Windblown News

New Windblown footage proves it's the perfect Dead Cells follow-up

Dead Cells will forever be my favorite roguelike. Hades 2 might show a lot of promise and Balatro might reinvent the genre, but the frenetic combat and ever-expanding world of The Beheaded is unmatched. Originally developed by Motion Twin, the studio handed the reigns over to Evil Empire to continue making DLC and updates, with excellent results. With that free time Motion Twin is now working on Windblown, which looks like the perfect follow-up to Dead Cells. The new roguelike isn't quite out yet, but we just got 15 minutes of uncut footage to keep us busy.

Read the rest of the story...

Windblown First 15 Minutes Sneak Peek

Hey everyone!

Off the back of our first 15 minutes of gameplay video, we wanted to dive a little deeper into Windblown and it's features.

Not seen that video, don't worry, we've got you covered!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]Overview[/h2]

Windblown is a 1-3 player online co-op action Roguelite from Motion Twin, the creators of Dead Cells. And in this post we'll dive into the core mechanics of the game and what you can expect to experience later this year.

In Windblown, you awaken as a Leaper. A fearless warrior who is tasked with protecting their home from a suuuper angry Vortex. You know, the kind that threatens your entire existence and way of life? Luckily, you have a bunch of tools at your disposal that should hopefully make your journey a little less full of pain and suffering.

Being a Roguelite, death isn't the end in Windblown. As you're soon rescued (kinda...) and whisked back to the Ark, a peaceful collection of sky islands that you call home. While here, you can interact with several NPCs, acquire new tasks, expand your arsenal of weapons and upgrades, and even invite other Leapers to help you out on your next run.

It goes without saying that Windblown was designed with co-op in mind - there's nothing quite like dashing across the diverse biomes with a couple of friends! Plus, you'll need some witnesses, as no one will believe you when you say a giant muscular rat beat you to death with his shield...

[h2]Combat and Movement[/h2]

Speaking of dashing, this is one of the core elements in Windblown. Not just for getting around, but for getting the most out of its lightning fast combat. Early on you're equipped with a Pulsor, a special device that draws power from your Leaper, and once you get used to the SPEEED, it's hard to go back to just walking...

Combat is another huge part of Windlown, and something we've worked tirelessly on to hone. It's been tough to find a delicate balance between chaos and readability, but from the feedback we've received so far, things feel good.

There are over a dozen weapons in Windblown, over a dozen trinkets, and yep you guessed it, over a dozen gifts (there's actually way more, but we had a thing going there...). Each run consists of you being given a selection of weapons and trinkets, venturing into the biome and unlocking new abilities as you progress.

Each weapon has a couple of tricks up its sleeve too. Not only do they have unique mechanics and characteristics, each one has it's own Alterattack. A super powerful move that you can activate at the end of a combo.

[h2]Builds[/h2]

A big chunk of what makes each run in Windblown unique are the gifts you acquire along the way. While exploring you'll encounter the memories of fallen warriors, each desperate to lend you their power and help you push on! These powers are the core of what makes or breaks a build in-game. You could focus on burn damage, have your hits deal splash damage, poison your foes, or have swirling blades of death cut everything to pieces! It's loads of fun, trust us!

And if (when) you die, or you complete a run, you'll be sent back to the Ark to gather your breath, equip your shiny new toys, and head back out to push further!

That Vortex ain't gonna stop itself now is it!?

[h3]That about wraps it up for this overview of Windblown. The team are working hard on our Early Access build, and we'll have more to share with you all very soon![/h3]

You can Wishlist Windblown below, and stay up to date on our social media!

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1911610/Windblown/

Windblown | Dev Log #6

Greetings once again!

It's time for another Windblown Development log! This one being sponsored by the massive amount of coffee that kept us going through the month of August!

Windblown is shaping up super well, and we're edging closer and closer to our Early Access launch! A huge amount of work has been done to improve the overall performance of the game, along with a bunch of quality of life updates focused on making your time in Windblown as smooth as possible.

Now, the game still needs a little longer in the oven, but we promise we've been cooking up something we know will be a blast! Let's take a look at some of the work that's been our focus over the last few weeks:

Added a ton of new powers - No surprises here, but we're still adding a bunch of new stuff to the game! In recent weeks we've added new gifts, hexed gifts, passive buffs and more.
Continued to polish things up (UIs, decorations etc) - These things can often be overlooked, but we know how important it is to have a clean UI, especially with a game where combat and readability is so important.
Worked on the performance of the game - This has continued following on from last months discussions. Game performance is super important when things are so fast - and loss of frames, stuttering, or other performance gremlins can be a real hindrance on players gameplay experience.
Worked on the Steam Deck integration - Oh yea. You heard that right! The game already runs great on Steam Deck, and we think it's one of the best ways to play Windblown! We're still working on this version of the game, and hope to have it ready in the coming weeks/months.
Worked on the game feel and balance of various equipment and mobs - We're constantly working with our community to balance new additions to the game, especially weapons and other aspects that deal damage. For example, we've added a new Alterattack to the Fish Knife and are currently looking at how it performs against other weapons.
Integrated simplified Chinese localization - We've now added simplified Chinese to the game, and you'll be able to pick this language in the options when we hit early access!
Multiplayer balancing - This is a big one! We've seen how popular multiplayer is with our testers, and are often seeing games starting up in Discord. The game feels completely different when you jump in with friends, and is actually easier than we planned. Balancing here is going to be super important, as we don't want players to fly through content too fast, or things be too difficult and you struggle to progress.

