Really like the core ideas, but there's just enough jank to the implementation that I found myself growing frustrated fairly often.
For example, I really wish you'd just automatically recharge when docking, or could do a lot of the management tasks from a single screen instead of having to scroll off the screen to find the building you're trying to interact with.
Presentation wise the art is very charming, while the music is extremely repetitive and is always cutting in and out. I ended up just turning it off.
Overall I enjoyed the time I've spent with it, but not sure I'll be going back.
For example, I really wish you'd just automatically recharge when docking, or could do a lot of the management tasks from a single screen instead of having to scroll off the screen to find the building you're trying to interact with.
Presentation wise the art is very charming, while the music is extremely repetitive and is always cutting in and out. I ended up just turning it off.
Overall I enjoyed the time I've spent with it, but not sure I'll be going back.
Snoozefest. Not offensively bad, just boring
Recieved as part of July 2023's Humble Choice collection.
A cute trading simulation with not much else to it. The graphics are pleasing to the eye and there are interesting elements of worldbuilding scattered across the map. Unfortunately, I picked it up at a time where I was incredibly busy, and this isn't really the kind of game you can put down and pick back up again without being hopelessly lost.
I doubt I'll return to it unless I'm scrounging around to increase my average achievement % on Steam, but it is by no means a bad game. Just not for me. Numbers hurt my head and the repetition gets old after a while. 4/10.
A cute trading simulation with not much else to it. The graphics are pleasing to the eye and there are interesting elements of worldbuilding scattered across the map. Unfortunately, I picked it up at a time where I was incredibly busy, and this isn't really the kind of game you can put down and pick back up again without being hopelessly lost.
I doubt I'll return to it unless I'm scrounging around to increase my average achievement % on Steam, but it is by no means a bad game. Just not for me. Numbers hurt my head and the repetition gets old after a while. 4/10.
A cute and simple trading simulation. It's quite addictive at the beginning, even if it becomes quite repetitive at the end, it doesn't outlast its welcome.
- Cute, charming game where you try and rebuild your family’s trade empire in a steampunk world where floating islands are navigated with airships. Cozy pixel art with some catchy tunes. You can make friends with a singing carrot wearing a top hat 🙂
- Navigate to a new island. Trade with the locals there. Deliver letters, take on tourists who want to see specific landmarks, trade for resources and deliver them to specific islands. There’s some base building going on as well that I started to explore where workers can generate resources for you. There’s a lot of breadth and things to do.
- With so much to do, I found myself just not really invested in doing any of it. The game is very serviceable but didn’t hook with me anything in particular. With just enough friction in navigating the menus and screens, I found myself not wanting to deal with it to continue playing after an hour.
- If you’re looking for a cozy game around trade, navigation, and base building, this will scratch that itch. And it’s probably better playing with with a mouse and keyboard. I don’t have anything really bad to say about it, but it just didn’t resonate with me.
- Navigate to a new island. Trade with the locals there. Deliver letters, take on tourists who want to see specific landmarks, trade for resources and deliver them to specific islands. There’s some base building going on as well that I started to explore where workers can generate resources for you. There’s a lot of breadth and things to do.
- With so much to do, I found myself just not really invested in doing any of it. The game is very serviceable but didn’t hook with me anything in particular. With just enough friction in navigating the menus and screens, I found myself not wanting to deal with it to continue playing after an hour.
- If you’re looking for a cozy game around trade, navigation, and base building, this will scratch that itch. And it’s probably better playing with with a mouse and keyboard. I don’t have anything really bad to say about it, but it just didn’t resonate with me.
This game is currently in the Humble Choice for July 2023, and this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before August 1st, 2023, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.
An airship-based trading simulator.
In Merchant of the Skies, players fly an airship to different ports to buy goods, trying to buy low and sell high, to make a profit. Along the way, there are a ton of requests, and missions that will help players to make even more money, and upgrade their ship, but ultimately this is a chill trading simulator.
