On The Wind’s Breath is a bit like asking the question, “What if Flower was a 2D platformer?”. It’s a tantalising idea, and the developer behind the game has a very distinct vision of what they want to create. There are moments of flow, freedom, and joy as you control not a seedling, but the wind itself to blow the seedling around. The issue starts as soon as precision is required.
Each of On The Wind’s Breath’s 13 levels starts off as a seedling trying to get from A to B. There will sometimes be multiple routes or detours to get there, but you’ll need to blow as the wind to take the seedling to the end goal. You’ve got a breeze meter that replenishes as soon as you land on the floor, but most of the floor is not safe to land on. Moss will kill you if you stay still, and the same with frosty surfaces. Water kills instantly, and sandstorms will pin you against a wall and kill you that way. As you float and glide around, you’ll be looking for the next safe place to land or a checkpoint to pass through as a respawn place.
Playing as the wind is an imprecise force, and there is a huge difference between controller and mouse controls. On a controller, everything seems to be a huge gust. There is no precision, but you can force your way through some gaps by power alone. It is all or nothing. Mouse controls are much more nuanced, as you can click on and off to feather-float through narrower gaps, but the wind is less powerful unless you use a rare right click for a major blast. With more nuance comes slower movement and that uses up more of your breath. Neither control system feels “right”, but I found the mouse controls far superior. The reason neither feels right is because most of the game takes place inside a cave. This means narrow passageways, stalagmites, and stalactites. Everything gets in the way, and as your seed has a bulbous head, trying to get it through gaps is fiddly and finicky.
By the time I exited the cave to hit sandstorms that toss you around, I was a mixture of frustrated, annoyed, and intrigued. There are moments where riding wind currents and boomeranging around ledges feels great. By being difficult, there is a lot of satisfaction when you pull off some great moves. The flipside is that all too often, you’ll be dumped into the void because correcting your trajectory isn’t consistent. I was able to trigger wind changes early to minimise the momentum physics, just know it takes a while to get your head aligned with the game’s physics. I was intrigued because there is a poetic narrative that runs alongside the gameplay. It argues about whether investing in something impermanent, like nature and beauty, is too much emotional effort, as you’ll watch it decay and die. On The Wind’s Breath argues that maybe it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. I thought the story was low-key decent, although sometimes the text appears in a tricky moment that meant I rushed to read it and close it down.
Oddly, I think speedrunners will enjoy On The Wind’s Breath most. Each level has a timer, and if you can get into the flow of the game and spot ways to cut corners safely, you’ll fastest times could open up competition. You’ll need to share it yourself as there are no online leaderboards. That kind of two steps forward, one step back, feels very appropriate for this game. There are moments of joy that are tinged with annoyance and frustration as the gameplay is constantly compromising itself. The developer has added an easy mode post-launch, and for me, it’s the best way to play. More breath, more ability to course correct, less angst. Try easy first. This game is not a breeze.
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