You take on the role as a dragon rider and are one of the last Windwalkers of a primitive tribe from another world. You have a map to choose a location to start your tutorial and quests to help you on your journey and find your first dragon egg. Follow the story to rid the land of insect-like creatures of your invaded campsite or fortified base with your pet dragon or other tamed creature. The open world allows you to traverse the land, the air and sea as well as caverns and labyrinthine temples. Many items can be found in baskets (remember to forage your surroundings for edible times too) around the world and will give random items - enemies and wildlife will spawn randomly too so no two game sessions are alike. More creatures big and small are in development and some can be tamed and trained as hunting companions and mounts. Look after your character and pet dragon well as thirst and hunger can effect you mentally and cause death. Keep an eye on energy levels as if they are too low you cannot build, craft or run and this also can lead to death too. You really need a thinking cap on for this game as its difficult to survive - one mistake and the game could be over for you.
Windstone can be installed using the itch.io desktop app itch.io app- the game updates automatically.
The author Threshold Seven first published Windstone on Itch.io in April 05, 2018 and it is still in development (early alpha) as of the last update on March 05, 2019.
Threshold Seven's contact details are as follows:
itch.io profile
website
YouTube
Computers with Windows 10 - 64 bit OS is recommended to run Windstone but the author says the game may work on other version of windows. Please note Mac is not supported but may be in the near future. The video settings within the game allows Windstone to run on computers with lower end processors and graphics cards at reduced visual quality and Frames Per Second as long as there is enough Random Access Memory the game is playable.
System and RAM requirements:
Recommended Minimum:
i5, AMD FX processor or equivalent
GTX 550, Radeon R7 270
8gb RAM
Recommended for Highest Settings and 60 FPS:
i7, AMD Ryzen or equivalent
GTX 1060, Radeon R9
16gb RAM
Windstone was made using the Unreal Engine, Blender, GIMP and Audacity.
Inputs for game play are keyboard and mouse.
Languages - English.
The music was created by the composer Christopher Goering. You can find Christopher's music on YouTube (Shards of the Portal) - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZiuBWLl7dpqxTIAvzTJzFA
Now the informative and technical things have been discussed. Let's get into my first hands on experience playing Windstone. I felt just over an hour was enough to satisfy my needs and write a positive review.
On launching the game I was greeted by an animated menu. It is really breathtaking beautiful as you get a sneak peak of what awaits you - an adorable wooden hut, realistic flames dance in puffs of black smoke from the little camp fire, water well with bucket stands nearby, colourful edible plants sticks and boulders surround the hut and camp fire, but.. there is more. You are not alone as hoards of large vibrant red insect-like creatures can be spotted near and afar crawling and jumping in the dense forest. Are they hostile or friendly? Start a new game to find out!
My eyes and ears are totally satisfied with this game. Christopher Goering has done a great job on the music as it is so relaxing, very pleasing and his music pulled my imaginary thoughts into a fantasy state. Calming me and preparing me for whats to come.
The menu has New Game, Load, Video Settings (so many options here to allow the game to play on low end PC's - my settings were not saved on closing the game and I had to redo them which was no big deal and hopefully that will be resolved in a future update), Key commands and Close Game. The were was no Sound Settings to change the volume of the music etc but listening to my VOD on Twitch (Windstone Video Game Play) did not effect my microphone levels at all. There was no option to change the mouse speed or mouse clicks.
Character - male or female - no option to customize height, width or body shape, skin colour, hair styles and facial features. No option to give character a name. I really would like to see this, make it more personal :-).
The map has a good variety of places to start your campsite or large fortified base.
Character's reaction to key touches and mouse movement and clicks were reasonable for me. I managed to swim but found I was drifting mostly. Run, jump and crouch was ok. Picking up items - had to be quite a bit close to the item with the cross-hair to actually pick up an item - would be nice if you could pick up more than one of the same item at once if they are all close together. The knife, hammer, hatchet, bow and arrows I got the hang of immediately but I had no clue how to use the poisoned arrows. I did not get to see how well the campfire worked as I did not manage my resources efficiently as I over made stuff and died. Scrolling the mouse wheel did nothing - would be great if you could swap your tool or weapon with this as well as the use of the number keys. The last two slots on the hot-bar at the far right-side I had no clue how to use the equipped items there. Once I put more hours into the game I am sure I will get the hang of everything.
The response to mouse movement and clicks worked fine for me as I did not get any motion sickness but for those who have this problem it would have been nice to have mouse settings to lower the speed and clicks. Hovering the mouse over items, holding left clock or right clicking on them displayed a good sized readable font. I was a bit disappointed in the pointer (cross-hair). It was just a little white dot and I did not see an option to change the size, colour or appearance shape/form as picking up rocks on the beach was a tad difficult as the cross-hair was white against pale yellow - not noticeable at all.
Being a gamer of the older generation I had many restarts. It took me a while to get used to remembering all the shortcut keys as there is so many of them and you have to memorize the hot-bar as the tools and weapons when equipped are placed in a specific slot. I could not place them anywhere I wanted. Once you get the hang of it, its not a problem. I tried placing food items in the hot-bar but they did not stay for easy access.
I may have not looked into the GUI thoroughly enough but I did not see an option to keep the GUI displayed permanently in my game - the hot-bar and health stats of my character - would have been nice to not have to click on the tab key all the time to see those.
For the one hour I have played I did not get to explore far as I was surrounded by insect-like creatures. But what I have seen so far looks amazingly detailed - dense forest, colourful plants and I have seen two types of creatures so far and I am sure there is many more types to come.
The day and night cycles are not too long and I look forward to looking up at the many beautiful stars each night.
The tools, weapons, bed and basket I did find were useful and much appreciated - a nice touch indeed for first time players. I did find the starting weapons were not strong enough to kill the insect-like creatures even when I did powerful hits and I died constantly - its not too grindy of a game and I am sure my weapons will get better upon time.
The guidance tutorial at the start helped me a lot and I liked the fact it remained on the screen to follow through as I have a memory like a sieve in my old age.
I am excited to play Windstone again. I cannot wait to have a companion at my side to make my world a safe place. I am looking forward to adventuring further in my beautiful world to see what treasure and creatures behold me. Despite this game being still in development (early alpha) I totally recommend it. Windstone is rated four out of 5 stars but for me personally I would give it a 5 as Threshold Seven have achieved a lot in the last year and have had a lot of feedback and TBH I am really enjoying it.
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