Motion Twin, the developers behind Dead Cells, a game likely to be considered one of the best roguelikes of the past decade, has been working on a new project for quite a while now. The game titled Windblown has finally hit early access today and may take around 1 year until it hits 1.0 version.
First Things First, The Combat Style
Motion twin is aiming for this game also to have as much fast-paced action as they had achieved with Dead cells before, the player’s dodges and attacks when pressed show our character hit lighting fast on whatever enemy has been aimed at.
This fast paced system is achieved with how fast the dodge timing works, you can actually use dodge nearly consecutively to cover the entirety of the encounter area in seconds. Of course to match this crazy fast movement are the crazy fast attacks your character can perform.
The combo system in this game is fairly easy to grasp, as the player has access to two weapons. To encourage the use of both weapons, switching at the right time allows the character to perform a high damaging attack that more often than not can one-shot mobs. This is much like how in Bloodborne transforming the weapon at the right time actually inflicts critical damage on mobs.
Colorful Biomes And Colorful Deaths
The biomes in the game along with the variety of enemies shown all look so brightly colored, almost with a shine to it. It seems more and more games are embracing this cell shaded art style. The waterfalls and the grass look amazing to the point players are likely to spend some time stopping and just admiring the visuals present in the game.
This shine the enemies have also helps in spotting them in the moment to moment gameplay specially in the later biomes where enemies are tougher and have longer chaining attacks along with being more difficult to stagger.
Coupled with that they can take off a chunk of health from one attack alone, forcing the player to master the dodge mechanics in order to even have a chance of surviving let alone facing off against the last boss.
There’s A Co-op Mode
Even in early access the co-op mode is available for a maximum of 3 players, this is sort of like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate where in a co-op mission you can play with 4 others as the other turtles.
This fast paced combat is sure to bring out the creativity in players as there are 10 weapons in the game right now but surely more will be added as it nears version 1.0, using any combination of the 2 already tells us how different attack chains and playstyles can become for each run.
Co-op can really showcase the absolute chaos that can be performed if both players get used to the combat mechanics of the game. Squads can easily bulldoze through the biomes of which there are 5, with a final boss at the end.
The Story Setting Has So Much Potential
In terms of the story setting, your character is considered a leaper, this title is due to the biomes being located inside a giant tornado which you have to leap to, pretty straightforward there to be honest. The point of the game (as of early access) is to stop the vortex from consuming your place of home called the “Ark”.
In all your runs you will meet past leapers who you have to find by either exploring or defeating certain enemies, finding them will unlock new weapons back at the Ark but in the future will give plot details similar to how the system is in Hades.
The early access trailer does show animation similar to previous dead cells animations only this time it is provoking more of a revenge plot unlike with the Dead cells animations sending a message of aloofness and comedy.
Big Budgets Aren’t Needed To Showcase Creativity
Those who have played Dead Cells will no doubt get a sense of deja vu as they discover some of the weapon attributes or from some of the trinkets (these game’s version of grenades from Dead Cells). This shows that Motion Twin is going in a different direction clearly from what Dead Cells was but are making use of the knowledge they gained while making Dead Cells.
The game looks amazing and is very responsive and features 5 biomes at early access, some would say this game is complete as is. Motion Twin has showcased their creativity and skills with Dead Cells and are now showcasing their mastery with Windblown. The game will surely surpass Dead Cells and might likely become a contender for best Indie game of the year.
