Desert Skies

About

Desert Skies is a single player action adventure game. It was developed by White_Rabbit_Games and was released on May 30, 2019. It received neutral reviews from players.

Desert Skies takes survival to the air! Build an airship and fly on an adventure through the deserts of the Wild West. Look for places to land and scavenge for loot, expand your airship and craft new equipment, but beware the dangers lurking beneath the sands!

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

Skip User Reviews

51%

Audience ScoreBased on 300 reviews

gameplay15 positive mentions

grinding3 negative mentions

Unique survival and exploration concept similar to Raft but set in a desert with an airship, offering a fresh and engaging gameplay experience.
Challenging enemy (the Seeker) creates tense and thrilling moments, adding excitement to scavenging and exploration.
Art style, soundtrack, and atmosphere are well received, providing an immersive and appealing environment.

The game has been abandoned for several years with no significant updates or communication from the developers, leaving the game incomplete and stagnant.
Gameplay issues include clunky controls, bugs, lack of tutorial, and limited content making it repetitive and frustrating after a few hours.
Crafting and progression systems are underdeveloped, with slow pacing, scarce resources, and unbalanced enemy AI reducing long-term engagement.

gameplay
40 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
38%
54%
8%
The gameplay offers an engaging survival and open-world exploration experience with crafting, resource gathering, and vehicle upgrading, drawing favorable comparisons to games like Raft but with a unique aerial twist. While generally fun and immersive with a compelling core loop, some players find it repetitive, under-polished, and lacking in depth or variety, often hindered by limited content, rough AI, and missing quality-of-life features like maps. Overall, it shows strong potential but needs further development and refinement to fully realize its gameplay ambitions.
- “It was amazingly fun and provided hours and hours of truly immersive gameplay for me (as you can see, I have over 100 hours on record).”
- “The game has good potential, especially if you enjoy open-world exploration, survival mechanics, battling mobs, collecting resources, crafting, and building your raft.”
- “With its engaging gameplay loop, intriguing storyline, and challenging mobs, it offers a compelling experience for those willing to brave the desert sands.”
- “Maybe like 2 hours of gameplay and you've seen everything.”
- “Bad: monster AI, stealth, UI, controls, lack of craftables, lack of interesting choices in gameplay.”
- “Really fun game, with very little actual gameplay right now sadly.”
story
26 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
27%
61%
12%
The story is generally seen as a short but intriguing element that adds purpose and tension to the gameplay, particularly through the presence of the seeker enemy. While some players appreciate the narrative-driven adventure combined with survival mechanics, others find the story limited or incomplete, expressing hope for more content and deeper plot development in future updates. Overall, the story provides a compelling foundation but is still evolving.
- “Better than games worth much more than this, has a very interesting story and mechanics.”
- “With its engaging gameplay loop, intriguing storyline, and challenging mobs, it offers a compelling experience for those willing to brave the desert sands.”
- “I also like that there's actually a story and an objective, instead of a completely open sandbox.”
- “It's a very fun survival game, but it's very hard to find sulfur and once the story is done, it becomes kinda boring.”
- “Really saw potential in this game if it had multiplayer/coop and a story or some sort of end goal.”
- “The story now feels like, "oh look, that crappy one-room eatery I wanted to eat at!" The music sounds repetitive and doesn't fit the atmosphere.”
graphics
18 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
39%
44%
17%
The game's graphics feature a simple yet charming art style with consistent visuals and delightful artwork that complement the theme well. While not highly detailed or advanced, the polygonal graphics are aesthetically pleasing and run smoothly, enhancing the overall atmosphere and gameplay experience. Some users note limited graphics settings and occasional visual errors, but the style suits the game's world and mechanics effectively.
- “I love the art style of the game and the wobble heads.”
- “They've kept a consistent art style across the world and interface, with some tasty jams that complement the theme.”
- “The art style suits the game and setting perfectly. The moving base that is your airship reminds me of some raft games, but with a great view of an endless desert spotted with towns and landmarks drifting below.”
- “Graphics are not fancy but quite charming; there are noticeable visual errors sometimes.”
- “Graphics settings are way limited.”
- “Simple graphics.”
music
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
38%
24%
38%
The music is generally praised for its strong, immersive soundtrack that effectively complements the game's atmosphere and storytelling. However, some players find certain musical elements incongruous or irritating, detracting from their overall experience.
- “The only reason I still play this game from time to time is when I want to hear its soundtrack, which I can't find anywhere else.”
- “Solid soundtrack that ties the game together, sound effects feel like good fits.”
- “Great soundtrack really adds to the immersion.”
- “But it is hard to forgive when the story now is, 'oh look, that crappy one room with four tables eatery I wanted to eat at!' 'oh look, we are super western because we say creatures instead of literally anything else.' The music sounds like someone is walking up on you with spurs 50% of the time.”
- “Tl;dr: my plain white sock with a blue toe is more western, my door frame offers more options than this game, the music makes you want to scratch the nearest chalkboard for relief, and if I see 'creature' used to sound more western one more time, I might light the entire platform on fire and gladly walk into the evil monster stalking me.”
- “~ music ~”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
25%
75%
Grinding in the game is described as tedious and challenging, especially during early exploration and resource collection. Players suggest improvements like gathering more materials per node, crafting metal tools, and adding more buildable structures to ease the process. Despite the grind, the experience is rewarding for those ready to tackle its difficulties.
- “You'll need a second life for grinding.”
- “Exploration feels extremely tedious.”
- “For such a new game it is amazing, and I recommend it to anyone ready for an adventure where it will be hard to start off and it will be tedious but, that's the hard part.”
stability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game demonstrates overall good stability, with most users experiencing consistent performance and minimal bugs. The developers actively address glitches and bug fixes, contributing to a reliable gaming experience. However, some users note occasional bugs and express a desire for additional features like a sandbox mode.
- “It's a good game but can be buggy and needs a sandbox mode.”
- “Also, by the looks of it, you are pretty much staying on top of glitches, bug fixes, and progression as needed at the same time, just please don't pull a PixArk and this game will end up being a lot of fun!”
replayability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
33%
The game offers good replayability but could benefit from additional objects and customization options, such as upgrading the seeker’s speed or deployment time, to increase challenge and maintain long-term interest.
- “Infinitely replayable.”
- “Needs more added objects and customization to have long replayability; for example, upgrading the seeker to be faster or come out sooner would make the game more challenging and enhance replayability.”
- “Replayability.”
- “Needs more added objects and customization to have long replayability. For example, upgrading the seeker to be faster or appear sooner could make the game harder and more engaging, as it is currently too easy.”
atmosphere
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game features a beautifully crafted, immersive atmosphere that effectively captures the feeling of being alone in the wild west, enhancing the overall exploration experience.
- “A beautiful little game with an amazing atmosphere.”
- “This game has a great atmosphere.”
- “The atmosphere of the game is immersive; I really feel like I'm in the Wild West, exploring the world alone and scared.”
optimization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game suffers from significant optimization problems, including frequent bugs and collision issues, resulting in a repetitive and unengaging experience. Additionally, lack of updates for over two years has left these issues unresolved.
- “Poorly optimized, collision issues, tons of bugs overall, repetitive, uninteresting gameplay, and to top it all off, it hasn't been updated for two years as of March 2023.”
- “There are still some major optimization issues going on with the game.”
emotional
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Users find the emotional aspect engaging, particularly appreciating immersive moments like scavenging in new areas. However, there is a desire for features that enhance gameplay clarity, such as toggling item highlighting to avoid missing important details. The game also resonates with personal dreams of exploration and freedom.