EDIT: Developer dek stopped working on this game and is unlikely to return. I absolutely understand the pressure of releasing your first game. I also understand the need to get a consistent income as you have bills to pay, too. At some point, you obviously have to ask yourself whether it is worth it to spend a lot of time on something which does not earn you any relevant revenue.
It's a 10 bucks game, the fun I had with this game was 100% worth it. I'd welcome a few blog posts just about what other developers can learn from the developer's experience. I wish him all the best with his new projects; he's a great and passionated guy!

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• The sound design and music is fantastic. If someone asks me to compare it with something, I would say a mechanical keyboard. It makes all of these 'click' noises, you hear stuff falling, explosions, birds getting hit - it sounds wonderful! The soundtrack is fantastic and perfectly fits the theme.
• It looks great! Although I have been tired of boring indie 8bit graphics recently, Path To The Sky is special. It feels dynamic, the colors are wonderful, everything looks like it is at the right place. In addition, you can toggle outlines, modify the grass a little bit. Again, it is just beautiful.
• The movement feels so smooth and intuitive. Jumping, running, climbing, everything feels very smooth and polished. The physics work as you would expect them to work and enhance the gameplay a lot.
• It is 'retro'. You have boss fights, pick ups, some RPG elements. What else do you want?


• On a good way - but not done yet. It is Early Access, what else do you expect? Right now, you are pretty much able to do speedruns and beat the high scores of other players. I definitely would love to see co-op and other modes such as inifinite, fun mode, you name it... Right now it will work for you a few hours - maybe more, maybe less. Once you finished a session for like 5 times, you slowely get bored by the same rooms, same boss enemies, etc.


I have to admit, I love it. I have seen this project growing over the last 3 years. Being involved into the alpha testing, I have seen how much love developer DEKDEV put into this game. Every update, he changed something, every update it felt cool to see what is new, what is fixed, etc. - and trust me, the game looked completely different like a year ago.

Although it might become repetitive, it is a pretty well-made, beautiful game. Throughout the Early Access, we will see new content, new modes and stuff I am not able to think of right now :-)
I am looking forward to see what Path To The Sky will evolve into. It has a solid base and already a great community!

-=-I'll change my review if the game changes-=-

If you're thinking about buying this game, know now that chances are, it won't be leaving early access. This would be fine if the game was playable but there's a major graphical bug that completely stops people from playing the game before they can even start it. This bug (and this version too) was released back in June of 2016, and at the time of making this review (December 28th, 2016) there has been no word of update, nor word of fixing this bug. The developer is silent, and production on the game has halted. Do not buy this game.

EDIT

It's now been another 11 months since the last word from the developer (at the time he was apologizing for not posting for 6+ months).

/EDIT

Bought it after loving the look and feel of the ORIGINAL trailer... (the movie on the far right) turns out the game isn't really anything like that, and in the last 7 months it hasn't changed one bit. It's not climbing ladders and crossing bridges up and up into the beautiful sky... now it's just transitioning from room to room with very little variety or interest in area or enemies.

Developers are gone, certainly nobody gives a crap anymore.

Screw you, Early Access. =/

Don't buy it, it's unfinished, abandoned, and many people seem to have a game-stopping glitch.

One of those "Just one more try"-kinda game with gorgeous graphics and even better music. The sound fits the gameplay and it just need a bit more content (and a better controlsupport).
Also, the expansion pack could be called

Man, I really thought this game would go somewhere. It had cool ideas that could have been taken into a fully fledged game. Unfortunately, it seems as if the dev has abandoned work on this game. So please don't spend your money on this game until the dev shows that this wasn't a classic "cash grab early access game".
If the dev were to continue updating the game, I'd definitely recommend it, as it does have potential. But otherwise, it's bare bones.

There are two aspects of Path to the Sky that immediately made me interested in the game: The stunning visual atmosphere, and the urge to experience the sublime gameplay. Having played the game for a while now, both of these aspects certainly held true! Every frame is worthy a screenshot, and the gameplay is extremely rewarding. It was fantastic to experience everything in-game.

Combat currently feels quite solid, especially in room battles and in boss fights. It seems that the game can be played at different paces, so more defensive players don't have to take the most dangerous approaches in combat. All of the current enemies fly though, so I feel like there's an incomplete range of combat situations - something I expect to see improve over the coarse of early access.
Exploration is also solid - I like not knowing for sure what will be around the next corner, what will be in chests, what enemies I will run into, and what items I'll find. There are plenty of unique rewards and items, most of which improve stats to make you stronger for the next stages. In a good run, it feels super great to get a cool combination of effects. Even though the game rewards you a lot, it still remains challenging and interesting with each run.
Simply put, the game should feel good and balanced to all players, and it has a lot of unique replayability potential!

