I was recently given a friend invite on Facebook from someone I had never even seen before, he was a resident of Louisville Kentucky much like myself, and from what I saw, a member of Nerd Louisville which is a small Facebook community I’m a part of.

Of course curiosity became the better of me and I message the person after I noticed the friend invite. His name was Brandon, he was one of the owners of Wet Ink Games, and he was connecting to everyone in Nerd Louisville because they hosted a launch event for a game his company designed called Wild Skies : Europa Tempest.

Available at drive thru rpg here (http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/215426/Wild-Skies-Europa-Tempest)

I unfortunately had not been paying attention much to Nerd Louisville recently so I completely missed it.

So one thing led to another and to keep a long story…. Well shorter I’m going to review the game! So here it is…… The Review.

Overview of the Game

Wild Skies: Europa Tempest is a Diesel Punk Table top Role playing Game set in the 1930’s with a twist. In Wild Skies humans don’t exist and animal kind rules the planet. That means that all the humanoid species are some form of animal, from Ducks and Bats, to Bears, Monkeys, Snakes, Turtles, and even Dogs and Cats. A large amount of different species are included and with each come their own Unique Abilities and Attributes (generally pulled from their natural world counter parts). That mixed with a high octane combat system and Diesel fueled air planes, Animal and tank inspired ground transports, and high flying Air Battle Ships, this game covers just about anything a role player could enjoy. There is even a human alternative given in the books if you just can’t wrap your head around the animal races.

An Excerpt from the Back of the book for those that think this sounds fun:

The Review

Quickly I’ll break down the review process. I always do honest reviews and whether I am given something or not does not sway my opinions so please be sure to under stand that first. Second I will break it down in sections that I review for RPG books and Core rule books. My grading scale is 1-5 as I think 10 points is a little too diverse for an honest review as nit picking in one area can be done with so many points to vary between.

Section 1 – Layout – This covers the layout of the book and the ease of maneuvering the pages to find rules and information as needed during a game.

Section 2 – Fluff – This covers the depth of story given and any issues or inconsistency’s seen within the text that has to do with the fiction of the world and background.

Section 3 – Rules – This covers a broad range of how the rules function compared to other rule sets out there and the ease of learning the game.

Section 4 – Character Creation – This covers the depth and ease of creating a character for the game.

Section 5 – Final Thoughts – This is probably the most opinionated part and as such does not count toward the true results of the review, but I give my own personal opinion and what I feel about the game in general.

Layout

For the layout of the game book in it’s extremely in-depth 260 pages is far from the worst I have ever seen in all the RPG books I’ve read. And in all honesty it reads a lot like a Second Edition Dungeons and Dragons core rule book. And some might think I take this number a little harsh for a smaller print company but this book is far from scoring a 1.

The Layout was done well and is extremely readable for anyone who wants to truly get into this game, and the Table of Contents at the beginning, as well as the glossary in the back, will be your friend.

The layout goes straight from character creation, to skills, to combat explanations, to even as detailed as injury charts, and poisons before going into Fluff and weapons/vehicles. Everything needed for a game is definitely in this book and very well detailed.

My true issues with layout come with the placement of a few things I think would benefit a little more. The book almost immediately dives into character creation, after the explanation of the BUY-In of animal races and the Diesel Punk atmosphere, which is not a bad set up. But the main issue I have is the character creation is so in-depth in this game that I almost needed a character sheet in front of me to catch on some of the information given. Once I had a character sheet printed I had no problems understanding the Creation process and even the rest of the book. So I would almost want to have the pre-made characters shown before creation, or perhaps earlier in the book after the races would have been a slightly better choice. This would give the reader a better understanding of what is going on.

And as I said before this isn’t terrible, most games assume the reader will print out a few character sheets before hand just to understand the mechanics better. 2nd Edition did it…

My other issue was the placement of the comic, I think it probably should have been put in the back of the book, or even spread out, almost as an ongoing story between sections to help distinguish the different sections that way the reader is forced to flip through the book to read the whole story. Now I do know that the comic was a stretch goal for the Kickstarter, so the placement didn’t hurt the score too much.

The last small thing that really got me in the layout was the fact that I had no idea this was a d100 system until I either printed out the character sheet or got to page 65 when the Skill Range chart was given. There were a few times d% is mentioned before that page but It might give readers a little better perspective before getting into the book.

Score: 3

Fluff

The Fluff of this game is actually really interesting. Not just the fact that the races are all animals, which is pretty cool, but the fact that it gives you that feel of great depth with minimal need of hundreds of pages of fluff. This is partially due to the fact they used standard world history up until the 1900’s just with animals taking the place of their original human counterparts and the other is the minimal need to change too many events up to the Great War which only gives the story no more than a few years to flush out. This in addition to the fact you use well known animals with fairly easy to flush out stats and abilities due to their natural world counter parts, and you have a recipe for a simplistic set of fluff due to natural habitat and enemies. I mean if the animals were humans who changed looks based on their blood line this would almost be 1930’s GRIMM.

All of this and the story is crunched into about 45 pages of true Fluff on the 260 pages in the book. This shows that they were able to bring some true depth of story with minimal need to tell the whole world’s history that is already known or easily researched. This also gives a person numerous plot hooks to choose from including coming up with lineage of different races and what race different world leaders may have been.

Score: 5

Rules

This is the Grit of the game and thus I will be judging this area particularly harsh as this is the part that pulls the game together otherwise it’s just another already printed RPG with a different cover.

