Skyshine’s Bedlam has had a very interesting journey from kickstarter to release. Following the game’s launch, the game was hit by many poor reviews and even I had issues with the game to the point that I didn’t want to review it. Since then, Skyshine Games has been hard at work attempting to rebuild the game’s design and make it work. After speaking to Jeff Johnson about it and doing a live play on the latest version, I think Skyshine’s Bedlam Redux is finally in a strong and great position, but it can’t escape its past completely.
Highway Star:
The story of Skyshine’s Bedlam Redux is that you have been tasked to drive a massive vehicle known as a dozer through a post apocalyptic world to reach a safe haven. Standing in your way are various factions, the evil emperor who runs things, and an ever dwindling amount of resources.
At the start, you are free to decide what dozer to take which determines battle powers (more on those in a minute,) crew composition and factions, and the difficulty of the game. The game uses pre-created characters for your crew, but you’ll be given a random mix based on your choices.
In game, you need to manage your resources of meat, oil and power cells; the former two dwindle down as you explore. Running out of any of the resources is bad for your dozer, but they can also be used in combat for special abilities. There are two ways to play the game now: Arcade and Campaign.
The ability to chose how characters upgrade and faction bonuses are some of the Redux upgrades
In arcade mode, it’s all about combat and surviving all the way through the map. Campaign mode gives you control over where to go while trying to find four relics to finish the match.
While the majority of the changes to Skyshine’s Bedlam with Redux and beyond have been at the tactical/combat layer, these improvements have had a noticeable effect on the game’s systems.
Bedlam Battles:
The combat side of Skyshine’s Bedlam Redux has seen the most changes between retail, Redux and beyond. While the game still features tactical combat, the underlining mechanics have been updated to give players more variety and options.
Exploring the world and random events gives the campaign mode a different feel compared to Arcade
Each faction in the game now boasts one special ability unique to them that can activate; such as humans get +1 movement, mutants can heal etc. This has a big effect on how you play with not just characters of specific classes, but different factions; all the more so with the new leveling options.
While the last hitting from the original version remains in Skyshine’s Bedlam Redux, the developers have made several tweaks to it and the rewards for leveling up.
Now, every character gets two actions per turn instead of two actions per team; you can set legacy rules if you want. Upon leveling up, you now allot a point to your character in the categories of health, damage or movement. This in turn lets you customize your character and allow you to play around their special faction powers.
Equalizers and dozer weapons are still the trump cards on the field, but now there is a chance that you’ll find some that are powered by either crude or meat instead of power cells. There is strategy in when and where you use these powers, because of the aoe impact of dozer weapons and how equalizers are shared with friendly units standing next to each other. These additions were a good change and ones we talked about on the podcast, because it opens up the player to make use of other options during battle.
All the improvements and additions to Skyshine’s Bedlam are great, but the game can’t shake off some of the issues with the underlining mechanics and balance.
Going Downhill:
The original version of Skyshine’s Bedlam was met with heavy criticism due to its difficulty and negative feedback loop; even though the game has been improved, those problems still remain.
At the moment, the player is always going to be outgunned once they get past the early difficulty levels
A successful run of either arcade or campaign mode requires both perfect play and luck in terms of getting resources. As before, the difficulty continues to rise up as you play; increasing the number of enemies on a map and their stats.
The problem is that the player lacks the means of dealing with these greater groups with their own team. This is because you are limited to four characters and the stat difference will quickly overtake you.
This is where the equalizer and dozer powers come into play. The game absolutely demands that you use them to thin the numbers or boost your team in order to compensate. However, getting a steady supply of resources and abilities to use is out of the player’s control. The good thing for campaign mode is that you get resources after every fight, while in arcade mode you need to pick up resources during a battle.
Because of the steady difficulty curve, it also reduces your options when it comes to leveling. Damage is king in Skyshine’s Bedlam, as an enemy with one health is just as deadly as one with twelve. Since the last hitting rules are in effect, the more damage someone can put out, the greater the chance they can kill enemies and therefore level up more.
Once you start falling behind either by losing characters or running out of resources for powers, it’s a steady decline until you lose. Due to the mechanics set up in the game, it is possible for you to have an easy run where everything goes right, but that’s going to have to rely on a lot of factors going your way.
I think the developers made the right choice of allowing you to now buy replacements for any classes that you have no one in, but it’s still very hard to get rookies trained up once the enemy starts getting their stats higher and you’re fighting 5+ enemies at once.
Speaking of that last point, at the moment, maps are too sparse and the enemy groups too big to really make effective strategies against. Once you get to Bedlam difficulty, you’re either going to need to get really lucky with enemy movement or use equalizers and dozer weapons in order to keep anyone alive on the map.
Construction Ahead:
Skyshine’s Bedlam Redux is in a much better place now than it was at launch. The improvements have all around made the game better. At this point, if you have been putting off playing the game due to negative reviews, this is the time to try it out and see whether or not the game is to your liking.
I like all the changes that have been added, but the underlining foundation of the game can still cause trouble and leaves the player’s success out of their hands.
For more on Skyshine’s Bedlam Redux and my liveplay with the developers, you can check out the growing playlist of attempts at the game on the Game-Wisdom YouTube channel.
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