LostWinds (WiiWare)

LostWinds was, at the time of my playing it, both the best and only WiiWare game I'd ever played.

Somehow I managed to own a Wii for several years without bothering to check the WiiWare games that were on offer - this was clearly a mistake on my behalf, as LostWinds is really very splendid. It isn't very long, or very complex, nor does it have amazingly mind blowingly high poly high res graphics.

What it does have is clever, yet simple gameplay, a visual style that really does look most beautiful and a sense of design that I really felt satisfied with. You play as two characters - a small boy called Toku that you control like a normal character, and the wind spirit Enril that you control with the remote. Combining their abilities feels very satisfactory; Enril can lift Toku up, move elements such as fire and water and even take care of enemies with the right direction. The formula is very effective and shows off what motion control can really add to a game, rather than the pointless waving around that many games seem to limit themselves to.

The music and graphics are absolutely delightful. If you look hard you will see the edges of polygons, but this hardly matters. The setting that has been created here is gorgeous and evocative, and proof that technique will triumph over technology.

I must say that, even by my very relaxed standards, the game did feel a little short and/or underwhelming in terms of gameplay. There is, however, a sequel that remedies this and that I will be reviewing soon, and even with this in mind, I still most heartily recommend LostWinds to any Wii owners that haven't already tried it out. It is beautiful, fun and an absolute gem.

Deception!

For some time now, I have been working with the well known Dave Gilbert - putting together some pixels to match his design and story ideas, and after a few early prototypes he decided to build the next chapter in his much loved Blackwell series - titled Blackwell Deception.

Working on animations for a Blackwell game for me is pretty darn cool - the people who have done the animations for the previous games are people I really admire and respect, and who all make me look like a total newbie :D

I've mentioned the game to a bunch of people who all are thrilled that Dave is making the next story in the saga, and while I've had lots of adjusting to do style wise, it's been a cool learning experience! Aside from Dave, I'm working with other cool and mega talented people; Indrek Plavutski whose stuff I admired since I was a total newbie to making games, Thomas Regin who has done music for *loads* of games and someone called Daniel Rubenstein that I know nothing about except that he's drawn some really stylish portraits for the game.

Anyway! He's finally announced the game, and you can read a little bit about it here, as well as checking out a couple more screenshots. We're not sure about release dates yet, but progress is steady and the game is all starting to come together.

This will also be the first commercial project I've worked on, and thus a pretty exciting thing for me :D