So the rule system to the game is based on percentage dice or d% for the more experienced table top players with added d6’s for modifying skills. This means you roll 2 d10’s one as the 10’s slot and the other as the single digit spot. So if you roll a 4 and a 6 you would have either a 46 or 64 depending on which dice you chose as the 10’s slot, this is done before the role of course. Now for those who might have been gaming for a while you might actually have a set of d100’s like the one’s pictured below they are pretty easily obtained from your local game shop.

Now the game is also unique in it’s rules with the Moral compass, which is the games mixture of Alignment/Advancement. This means that you have different motivations or goals for you character that you will place on the moral compass. As you character is played during game sessions you will advance along the compass based on what you did during that session and this unlocks new abilities and skills for you character. This essentially is a level-less system and the moral compass is what you are following to advance your character. This also means that it takes time and patience to gain new skills and abilities instead of just instantly learning them while out in the wild. You have to grind into that ability. And as you unlock new ability and skills that will help improve your d6’s and modifiers to help with your d% rolls.

With a d% in mind the game’s rules on dice rolls are pretty simple using minimal amounts of modifiers to the dice rolls other than d6’s with skills. Most of the modification comes during your character creation which give your more abilities like flying or climbing then statistical advantages on dice rolls. This allows for a minimal amount of math for something with a hearty dice like the d100’s.

This also helps with the simplistic range rules used in many games these days including dungeons and dragons and 13th age. You are either close, short range, long range, or just plain gone. So abilities might mitigate this a bit but most use these ranges. This is great as it doesn’t require a grid map to play and allows for more imaginative, world of the mind.

Now as for combat it is definitely something I myself have never run across in a game and feels pretty unique. Instead of the d20 system standards of 1 move, 1 action, and maybe a bonus action. The combat is actually a fight for initiative and trying to get in the best position. This is actually a really creative system and since I’ve never seen this before I’ll hit on this in the Final Thoughts.

But to continue, Instead of multiple actions a turn, each player has a number of different actions they can take which change the outcome of combat, and they are limited to 1 action a turn, which at first sounds terrible but once you get into combat is actually more close to accurate and can make for some interesting different outcomes. This is a great combat system and it flows smoothly over into the aerial combat system which in all honesty is pretty much the same thing with just different combat options. The fact that the two systems work so well together makes the combat system in this game superior to many other games and is truly a great set of combat rules.

The biggest down side to this type of combat system, is you WILL need something to help you and the players keep track of the initiative order. One of the best examples in the book is using minis to show where they are in the order and moving them about as they change order. This can be a little rough on a GM who is trying to keep track of what his players are doing while also keeping track of his own NPC’s and enemies in the combat.

Score: 4

Character Creation

I think a lot can be said about the character creation in this system and I don’t want to give away too much about the game as that should be for you guys to find out so I’ll try to keep this short and to the point.

The character creation system in this game is extremely detailed and I almost want to border on too detailed, it’s a very fine line. To give the game it’s depth like they have and the choice to use the animal kingdom by itself gives a ton of options and the fact that they cover so many races in this book is amazing, 34 on my count with options to pull even more from the base sets. This in itself is daunting for a new player and I’m sure animals that are more household animals are probably chosen pretty often as first characters. Also with each race comes a set starting ability and a list of different available abilities that can be acquired as you advance on the Moral Compass. There are also a ton of abilities in this game, some more racially exclusive, like flying, and others a little more common. Either way the options you have for character creation from races to abilities, skills and careers can be incredibly fun for those who enjoy an in depth character creation experience, but can be a little rough for those who just want to make a character and play and then after all of these choices you get to the Moral Compass.

The Moral Compass, in itself, is extremely unique and a very cool idea. What comes with that though is because it’s so unique it is a little hard to understand until you are shown by another player or you really read the book in depth, but once you know it, it’s a really great way to show advancement to a player without making it feel like you just suddenly know how to shoot a squirrel off a branch 100 yards away. All in all the moral compass is a really cool idea and is truly unique.

With all of that said the Character creation is in depth and can feel a little complicated at times, but the biggest saving grace on this is the number of example characters they give you. There are 16 pre-made characters and they are very different and have a lot of flavor to them. This is extremely helpful for starting players as it helps them to narrow down what they may need to know to get started.

Score: 4

Final thoughts

So this is where I’ll give you guys all my opinions of different things that aren’t necessarily in the review process.

First off is the ART, as a person who is an amateur artist himself art is one of my favorite things to look at and when it comes to the play ability of a game I don’t like to grade the art in a book especially for the independent companies as there is no way most of them can afford the art work seen in a largely published Wizards of the Coast book.

The art is actually really well done in this book, even though most of it is in black and white the line art seems fairly well done and the designs for the land and air vehicles is unique and interesting to look at. The rest of the art does feel like a comic book but that is fine by me, it’s all fun.

All in all I really like this game and I’ll be trying to push one of my game groups to give it a try. The game is exceptionally unique with it’s level-less system and shear depth of character creation which I myself love in depth character creation.

I’m also a huge fan of the way that combat plays out and how fluid it is between ground and aerial combat.

There were very few things I could find that I myself just couldn’t get past in the book and they were primarily with the layout, I had to make sure to read almost every page of the book, not just to give a proper review, but just to catch some things that might have missed while skimming through trying to make a character for the first time.

I do like the premade characters and there are enough of them to give a good variety and not every person is stuck playing the same character or character type. And the backgrounds for those characters can be pretty interesting as well.

This is definitely a great game and I recommend it for anyone looking for a fun time, an in depth character creation system, the ability to play a game without the standard races seen in every day fantasy. And if you are looking for a fun aerial combat system with FLYING BATTLESHIPS!!! Who doesn’t like airships?

Overall Score: 4

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Also don’t forget to check out Wet Ink Games Facebook page to keep up on all things Wild Skies. you can find it here.

To Purchase the book you can go here.

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