Instead of feeling like an accomplished survivalist, you end up feeling like you’re being unnecessarily punished. And more often than not you'll be flipping and tipping over in your meticulously crafted uber-upgraded raft not a good feeling after working so hard to gather and craft the best boat you can possibly build. When you’re fighting against survival elements like a continually dropping hunger meter, and your food is degrading and putrefying, the last thing you want is to be stuck in the middle of the ocean with no wind to push you to the next island, or perhaps even pushing against you. It's a good idea in theory, but it quickly becomes a nuisance to navigate, sucking all the joy out of the journey. 5 Lives Studios designed sailing to feel believable and react realistically, and they nailed it in the worst way. Even the idea of sailing the open seas on your custom crafted raft is spoiled, as the act of sailing is a gruelling struggle. This alone is a pretty big knock against the game, and the fatigue sets in pretty early on in chapter two when you realize that this is all there is.Įach element in Windbound holds the promise of something great, but it's ultimately squandered. Repeat these steps four more times to finish the game.
#Windbound recipes upgrade
The cycle goes: gather supplies and upgrade your raft, sail from island to island in search of three magic shells, sail to the portal for the next chapter, view the uninteresting and uninformative hieroglyphic story wall and sail to the exit portal. This is where the formula becomes disappointingly clear, and the repetition sets in. There’s no objective indicator at all, but you eventually learn that each chapter has three magic shells that need retrieving before you can progress to the portal leading to the next chapter.
This makes reaching further islands possible, and opens up what will ultimately be the rest of the game for you. While the gameplay loop sounds enticing, the execution and supporting game design fail to pay off.Īfter a fair bit of scavenging you’ll be able to craft your starter raft: a grass canoe. Islands are procedurally generated, so each new island and/or death brings about fresh opportunities to find new materials, unlock more crafting recipes, and varying creatures to fight off. But that’s ok - it’s only the first island, and you’re just starting out, so it’s to be expected. Excited to start gathering resources, which at first are nothing more than thick grass, rocks, and sticks. Excited to explore and find what secrets the islands have to offer. Taking your first real look around the island you awaken on, you can’t help but feel excited. I suppose this lends added weight to the mysterious element of the journey, but it feels like a missed opportunity to really build up any lore, and mostly leaves you with the feeling of a throwaway checkpoint before the next chapter. Broken up into five chapters, you receive some hieroglyphic revelations at the end of each chapter, but it’s pretty difficult to discern any real meaning from them. It’s up to you to scour each island for food to stave off hunger and gather materials that will enable you to craft a means of escape back to your tribe. Waking up alone, on the wet sands of a forbidden island, you have no food, no gear, and no help. You play as Kara, an abandoned warrior who washes up on shore after getting separated from her tribe when her boat goes down in a terrible storm. This can be especially painful when you've worked to build and upgrade your raft well into chapter 4, only to die (or encounter a game-breaking bug) and start again with no boat at all, not even a grass canoe. It should be noted that, on either difficulty, when you die you lose your entire raft and any supplies built onto it.
#Windbound recipes full
Storyteller difficulty allows you to keep your full inventory and chapter progress, and it also has reduced combat difficulty. Survivalist is the recommended “full Windbound experience.” If you die on Survivalist, you only keep the items you're holding (not in your bag or on your raft) and are returned to the start of chapter 1. Upon starting your Windbound journey you're asked whether you would like to play on Survivalist or Storyteller difficulty. Riddled with game-breaking bugs, an uninteresting storyline, and repetitive game design, I had difficulty even finishing Windbound, let alone being able to recommend it.
Unfortunately, Windbound feels more half-baked than it does a wondrous island hop. The main focus is centered around gathering and crafting items to help you and your raft survive as you sail from island to island. Windbound is a survival adventure game with rogue-like progression and procedurally generated islands. By Jacob James, posted on 21 September 2020 / 2,181 Views
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