And that's all for this month!

We have A LOT of cool stuff in the works, and will be sharing our next Community Update in the coming weeks, so stay tuned for that!

And if you haven't seen it yet, why not check out the first instalment of our Weapon Showcase series!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

But for now, we return to the grind!

[h3]Until next time![/h3]

You can Wishlist Windblown below, and stay up to date on our social media!

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1911610/Windblown/

Windblown | Dev Log #5

Welcome back to another Windblown Dev Log!

July was a busy month! We implemented several changes and additions to the game, most notably a whole host of new and reworked gifts (passive upgrades used to make you overpower... We mean, give you a fighting chance). The team also looked at some UI elements, added a rebinding feature, and have turned their attention to game performance. Because nobody likes lag!

Let's take a look!

[h2]Gift System[/h2]

A major part of Windblown is the staggering amount of builds you can create on your runs. A big chunk of this feature is our gift system, designed to allow players to create their own builds and come up with some truly outrageous synergies!

For example, you could go for a bleed build - focused on making your enemies die slowly... You could be more CC focused and freeze everything you touch, or decide everything needs to explode in total chaos with a blast build (these are just a few examples).

We also added something recently called Hexed Gifts. These upgrades give you powerful buffs, at the cost of something else. For example, deal more damage but take more damage (they're flashier than that, but we don't want to spoil anything...).

Our testers have had a blast trying these new gifts out, and has led to some interesting discussions about game balance and boss difficulty. Gifts can basically turn you into a God, so bosses should be bigger and better Gods, right?

[h2]Some Additional Work[/h2]

It wasn't just about Gifts this month though!

We reworked some UI elements to make choices clearer and better explained. This was especially true when picking upgrades, so we've began adding short video clips of what each pickup does.
We added the option to rebind your keys, meaning you don't have to use what we think is best! This was something we had always planned to introduce, but our guinea pigs wanted it sooner.
Finally, we've began work on addressing the performance of the game. Certain areas or situations could cause frame loss, and is something we know players want to see improved upon. One of these instances happens when you kill a boss and you're showered with loot, maybe we're being too generous?

[h2]Testing Continues[/h2]

We're still on track for Early Access later this year, but still have a long way to go!

We recently expanded our pool of testers and invited some other developers to take a look and offer their feedback and expertise on the game.

We have a lot of cool stuff in the works, so you'll be seeing more of us soon!

[h3]Until next time![/h3]

You can Wishlist Windblown below, and stay up to date on our social media!

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1911610/Windblown/

Windblown | Dev Log #4

Hey all!

Welcome to the June instalment of our Development Log series

Over the last 4 weeks the team has been hard at work on the game, focusing on things like trinkets, progression loop, multiplayer and loads more!

Not to mention we featured in this years PC Gamer's PC Gaming Show, Gamescom latam, and had a bunch of awesome feedback from our closed alpha testers!

[h3]Let's take a look[/h3]

Trinket Refill - We made some changes to how our trinkets (usable items) recharged in-game. However things didn't quite land as expected with our tests, so more testing and changes have been looked at to make sure they hit the mark.
Meta Progression Loop - We needed to spend some more time ensuring that progression felt accurate and rewarding. Ultimately, we want to push players to experiment, so we changed the way you unlock new equipment and now allow you to test it immediately upon unlock.
Bestiary and Bosses - A huge part of Windblown is it's enemies, so a lot of time has to be spent on the units players will be facing. This means we have continued to work on our existing pool of enemies and bosses, while introducing some new mobs that appear in some of our later biomes.
More Multiplayer Tech Stuff - We continued to develop the multiplayer aspect of the game, ensuring that it is a smooth and easy to understand experience. This is something we will focus on heavily as we continue development and head towards early access.
Steam Friend Integration - We added the functionality to invite and join your Steam friends while in game. The aim is to make accessing multiplayer as easy as possible, as we know players want simplicity when it comes to gaming with their friends.
Lots of Cinematics and Lore stuff- We mentioned in a previous dev log that we needed to revisit our onboarding process and world building. This lead to us to rework how players are introduced to the game and even add additional cinematics to help players better grasp the world of Windblown.

[h3]PC Gamer & Gamescom latam[/h3]

We were super proud to see Windblown featured in this years PC Gamer Showcase, where our small community focused video was played alongside some incredible up-and-coming Indie games! And on top of that we were lucky enough to have this same asset be showcased at Gamescom latam, where Click no Paulo was kind enough to lend us his voice to send a special message to all of our latam friends!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Closed Alpha[/h3]

Our closed alpha is still going strong, with testing happening on a near continuous basis. Players have been working closely with the development team to iron out bugs and give their vital insight into what's enjoyable and what's not.

A key great example of this is when we added some changes to how Trinkets recharged in game. We went from a time based system where you just had to wait for the ability to be available again, to an on-hit system where attacking enemies reduced the cooldown instead. Our players reported that although the change was interesting, it was harder to grasp and wasn't quite what they were expecting. This lead us to make some changes and revert back to a time based system.

The goal here is to make sure that Windblown is in the best possible place and condition for when we launch into Early Access later this year, as the more testing and iterating we do now, the better the experience you'll all have when you dash into your first run!

That's all for this month's development log, but stay tuned for some incredibly exciting things we have in the pipeline!

[h3]Until next time![/h3]

You can Wishlist Windblown below, and stay up to date on our social media!

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https://store.steampowered.com/app/1911610/Windblown/