A Valley without Wind a 2D side scroller Indie project from Arcen Games with retro style graphics.
Basically, space/time has been fractured by a cataclysmic event, and you must travel through these different time periods looking for a way to help your people while facing an evil Overlord who wants to stop you. Here’s the rub: this space/time fracture has unleashed a devilish wind that is unsuitable for human life. Your people live in a valley without wind, hence the title.
This Indie game comes in two separate parts. The procedurally-generated world map is where you can see the space/time fractures in the form of terrain and each different type of terrain is from a different era. You can move from Ice Age plains to future high-tech ruins in your travels. The second part is where you enter a terrain area and it’s a 2D side scroller shoot and scoot, flinging spells at bizarre creatures and looking for loot. You pick up money, equipment enchants for your character and crafting components to create your own spells.
You explore these areas primarily looking for missions that give rewards that help your settlement thrive. For instance you can find farms to feed your people, rescue survivors trapped underground and various building plans to give bonuses to you or your people. The really important things to find are wind shelters and ocean buoys which will push back the evil wind surrounding your valley, revealing more terrain to search and exploit. Eventually you want your ‘wind-free’ valley to reach the evil Overlord so you can enter his lair and defeat him, thus ending the threat against your peaceful valley… unless you want to keep playing AVWW. In which case, you can sail to another continent with another valley with more people and another Overlord to fight and defeat again at a higher difficulty. There’s no hard limit on the number of continents to find and keep playing.
While the basics are somewhat simple, there are additional features you can use (or ignore). Your people can be sent out on their own missions to find spell components or attack enemy targets, but you’ll have to manage their mood with gifts. Their mission success depends on their profession and skill level, which can be raised with constructed buildings and skill books you have looted out in the wild. Enemies have different strengths and weakness to certain elemental magic, so you can build your enchants to emphasize fire, earth, etc.
A lot of work went into this Indie game by fans of 2d side scrollers, so if you’re an old school fan of Metroid and other platformer games, this is worth a look. It has an open world concept where you decide where to go and what to do, and when you defeat the Overlord you can keep playing with more challenges.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KHE8veMogKM
This post was originally published on November 7, 2013.