My thoughts on Windbound (thus far)

[No' Name]

Hello all,

So first off, I should have looked on Steam ahead of time as I thought this game was more or less an Epic Games exclusive, how wrong I was... On the other hand I did save $25 with a coupon I didn't know I had, so it all worked out.

Let me say, I actually did enjoy what I have played so far, which is up to chapter 3, and then while fighting a Gloom whatever it's called, I got a bit too cocky for my own good, and tried to melee it without really knowing what it did, and on Survival Mode, I died. Which okay, I learned from that death how it works (I didn't bother reading the difficulty modes or even looking at them when I started). While disappointed, it wasn't a total let down.

Now, at the beginning of the game when you first start out, up until Chapter 3, maybe Mid-Chapter 2, I felt a little underwhelmed, and here's some of the reasons as to why I think this might actually be.

Right off the get go, I couldn't wait to hop in and start making things, finding new recipe's, and unlocking a bunch of new things to create. This however was not the case. Like many other survival type games (I don't care for minecraft one bit) such as ARK, Rust, etc, etc. You're usually building your character's crafting skill/recipe's up as you progress. While this appears to be true at the beginning, you're almost immediately slapped in the face with the "limit stick". What I mean by this, is there were many recipe's I actually learned at the beginning, just by clicking on things I had a prompt over, such as Holes, where you would learn to make a Shovel, Tree's, where you would need an Axe, and a Hammer to mine/create ammo. While these recipe's I did in fact know, I wasn't really able to make use of them right away like I had kind of hoped for. You either could NOT obtain the materials needed to craft these simple tools, or could not really find a use for them until half the game is over (Chapter 3).

For example, you don't find a Gloom whatever monster until chapter 3, which allows you to create an axe, well, by the time you find one of those enemies, you're pretty much ready to move onto chapter 4, and the axe really isn't useful until then. The hammer is another example, I found my very first Bow in chapter 2, and enough materials to craft another bow, while only in Chapter 3, I was able find any ore veins at all, again making the hammer near useless until Chapter 4. The idea to break up rocks and essentially make a spread shot ammo for the sling was an interesting idea, and I did test it out to maybe see if it would be a little more damaging than a bow, or just in general if I would ever use it. However, due to obtaining a Bow so early on, I found myself never opting out to create a sling, or use Slinger ammo, it was a waste of rocks, and or just another type of material I didn't really need to be carrying, saving me another slot, so the Hammer again, pretty much useless until Chapter 4. The Shovel....? I still have absolutely no clue in which way this could ever be useful. The only thing I've managed to dig up were the Squirrel thing's feathers, which I never used, because Bone Arrows are more than enough, and easier to come by/craft.

I was basically stuck crafting the same Grassy stuff half ways through the game, even though I had access to Bamboo in Chapter 2, it was so very minuscule, that there was very little I could actually do with it, until I as able to acquire more of it. I almost felt as if I was just running aimlessly island to island in hopes that I would find something new, or more of what I needed to actually craft something "new", or worth more value, and the first two chapters did a really terrible job at giving me that feeling.

In Chapter 3, the map had finally opened up a little more, this time however, I was thrown into tinie tiny islands spread far, and wide, and there absolutely almost no way I could make my way through the middle of the map. I'm not too sure how much is procedurally generated, but my map had a huge cluster F-ck of jagged rocks, coral, etc, etc, in a giant circle inside the middle of the map, making travelling exceedingly more frustrating by the minute, whether it be bashing into random stuff, or the wind just randomly shifting in odds of my favor.

Alas, this is where I found the fun to actually pickup pace, as I had access to quite a bit more stuff, this time there was plenty of Bamboo around, which opened up quite a few new recipe's for me, including the option to stow extra bags, and bigger chest on my boat, which once I could unload some stuff, I felt as if I could go and finally start to pick up new things, as before this point in time, I was trying to Micro Manage my inventory, and only keep things I "knew" I needed with me, not even access to the basic 3 Storage chest for your ship was enough for the first 2 Chapters, so this was a breath of fresh air. Also being able to make my boat pretty big was fun too.

