The Winter’s Wake preview starts off a bit oddly. The sentence structure is strangely alluring, almost aware that it has been written in a soothing and descriptive manner.
You continue reading on, intrigued by the article and its tone, wanting to see where the paragraph leads you. Your eyes bound along the sentences from word to word, the ringing in your ears becoming noticeably louder as you try and skim through the last 31 words as quickly as possible. Where will the Winter’s Wake Preview lead, you wonder.
Transition. . .
Winter’s Wake is a game being developed by small Indie developer ValiantCheese. Currently still in development, Winter’s Wake was one of my favourite booths on the PAX Australia show floor this year. It stood out because it was clever in its presentation and representation.
It was minimalist and intelligence in a sea of flashy and attention-grabbing gimmicks. Winter’s Wake is a passion project from a lone developer and a throwback to his love of text-based adventure games. Inspirations for the game and its concept come from games such as Quest for Glory, Myst and Zork.
The thing that stands out most about Winter’s Wake is the combination of first-person exploration and controls with a narrative text based game. Winter’s Wake is controlled with a mouse, keyboard or with a gamepad. As you pan your gaze skyward the background colour changes and the description changes along with it.
Blah, Blah, Blah
The same happens if you pan left, right, down or any other direction. On occasion, there are chances to interact with objects, people and puzzles. Completing tasks to progress further into towns, around mountains or down winding roads. All accompanied by dynamic environmental acoustics and wonderfully vivid descriptions.
I loved the demonstration and the hands-on Winter’s Wake Preview and ValiantCheese was happy to answer all of my questions while at PAX. I encourage everyone to check him out on Twitter here and follow Winters Wake’s progress here. It’s a great game and concept and one that I’ll personally have a close eye on.
