Windbound - survival adventure by Satellite Reign devs

[LESS T_T]

https://windboundgame.com




https://af.gog.com/game/windbound?as=1649904300

Spoiler

Quite a turn in genre and visual, huh. This is a singleplayer game.

Published by Deep Silver.

The Forbidden Islands are Calling, Unlock their Secrets
Shipwrecked alone on an uncharted island, explore, adapt and navigate the land and perilous seas to stay alive.
As Kara, you are a warrior, caught at sea in a fierce storm, adrift from your tribe. Thrown from your boat, at the mercy of the turbulent waters, you are tossed on to the shores of the Forbidden Islands, a mysterious paradise.

With no boat, no food or tools, just the will and skill to survive, uncover this beautiful island’s rich resources. Craft tools and weapons to hunt and defend yourself against nature itself with its wild and fantastical creatures.

Whilst exploring further islands and the scattered ruins across their lands, secrets of the past and glimpses of the future are revealed. Unravel the mystery behind them all and you may find more than just your way home.

Uncover the Secrets Within
Embark on a personal journey and discover the history of the idyllic Forbidden Islands; each holding the key to a mystery and unexpected revelations.

Explore As Far As The Eye Can See
Head towards the horizon, advancing across the islands, each with their own diverse wildlife, landscapes and challenges to face.

Live Off The Land
Scavenge the islands’ untamed terrain for resources that you can use to craft a full range of tools and weapons to hunt wildlife and upgrade your boat. You must set sail when resources become scarce.

Build Your Perfect Seacraft
Your boat is your key companion on this journey, carefully craft your own custom sailing vessel to take on the treacherous waters, traversing from one island to the next. Design your boat to battle tempestuous winds, monstrous waves, and deadly sea creatures."

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Citizen]

Totally not windwaker

 

[Ontopoly]

Totally not windwaker

You say that as if it was a bad thing, it looks comfy.

 

[Visperas]

It's actually Breath of the Wild.

 

[AliceAlcina]

Looks great, but I can't say it will deliver...
It's one of those trailers you see, say wtf, then you wake up and realize it was too good to be true...


anyone knows is trailer just artistic or truthful to the state of gameplay/game?

 

[Ivan]

Looks very cute. Hope the combat is punchy. Also, this needs to have an impressive soundscape. Fingers crossed!

 

[Xoanon44]

The trailer reminds me of that Bear Grylls episode where the women are stuck on an island and they spend the whole time crying.

 

[AliceAlcina]

The trailer reminds me of that Bear Grylls episode where the women are stuck on an island and they spend the whole time crying.

I wonder how truthful that trailer is.... want to play and pay something that pretty, but those expectations...

 

[toro]

Another pointless game.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Looks like fun. I guess this would be better without combat, but we'll see.

 

[LESS T_T]

 

[Hellraiser]

Seems like it might be decent for some chill exploration adventure. Kind of like subnautica except with random world generation which gives it some replayability.

 

[LESS T_T]

Out now.

 

[Hellraiser]

Finished it, unlikely I'll play it again unless it gets more content, which probably it won't get unless they think DLC is a good idea. I think it would go EA if they planned more content, considering the current state of the game, which might have made this a better deal. I guess the publisher or developer just wanted it out the door. Probably should be priced at 60% of the current price, although it was good enough for me to spend today and yesterday afternoon. Possibly because I have a fondness for archipelago settings with sailing and exploration of the (random) unknown, not a whole a lot of games to scratch that itch.

Played on survivalist difficulty mode where you get kicked back to the beginning of the game and retain only the meta-currency, unlocked blessings and whatever was in the basic inventory slots (bag contents and boat are lost). There's also "story" (this game has hardly much of a story) mode where you lose less stuff and restart the current chapter (a.k.a. game journo mode). Once you get the hang of it you can only die if you make a really dumb mistake. If I didn't run out of stamina drawing a bow like an idiot I probably could have finished it on the first time I managed to get past the first chapter. Chapter 1 was a pain until I learned there are far easier ways to hunt big boars than the knife even without blessings or later game gear retained after death.

There are 5 chapters and apart from the final one, every time you finish a "crossing" (sailing obstacle course section ending a chapter) you get to spent the meta-currency on a new perk. The problem with this is two-fold. For one you can only buy only one of two random blessings, and it is very easy to get shafted (poison resistance perk and "more meta-currency" being some particularly useless picks it gave me once at the same time). The other thing is you can only equip one blessing at a time until you luck out and get a chance to buy another slot (note that some later blessings use two slots). And since you cannot do anything else with the meta-currency at all, except for this pick right at the end of each non-final chapter, you end up swimming in it. Honestly why bother with a currency if there is nothing to spend it on, might as well skip that whole aspect and make the blessings free if you can get only one. To make things worse currency is the most common loot found in vases which drop random loot. Sure, sometimes you might find some gear instead, biased towards good expensive gear at that, but at least 95% of the vases you break give the next to useless currency.

My other gripe is the predictability. Each chapter introduces a new biome into the random pool used to generate the chapter's islands, and the biomes are introduced always in the same order. While I do get that resources are tied to biomes, and thus progression is, I would have preferred it to be fully random. It would be more fun if I could get some bamboo before chapter 2. Likewise the difficulty of the sailing (outside of the crossing section) increases with each chapter, with more rocky shores, reefs or other obstacles. Why not give the player some harder islands in the mix for that higher risk and reward possibility? Embrace the rogue-lite nature, FTL can give you some really cool shit in the first sector if you can afford it (sometimes buying it against common sense), it's part of the charm and why that game is so replayable. Pity this game doesn't try to borrow that and other easy to implement things from FTL. I also wish some of the tougher critter dropping some vital ingredients wouldn't be linked to biomes but random instead, seeing that they are kind of the equivalent of minibosses in this game. Also they could use more variety.

The sailing is fun, customizing the boat is fun although until at least chapter 2 the options are quite basic since you will be stuck with a canoe. The random islands aren't very big, and while sometimes you might get lost it is not that hard to find hidden items or the place where the boat was left. With the exception of pillars on top of which the key fragments opening the path to the next chapter are located, there is no need to climb on big islands (small rocks rising above sea with loot on top are the other instance). Cliffs and rocks mostly serve to stop you from falling over the ledge I guess, or to hide some thing from view. Also you can't dive which is a bit of a wasted potential from an exploration perspective, sunken loot would be nice to get.

Combat is passable. Animals sometimes get stuck in the terrain or get thrown into orbit by wonky physics. Most creatures, I think all but 3, can't climb so getting the higher ground and a bow is all you need. Even without cheese bows make the game very easy, but bows are after all one of the reasons why our species got to the top of the foodchain. The downside is they break eventually, except for the one that is available as a blessing (I would argue this was the best blessing I saw in the game, also because it doesn't use an inventory slot unlike normal bows). In hindsight a no-bow run would be much more interesting.

Melee is risky against anything more dangerous than a big boar, although I guess one could beat them game easily without killing anything other than a boar. I think even full hippie vegan pacifism is possible, although probably hard as hell. In the end the game is designed in a way that to finish it you just need to avoid starving to death and avoid smashing your boat into pieces in a crossing section or just too far from shore. Quite a few ways to play it with self-imposed challenges I guess. I am actually curious if it can be finished with just a canoe and without a sail (grass canoe if particularly daring/autistic), just by paddling. But not curious enough to play this again instead of doing other things.

Anyway I think the developers themselves were split between the "story/artistic" side and the rogue-lite side resulting in the two mentioned difficulty modes and the lost opportunities by not being random enough. Possibly they tried to make the game too "fair" for the player sacrificing randomness and difficulty in the process.