In the end, early access has shown that the developer is really dedicated, because issues are fixed quickly and I'm left with the faith that the full release will be well polished and rich in features. I think the game is worth the attention - I definitely recommend checking it out!

Path to the Sky is a relaxing little adventure about killing cute evil birds that shoot red bullets at you. The first time I played the game I didn't really enjoy it. I died on the first boss and couln't get my head around the controls (I was using a keyboard at the time). After losing, I quit.

Something about the game made me want to try it again. The graphics were charming and I read an update that said the developer had added some controller support. I decided to give it another go.

After trying the two different controler layouts available, I found one that felt better than the keyboard controls (Right trigger jump, left trigger shield, ABXY shoot, left analog move). The controls were still a little strange but I felt like I had more control and could jump and fire shots at the same time.

I played the game a few times (dying some more but I didn't mind as much) and started figuring out how the items and charms worked. At first, I had no clue what they did or even how to know what they did. Once I figured out the items, though, the game became much easier. I started to feel like I could make actual choices about what items to keep/use and how that would affect the rest of the game. On my fifth or sixth try I was able to complete the Early Access version of the game.

Pros
- Charming graphics, music, and sounds
- Great platforming mechanics
- Fun items (I got a shotgun)
- Relaxing gameplay

Cons
- Difficult controls on keyboard
- You can only shoot it 8 directions

Looking back I have enjoyed my little journey to the sky and I look forward to future content from the developer.

Path to the Sky is a roguelite platformer made in pixel style with random generated worlds.

--------PROS--------

+ Random generated world
Every time diffirent world to play with.

+ Nice pixel graphics
Graphics is really good and shaders are beatiful.

+ Soundtrack is amazing too
Soundtrack is really relaxing and enjoyable for long time

+ The Binding of Isaac mechanics
Every time that you enter a room, doors close and monsters spawns, after defeating them all doors open once again and you get a reward (probably)

+ Lot of amazing mystery artefacts and dangerous...birds
Even if is still Early Access, Path to the Sky has a lot of nice items also nice and interesting enemies

--------CONS--------

- Is buggy
Still Early Access :I

- The shops are really bad
To buy you need jump but is not really good idea, you can accidentally buy wrong item!

Like everyone else, I have to mention the atmosphere. It's beautiful. It's Fancrabtastic. But there's more.

I'm a bit biased, going to say this ahead of time. I've been playing & watching this game for quite a while. I've watched the game evolve from a puzzle-platformer to a roguelike-thing (I mean, is there REALLY a proper way to describe it..?).

And I can't complain. The puzzle-platformer idea could've worked. It too looked incredible. But it became this. And I still can't complain: It's incredible regardless. Dek has created, what I think to be, a masterpiece. I cannot wait until it evolves further and further.

For ya'll out there looking for some helpful review-tidbits, here they are!

Stuff to note about the game: Currently, you cannot journey towards the sky ad-infinitum. You instead, currently, reach the end about 5/6 floors into the game. About 30 minutes or so. But those floors are packed with content, ranging from Bosses that have really unique patterns to Juicy Orange Powerups, Coconut Shells, Peg Legs, and so many more! Those 5/6 floors are not played in vain, for your score is uploaded to the world-wide-net-webs-dingle-dangle-dongle! I'm currently in 7th, but I'm aiming for Number One. Do note, that as of the current game, the score is limited due to limited floors, but that shouldn't be a problem.

The game is tough, yeah. Is it impossible? No. Is it unfair? Sometimes. But you can always avoid the unfairness. You're the one who would've made the mistake. The game won't throw RNG crits towards your direction, won't spawn enemies on top of you, nor will it suddenly flip your screen upside down as you plummet towards what appears to be the sky. None of that happens.

Unlike other roguelikes (or whatever, I don't want to offend anyone D=), where they hinge on difficulty and RNG, Path to the Sky uses its atmosphere to its advantage. Take, for example, the atmosphere of Binding of Isaac: This game does NOT have the atmosphere of binding of Isaac. But it feels the same. You become immersed in environment, the waving grass, the ambiently flying and chirping birds, the light and fluffy music. The audio is incredible. It's beautiful.

As always, it IS an early access game. This doesn't mean what you think it might mean. Rather, it means: Post feedback or questions on the steam forums! Do it! Dek will certainly take feedback to heart, and I'm confident the game has nowhere but up to go. It will go up and up and up, until it reaches the sky.

Thank you very much, user who has read this giant wall of text.
Thank you, Dek.

Enjoy!

Even though it appears that Path to the Sky has been abandoned, I honestly wasn't feeling it even when it was in active developement. Nothing horrible per se, but just another stereotypical roguelite experience. The artwork was okay, but for pixel art - the bar is high. There are simply too many remarkable roguelite platformers out there.

Sadly, unless you've played through all the modern classic platformer roguelites, I'd pass on Path to the Sky.