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,...
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.
This would be the perfect alpha. A very neet little overview of what you generally want to do with a game. But as a finished product it is abysmal.
The combat system is unresponsive and glitchy. The camera glitches out which makes combat extremly painful. The crafting system would be neet if anyone thought about the pacing of the game and when introduce the receipts and the necessary crafting materials.
By god. I hope someone sees this and makes this game but better.
I try to get a refund now.
There are a couple of serious bugs and issues with the game:
Sometimes killed enemies are catapulted into the air, landing in random spots.
When shooting enemies with the bow from a distance they sometimes don't attack at all.
It felt like only 5 different island types that are repeated over and over again, sprinkled randomly over the levels. Combined with only a few levels makes this game feel very repetitive despite being short.
There are, imho, serious issues with the game design:
You can't repair items (at least I didn't find an option to do that). Crafting is limited anyway, which isn't necessarily a bad thing (in fact, I like that), but except for your ship it feels like you're just crafting consumables instead of building up and growing.
Secondly, since you will starve to death unless you find food along your journey, the only viable strategy I saw was preparing at the first island and then just rushing through the rest of the map, which is a shame.
The way the wind his the sail and the your ship moves is quite unrealistic.
Finally, at least in my playthrough, I didn't see the need to upgrade my ship to finish the game.
Windbound is a game with survival mechanics. The player must manage time and resources to be successful. I feel the players who complain about the mechanics are not properly managing either, and went into the game expecting an adventure, not a survival sim. Yes, ships take damage when you hit things...more damage when hit at higher speeds. Repair it! How long do you expect meat to last in a tropical environment without refrigeration? That's not to say the game is without fault. There are some things that could use some tweaking, and that may come in later patches.
The Pros:
- Charming visual art style
- Great mood setting soundtrack
- Animations are well done
- Combat is good. Middle-click to "lock" on a target
- Build a sea vessel using a variety of available materials.
- Craft a variety of weapons, tools, ship parts, and accessories
- Islands can have one of several biomes with it's own plants and creatures.
- A decent story unfolds as you progress
- Sailing!
The Cons:
- There is a limited variety of plants and creatures populating each island. This can make some
islands look a lot alike
- There could be more craftable items. Why can't I craft metal tools? Maybe You can late game...
- The world is not as "open" as I would like. Each chapter features a small area with a handful of
small islands in it.
- The rotting mechanic of food is okay, but food rots too quickly. (not game breaking)
- Day/night cycle should be longer. Island should feature nocturnal creatures.
- As a survival game, it just feels very basic.
- Besides the story, each new chapter feels a bit like replaying the one before it.
Just give the game a try. Go into it knowing it is a survival game, not an action/adventure. It's pretty good, and I intend to finish it. I don't think it's worth $30 as it is. Grab it on sale.
The catamaran simulation, this game's raison d'etre, is nothing short of wonderful. The chop of the sea, the storms, the way the boat hits the beach — I could practically taste the salt! At one point, my craft took an unplanned nose dive into an oncoming wave, jerking it to a stop, and I felt impatience for the wind to get me moving before the boat was swamped. Yes, the boat can actually go completely underwater. When it surfaced, my character gasped for breath. In short, atmosphere is what this game does best.
What's unrealistic seems intentional. For instance, I don't believe that the wind can ever push your boat backwards. And the speed you can achieve while tacking into the wind seems unrealistic — especially for a craft with a sail made of grass! (You can upgrade the sail, but I never found the need to). Without these kinds of forgiving fibs, I can imagine that the game would have been a lot more frustrating.
Unfortunately, there isn't much to the game beyond sailing and managing hunger and inventory. The crafting experience was not nearly as rich as the sailing. There are a lot of things to make, but they aren't interesting or challenging to put together, and many aren't necessary. There is some exploration, but it's neither difficult nor extensive. You visit the required number of islands per chapter, you kill monsters with your makeshift weapons, you climb the required number of very similar towers, and aside from some navigation around various marine obstacles, that's the game. I was disappointed, for example, that the hang glider you can make isn't really useful. If the effort put into the flying mechanics remotely approached what was put into sailing, maybe they could have done something with it. The rock climbing was reasonably well-executed, but it's next to useless for exploration. The veneer of a plot is also thin.
That said, if you're a fan of the sea or sailing, and don't mind that the simulation is highly forgiving, think about picking this up!
The game is structured by sailing island to island in each area, making progress, hunting for survival meters (food) and hunting animals.
The sailing:
Amazing, beautiful, free, perfect rhythm of engaging by going with the wind or against it. The water physics for waves and the way your boat rocks is amazing.
Everything else:
The combat is serviceable, it just doesn't feel necessary? If you die you restart to the beginning of an area, which is really not doing the game any service. The survival aspects are okay, but really everything else is a chore compared to the sailing.
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