Which brings me to sailing. At first, sailing was an issue, and be playing games like Zelda Wind Waker, and some other games, I got the idea of how to sail, but in this game, it almost always feels like the wind is never in your favor, and sometimes if just straight up doesn't feel like the wind changes directions at all. I admit, I actually got to a point where I straight up deleted my sail, because rowing the small distances I needed to go was faster, than trying to struggle with the wind. What I can't seem to wrap my head around while "Sailing" is, where the HELL DOES YOUR OAR GO!?!? Clearly you still have the Oar, yet, as soon as you throw up a Sail on your boat, the ability to manually paddle your boat goes right out the door. This in my opinion was probably the stupidest design mechanic I've seen, as there is not one possible ship I can think of, that loses it's ability to ROW, as soon as a sail goes up. In fact, I don't even think there's a boat in existence, that comes WITHOUT an oar. Again, very, VERY, poor decision to get rid of the ability to row with a sail. It makes even less sense if you think about it, because we can raise, lower, tighten, and loosen the sails, an if the wind is going against you, wouldn't you think it easier to just lower your sails and row?

The boat building from what I've seen thus far as well, is pretty basic, and I can honestly say having limited spots on your boat for 1 of each item, such as a storage chest was pretty horrific too. Unless I'm doing something wrong, and I think I've tried multiple times, your normal Bamboo raft can ONLY HOLD 1 storage chest. This was incredibly upsetting, because I had figured well, I can place this in the top left hand side of the raft, there's still 3 other corners, surely I can just throw my newly 5 Storage chest in one of the corners right? Wrong! Again, my raft seems big enough, but the lack of locations I can actually place down objects was just super inconvenient.

I will say though, sailing through the rough waters for whatever reason freaks me out, and I had fun moving from chapter to chapter. When I went from chapter 2-3, I had a Bamboo raft with 2 hulls, one of which had storage on it, and as I was going through it, near the end, one of my grass hulls broke, and I was like "oh damn!", and when I finally made it to chapter 3, I realized, that hull had my materials in it. I was basically starting from nothing again, which was fine, I just didn't really think about it with all that carnage going on.

Another thing I tried in Chapter 3, was going to the edge of the map. I don't know how many of you are old enough to remember those games where if you swim out too far (like Spore for example) and you can't see underneath you, something giant just comes up, and swallows you whole, always kind of freaked me out. So as soon as I got to the edge of the map, and seeing the water immediately turn from calm to 20ft waves throwing my boat around, I said "NOPE", and turned back. However, I do want to try and brave those waters one day... But the "unkown".

All in all, I would say I had an "okay" experience thus far, never really had any issues with the game. I know quite a few people have said Kara's hunger depletes too fast, but I've never had a problem keeping her fed, as most islands have some form of food, and or I found Mushroom caps that raised your Hunger by quite a bit. People have also mentioned of food degrading, I too noticed it, but soon found out, you could simply leave the food over your firepit, and the food NEVER degrades, so I was constantly able to keep 3 pieces of cooked food aboard my ship at all times.

I do however worry about the games replayability. I've tried to keep from reading and learning too much about the game, but it sounds incredibly short, and with how little use of the recipe's I've used thus far, and or even could, it doesn't look like there's a whole lot of them to learn either. It's a little disappointing, I was hoping this game would have some kind of a "Free Mode" where the world is your Sandbox, and you could build a base or something, but that doesn't appear to be the case here.

As of how far I've played thus far, I'd say this game is maybe... 5.5-6 ish/10. It's okay, but in more way than one, it could have added so much more to the gameplay. I'm guessing it's only a "One time Play through".

Just my thoughts on the game so far. It's not terrible, but could improve.

[thaile]

The shovel can also dig up clay which can be used to upgrade the firepit to process iron.

I also learn my lesson about putting storage on those side hull. Now I keep them on the middle hull and the firepit on the sides. The limiting to 1 item per boat section not really an issue pass the first chapter. Once you build the two side hull, you can also extend the boat longer to add more space.

As for the sailing, never really an issue for me, but I recommend building the speed figurehead as soon as possible since it basically a jet motor. Just charge it up and you get like a 5 sec massive boost of speed.