High Above Review (PC)

High Above is arguably one of the coziest, sweetest, and most peaceful skyline book nook-crafting indies I have played this year — and I’ve played a lot of them, truly. It isn’t even that it exhumes a different kind of concept, or that it reinvents the wheel with its own original mechanisms; it’s that it adds so many intricate details to the familiar sandbox blueprint to make even the smallest details shine. Although a lot smaller in scale and without the weight of a city-wide scrubbing tool, High Above clearly brings a level of complexity that makes it an absolute delight to work through, whether it’s the in-game character-oriented missions or the free-flowing sandbox mode that grants you the breathing room to craft without limits.

While High Above is highly reminiscent of your usual cubby-crafting creative suite, it is a game that is full to the brim with its own unique layers, embellishments and challenges. The idea, much like the others of its kind, is to forge your own slice-of-life getaway in a pocket-sized world. In this chapter, however, you don’t work with what’s directly below the skyline; you terraform, establish, and decorate your own rooftop gardens, nooks, and idyllic cubbies that hover above the clouds, in a world where every minor detail that you implement illuminates the beacon in a radiating light. You can add mountains, lighthouses, or simple wisps of cloud fodder to the background, true, but High Above isn’t just for building a scene and adding a handful of mediocre elements; it’s for making it look like a fine work of art. And if High Above exceeds in any aspect at all, it’s in its ability to weave perfect dioramas in which every touch has a little tale of its own.

For an independent world-crafting game, High Above brings a ton of brilliant facets to the table, including a short but engaging campaign—a mode in which you fulfill characters’ needs and objectives, like creating a reader’s nook or a tranquil hideaway, for example—and a creative sandbox that allows you the flexibility to mold, craft, and decorate your own rooftops. Yet, High Above isn’t just about adding a beanbag and a coffee table to a veranda; it’s about finding small spots to tuck even the daintiest of bits and pieces into, like cups, lights, newspapers, and books, for example. And there are dozens, if not hundreds of set pieces to play around with here, too, with categories that range from floral arrangements to background scenes, hacker’s tools to zen garden decorations. There’s a lot more for you to ponder, but that’s shedding just the faintest of light on what you can accomplish here.

Aside from being able to decorate cozy spaces with all sorts of intricate details, High Above offers a variety of terraforming options—tools that allow you to build and connect rooftops of all shapes and sizes across vast skylines. For example, in one biome you can create a network of gardens, whereas in another you can weave a tiered structure with a wide variety of nooks, cubbies and tranquil environments, and so on and so forth. And, again, while this sounds liminal in nature, the fact is that High Above has a lot of depth in its customization department. Moreover, it’s the small details here that give your canvas an essence of life; a bird gently passing through your scene, or a cascading wave of rain falling over the edges of a book nook, for example. It’s the little things that matter most here, and honestly, High Above does a splendid job of cramming them in by the boatload.

All in all, High Above is an incredibly easy game to jump into and learn on the fly. Thanks to its beginner-friendly UI, you can more or less pinch, crop, and highlight most features and construct mesmerizing infrastructures without having to lift so much as a second finger. And even when you do hit a creative brick wall or struggle to connect the dots, the game always offers a helping hand to put you back on the right track, either with a nifty tutorial or a step-by-step guide that ushers you through the motions to help you realize your true potential. Honestly, I can’t fault any of these things. It’s a simple game, true, but it’s also one that has a huge heart and a tremendous amount to offer.

At this point in time I’m certainly keen to see where High Above reaches for in the next quarter. Evidently, there’s a lot of wriggle room here for it to flourish as an idyllic pocket-sized sandbox game. Will it latch onto new features and gameplay modes in the coming months? Who knows. Whatever happens, I’ll be more than willing to venture back into the clouds to see the next leg of the journey if and when it breaches the skyline to foster more content.

Verdict

High Above bottles brilliance and beauty within the quaint and picture-perfect sky-high dioramas of a charming and oh-so-creative world that’s as equally striking as it is cozy to gaze at. With a surplus of set pieces and wholesome touches to work with, DVision Games’ rooftop archipelago delivers a lovingly crafted experience that can (and should) keep you amused for  a handful of hours or more, depending on how you choose to spend your time and how you want to beat your tasks. It doesn’t need to be a painful experience; it just needs to benefit your creative wizardry. And, to be honest, it does serve as quite the boon.

It feels like a bit of a no brainer at this point. Truly, if you happen to enjoy wholesome organization sims with light renovation elements, then it’s highly likely that you’ll enjoy most of what High Above has to share. It’s effortlessly clean, lightweight, and arguably one of the best bite-sized indie build ‘em up games to launch in the last quarter. Need we say any more? The clouds await your input, people.