that any visitor who comes to the castle will see. So it’s important to create a good impression.
You can see all the design elements at the bottom of the screen. These are colour coded, with pink, purple, green and white. I suppose the rarity of the items correspond to the different colours, with pink being the rarest and white being the most common. Generally, the rarest decoration will look the most awesome with the most details, but not always. Well, it depends on the overall theme that you’re going for. It’s good to respect the theme of the decor rather than always going for the most expensive and rarest item. A room full of rarest decorations will look very ostentatious and loud, and that is not who I am.
Throne Room
Here’s the most important part of the castle building: the throne room! I really like the mosaic pattern I made on the courtyard, so I tried creating a chess pattern of alternating darker and lighter tiles. A chessboard tile pattern on the throne room sounds like a great idea - a place where strategic thinking meets bold action! It fits perfectly with the idea of the King and the Queen throne chairs being placed near the bottom centre edge of the chessboard, just like chess pieces. We are all chess pieces on the chessboard game of life.
Everything is looking good so far. The entrance to the throne room needs to be guarded by some armoured statues in order to inspire awe by anyone visiting. This is the other aspect of the game that will come out in the actual version - socializing. Basically, anyone can jump into the portal and visit anyone’s castle. If they like your castle, they will vote for it. At the end of the month, the votes are tallied to see who the winner is.
I placed two paintings on the wall right behind the two throne chairs. There is a rumour where one can use the NFTs in the wallet as a picture to decorate the castle. I’m not sure how true that is, but it’ll be really awesome to have that feature. Imagine having your own NFT gallery in the castle and people coming in to visit you and vote for you. It’s going to be a really cool feature! Don’t quote me though as nothing is really confirmed at this point in time. I can only tell you what little birds tell me.
Infinity Dining Hall
I wanted to have this majestic dinner hall where many people can join in for a feast. I thought of using the infinity symbol to form a pattern in the floor tiles. Like this:
Let’s add a long table. Oh wait, there isn’t one…so I have to join several short tables together to create the illusion of a long table. Added a few candles on the table for the effect. If only there can be a giant chandelier as a centrepiece to the dining hall…
There you go! The alternating blue and red chairs add a certain regal to the whole decor. By the way, there really is a feast that you can hold in the actual game. By burning an NFT of common rarity, the player’s castle will be bumped to the top of the leaderboard. This attracts people to visit your castle and vote for your castle as being the best for the month. The top 3 ranked players will attain a Kingship status which grants them a 0.33% tax on all NFT trades traded during the month of the Kingship. On top of all these, the players may also receive a unique crown NFT with Royal rarity status. Maybe during my birthday month, I’ll hold a feast for 7 days and 7 nights in the skies!
Alright, enough of building sandcastles in the air. Let's get back to the Infinity dining hall. Did you notice there’s an archway to another room in the screenshot above? This leads us to the kitchen. I thought it’s kind of silly to have all the cooking in the same room as the dining hall, so I carved out a little niche area to put all the cauldrons, oven and fireplace for the preparation of a splendid feast. Maybe this is where all the Reading Ape interns will work most of the time hahah
Overall look and thoughts
I will spend more time fleshing out my concept of a sky castle. But here’s how the overall castle is like after some hours of tinkering. Pretty awesome right?
There are some hiccups when building up the walls but I think this is more of an issue of learning the limits of the game than any bugs. It gets better after a while. The gameplay is very smooth and the controls are pretty intuitive. You can rotate the camera angle and pan in/out to get to the spot you want to see. Do remember to save and exit if you want to save the build you’ve done so far. I made a mistake early on when I exited without saving, but thankfully I just started so no real harm is done.
Here's the wishlist I've made:
Have an undo and redo button. This adds a quality of life change that makes experimentation easier.
NFT that can be hung on walls like paintings. This allows a gallery of sorts in the social aspect of the game.
Interactive decorations. It’ll be cool to be able to cook some food in the oven, light up the candles in the evening or pull a book from the library to read near a fireplace.
The lighting part can be improved. If all four walls are enclosed, the whole room will darken, as it should be. But adding candles or lamps doesn’t seem to have any effect on the lighting.
I look forward to sharing more of my castle with you!