Skyhill

If you’ve ever wished Elevator Action were transformed into a horrifying roguelike with crafting, Skyhill is exactly that. It’s not a combination I ever would have imagined, but it’s surprising how well all the elements blend together into a tense and enjoyable experience. The game balances simple, accessible gameplay with enough underlying systems to keep things interesting. Crafting, scavenging, and experimenting with different survival strategies give each run a sense of discovery. You’re constantly trying out new combinations, adapting to limited resources, and figuring out how to make it just a little further down the tower. That loop is what makes it so addictive. The atmosphere also works in the game’s favour. The mix of roguelike unpredictability with the eerie, horror tinged presentation keeps you on edge, and there’s a sense of desperation that builds the deeper you go. Even though the mechanics are fairly straightforward, the tension and unpredictability make the journey feel engaging. Runs start to blend together once you’ve figured out the more optimal crafting paths and exploration choices, so longevity is a bit of an issue. Still, for the time it lasts, it delivers a uniquely compelling survival experience that’s easy to come back to in short bursts. Overall, Skyhill might not be the deepest roguelike out there, but its unusual premise, engaging survival loop, and horror atmosphere make it worth checking out especially if you’re a fan of resource management and procedural challenges.

SKYHILL – where you eat your last can of beans and die with dignity
You check into a fancy hotel, the apocalypse hits, and suddenly you're tiptoeing down 100 floors of mutant-infested nightmare fuel. No food, no bandages, and the monsters are not in the mood.
Simple game, but weirdly addictive. Each run feels like this might be the one... (spoiler: it’s not).
Perfect for when you want to experience hunger, despair, and mutant beatdowns – all in your slippers.

Skyhill, developed by Mandragora and published by Daedalic Entertainment, is a survival rogue-like game that attempts to blend tense resource management with procedural exploration and light RPG mechanics. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, you play as Perry, a businessman who finds himself trapped in the VIP penthouse of the luxurious Skyhill Hotel after a biological catastrophe devastates the outside world. The premise is immediately compelling—100 floors separate you from the ground, and each level teems with grotesque mutant horrors. With no food, limited weapons, and every action draining your energy, Skyhill tasks you with the simple but harrowing objective: survive the descent.
At first glance, Skyhill’s art style is striking. Its clean, hand-drawn visuals, muted palette, and cartoonishly grotesque enemies help it stand out in a genre often dominated by pixel art or grim realism. The UI is sleek and intuitive, making it easy to manage inventory, craft items, and keep track of your vitals. Each floor of the hotel is presented in side-view, with rooms to the left and right, filled with potential supplies—or deadly enemies. While this visual style gives the game a distinctive identity, it quickly becomes repetitive. The room layouts and enemy types don’t evolve much as you progress downward, which can dull the sense of discovery after a few runs.
The gameplay loop centers on exploration, scavenging, combat, and crafting. As you move from floor to floor, you must manage two primary meters: health and hunger. Every step, every door opened, and every action costs you hunger, and when your hunger bar runs out, you begin to lose health. This mechanic creates a constant pressure to find food and plan your path wisely. Combat is turn-based and incorporates a small amount of strategy by letting you target specific body parts for more or less damage depending on your accuracy and equipped weapon. You can craft stronger weapons, cook meals, and upgrade your penthouse room to aid future attempts, adding a touch of progression that softens the roguelike resets.
Despite these systems, Skyhill’s gameplay can start to feel shallow over time. The RNG-driven nature of exploration means that even a well-prepared run can be derailed by bad luck, such as frequent enemy encounters without healing supplies or food. While this randomness is inherent to the genre and provides tension, the limited enemy variety and static room design diminish the excitement of each new run. Additionally, combat, while initially tactical, grows repetitive. With only a handful of enemy types and limited weapon options, encounters become less about clever planning and more about grinding through damage exchanges.
Narratively, Skyhill unfolds through scattered notes, newspaper clippings, and hallucinations found as you descend. These pieces hint at a deeper conspiracy involving secret experiments and twisted ethics behind the biological disaster. The story is minimalistic but effective in creating a sense of paranoia and mystery. Multiple endings, some of which are quite dark and cryptic, offer an incentive for replaying the game—especially for players intrigued by uncovering the full scope of the narrative. While the story doesn’t take center stage, it adds a meaningful backdrop to the survival experience, especially for those who take time to search every room and piece the fragments together.
The game’s strengths lie in its tense atmosphere and tight, focused mechanics. It’s a title that thrives in short bursts, offering quick, high-stakes sessions that can end in either triumph or utter failure within an hour. When played casually, it's easy to get pulled into the loop of just-one-more-floor. However, for players seeking depth or long-term variety, Skyhill may fall short. The lack of evolving environments, limited enemy diversity, and absence of significant mechanical progression between runs make it difficult for the game to maintain engagement over extended periods.
In conclusion, Skyhill is a unique but modest entry in the rogue-like genre. It nails its tone and offers a compelling hook—surviving a one-hundred-floor descent through a mutant-infested tower with only what you can scavenge or craft. It delivers an atmospheric, if minimalist, experience that can be engaging for several playthroughs. However, it struggles to sustain that engagement due to repetitive mechanics and limited variety. For those who enjoy light survival elements, tense risk-reward decision-making, and procedural exploration, Skyhill offers a worthwhile, if brief, journey. It’s not the most complex or innovative rogue-like, but within its scope, it delivers a solid and sometimes haunting descent into post-apocalyptic desperation.
Rating: 7/10

This game has solid mechanics, but RNG rules your fate.
Lucky? Fun. Unlucky? Worst game ever.

A dark survival horror with roguelike elements that takes the player to a post-apocalyptic world where you need to survive at any cost. The game stands out for its atmosphere, intense gameplay and tough conditions, but it is not without its flaws.

Went downstairs for snacks… ended up fighting mutants on every floor. Worst hotel stay of my life, 10/10 would survive again.

I see these mostly positive reviews of SKYHILL and want to be lenient, even defend it. First, 10 years have passed since its release. Second, it was developed by a very small team that created a good game. However, it can easily disappoint unprepared players, especially those who try to get 100% of the achievements. You might think the game is unfair or even impossible to complete, as on hard and hardcore levels you will die more often than you'd like. But this isn't a drawback — it's actually the game's main feature. In the tradition of console games for Dendy, Sega, and the like, SKYHILL compensates for its modest content with its difficulty. Die a lot.
Once you reach the first floor and unlock all ten active and ten passive skills, you'll realize that almost all of them are useless for hardcore runs. You have to accept that and start practicing. Find your strategy, study weapon effectiveness, and hope the newly generated map will be better than the last one. Good luck!
Rating: 6.5/10