Pie in the Sky: Becoming a pro swooper, down under

Does anyone outside Australia understand the terror of a magpie swoop? Magpies, one of Australia's most common birds, have a seasonally mean territorial streak. Put it bluntly, they're assholes. One day you'll be minding your own business, walking down a sidewalk, and you'll happen to venture close to a nest. Or a tree. Or really anywhere. When you least expect it, you hear that sound: swoop! It's over.

Pie in the Sky is a game that puts the reins of being an aerial menace in the hands of the player. As a magpie, your command of the skies is handled well: the spacebar is used to fly and build momentum, limited by an energy bar, and the shift key executes a deft swoop for additional speed, which can be performed every few seconds. Or you can just have a nicely-animated waddle around on foot.

Fortunately, the core concept of the game is completely justified in the immediate joy of swooping at passerby. A successful hit on a person during a swoop causes them to scream and ragdoll. Points and bonuses are earned depending where, precisely, you were able to strike. Over time, and as more swoops are performed, levels become chaotic as people run in terror of their avian tormentor. It's fun to turn the tables and wield the power of the skies against those down below.

This is where Pie in the Sky not so subtly reveals itself to be strongly influenced by the Tony Hawk's Pro Skater series. In each level, players will have a time limit to complete a number of familiar and not-so-familiar tasks: collect feathers and letters strewn throughout the level (here they spell out SWOOP), locate and harass certain characters, or find and eat food to poop on unfortunate targets. In the full game, completing these tasks will progress levels and earn the player currency to unlock new styles and accessories for their magpie in the main menu.

The alpha works as an affectionate parody of the Pro Skater series. The graphics have a distinct polygonal approach that brings to mind the mid-point of the Xbox and PlayStation 2 and by extension the two Underground games. It captures a mischievous sense of humour and causing chaos that those games relished in at every opportunity, here manifested by swooping, trashing objects, and pooping. I appreciated that the levels have no shortage of hazards which, in true Pro Skater fashion, taunt the player at their failure, most notably being eaten by a shark.

The game also feeds designed as a sincere ode to the Australian aesthetic. The alpha's levels include a rendition of down-under suburbia: a cul-de-sac replete with color-coded bins, terracotta and brick model homes are. And of course, no Australian pride is complete without a beach prominently featuring lifeguards and flags. Collectables are substituted, naturally, with pies, chiko and sausage rolls. The levels are not finished, but what is there still has a lot of personality.

Pie in the Sky is the work of Monster Shop Games, a one-man development team based in Perth, Australia. The game is the second commercial project of the developer after the 2023 release of Dungeon Merchant, an idle game that pairs shop management with dungeon-crawling. Development of Pie in the Sky appears to have come a long way since information was shared about the game from January 2024, with updates being regularly shared on Twitter/X and Reddit.

Keep an eye out on the Steam page for an upcoming demo of Pie in the Sky in October for Steam Next Fest, and a full release expected for January 2025. The above text is based on a playthrough of an early preview build of the game, and its content is likely to change closer to release.

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