Sky Beneath
Oh what a feeling, when we’re puzzling on the ceiling
YOU MAY NEED TO REFER TO A NEARBY POSTER TO TELL YOU WHICH WAY IS UP
There is no fall damage in Sky Beneath, which turns out to be a lucky thing. Arcing over so my feet point perpendicularly to where they used to be, I drop to the wall of a lift shaft and then, with another 90-degree flip, drop all the way down it as far as I can go.
The demo I run through gives a half-hour slice of the beginning of the game, in which our hero breaks into a run-down science facility while chatting with an off-screen ally, and attempts to get her ‘gravity suit’ powered up. Once this is achieved, she makes her way to the lift shaft in an attempt to access the
R&D division, locked beyond a large door. The key to opening the door, it disappointingly turns out, is to put a block on a pressure pad. Apparently no one had thought to try this since some vaguely defined aliens left.
The first few minutes of play give you an idea of what’s coming up, as you use another block to climb up onto a ledge that’s otherwise too high. This isn’t BrokenSword- style block-pushing, you’re literally just placing them where they’ll be the most helpful, to reach higher places or set off a pressure pad. It’s not an encouraging start.
There are other problems too, including a character model that’s both distinctly old-fashioned looking in the way she stares blankly into the distance, and yet also from the school of design that states more is always better. So we get tattoos, scars, a robot arm, an earpiece, hair ornaments, straps, lights, and body armor. She’s a lot to take in, while at the same time being pretty generic, and oddly doesn’t cast a shadow or reflection.
FLOAT ON
I’ll stop moaning about that, however, and concentrate on how cool the gravity suit is. Hold the right mouse button, and a blue hologram of your body appears, and you can use this to shift gravity through 90 degrees. Thus the walls become floors, then the ceiling. This is the secret to traversing the building, which was once shared with creatures known as ‘Azurians’ for whom gravity was something that happened to other species, and who walked on the ceilings as a result.
Cassie and Annie, protagonist and conversational partner respectively, keep up their dialogue as you explore, dropping new snippets each time you travel in the right direction. So I learn that while the Azurians didn’t care much for human comfort in their labs, this is no problem for a human in a gravity suit. And it will be even less of a problem if the floaty jumping and running are tightened up before release.
The world rotates around you as you flip gravity, so you’re never actually hanging upside down from the ceiling or running along any edge of your monitor except for the bottom one. And while this would have been novel, I can see why the decision was taken—it would remove the feeling that the three-dimensional mazes you’re asked to traverse become a different environment after you flip them. Encroachment by plant life and openings caused by damage mean you may need to refer to a nearby poster to tell you which way is up.
With its ruined-building aesthetic, 3D puzzles, and glimpses of advanced technology, there’s a hint of Portal2 about SkyBeneath. Only just though: I hope the full game opens out into a glorious playground where gravity is something you toy with for your amusement and to the detriment of the bad guys you smash together and drop down lift shafts—there has to be a use for that robot arm, after all. We really hope there are no more block-and-pressure-pad moments.