That’s also the problem, it’s a little too easy and passive. There are a few systems that will challenge players like finding and remembering to recharge your batteries at every stop, but the prices for everything are low enough that players can just grind their way through the game, and I think the main quest was to just amass a ton of wealth so far.
Pick this up if you like Excel spreadsheets and just min-maxing trading. This isn’t a bad thing, but it will appeal to certain types of players, and most people probably aren’t going to be too excited about this.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/Sx8Q4qAQKiU
An airship-based trading simulator.
In Merchant of the Skies, players fly an airship to different ports to buy goods, trying to buy low and sell high, to make a profit. Along the way, there are a ton of requests, and missions that will help players to make even more money, and upgrade their ship, but ultimately this is a chill trading simulator.
That’s also the problem, it’s a little too easy and passive. There are a few systems that will challenge players like finding and remembering to recharge your batteries at every stop, but the prices for everything are low enough that players can just grind their way through the game, and I think the main quest was to just amass a ton of wealth so far.
Pick this up if you like Excel spreadsheets and just min-maxing trading. This isn’t a bad thing, but it will appeal to certain types of players, and most people probably aren’t going to be too excited about this.
If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/Sx8Q4qAQKiU
beat this entire game in 6 hours straight, i definitely enjoyed it but the story was meh and the gameplay was definitely repetitive, i just enjoy a good grind !
Petit jeu très simple, c'est tranquille y'a pas besoin de beaucoup réfléchir et ça occupe, j'ai passé un moment sympa.
A really good and chill game. Time goes by so fast while playing it!
A cute little trading game with some rough edges, but it's entertaining for most of its very short runtime. Once you've explored everything it gets kind of boring, the last hour or so of the game where I was wrapping up loose threads felt like it took way too long. I wish there had been more meatier content.
This game is like the whole merchant and quest part of bannerlord except is way simpler since the prices don't change following whatever trades you make. Could be interesting for some but I got bored quick
Merchant of the skies is a trading game where you travel from outpost to outpost buying and selling trading goods. The gameplay is very simple and has almost no depth, and it is very hard to do poorly. The game also does a poor job communicating some gameplay elements, and I ended up wasting lots of time on very inefficient things thinking they were part of the game. For example, I didn't know I had to hire more crew when I bought a much larger ship, so I ended up travelling very slowly for a long while, and managing my fuel carefully until I figured out I could just hire crew and get back up to speed, making the game trivially easy with my huge hold, massive fuel tanks, and fast travel speed. I also could never figure out how to make caravans work, which automates a compulsory and tedious part of the game, but I did it all manually with about an hour of transferring stuff from one base to another. The game doesn't have enough variety and content to justify it's already short runtime, I saw everything after around 4 hours, and from then I was mostly re-treading ground until the end. Some long animations like pulling into port get a bit annoying after hours, im glad they let you skip them. And finally, after around 5 hours the game for some reason didn't bother using a loading screen anymore, and simply froze until the scene loaded in, breaking the suspension of disbelief quickly, and keep in mind you're using loading screens once every 20-30 seconds.
On the positive side, this game has great pixel art and very memorable, creative and interesting characters and scenes. Its a shame that the story is totally uninteresting and forgettable. The music is alright, but becomes very grating and monotonous after hearing the same 3 songs depending on the 3 common areas you go to play over and over and over.
I finished it in a single 7 hour sitting yesterday. And I got it as part of the July 23 Humble Choice. It is definitely not worth what they're charging on steam, even at it's current sale price. I'd say it is worth a dollar per hour if you enjoy light trading games. So a 70% discount would be reasonable.
On the positive side, this game has great pixel art and very memorable, creative and interesting characters and scenes. Its a shame that the story is totally uninteresting and forgettable. The music is alright, but becomes very grating and monotonous after hearing the same 3 songs depending on the 3 common areas you go to play over and over and over.
I finished it in a single 7 hour sitting yesterday. And I got it as part of the July 23 Humble Choice. It is definitely not worth what they're charging on steam, even at it's current sale price. I'd say it is worth a dollar per hour if you enjoy light trading games. So a 70% discount would be reasonable.