Skip to main content

Indie game storeFree gamesFun gamesHorror games
Game developmentAssetsComics
SalesBundles
Jobs
TagsGame Engines
A jam submission

Where the Winds GatherView game page

That Game Jam
Submitted by kbve, mou, MisterFell, Flinigan, Seven0Sevn — 4 hours, 29 minutes before the deadline
Rated by 4 people so far
Add to collection

Play game

Where the Winds Gather's itch.io page

Rate this game

In order to rate this submission you must be logged into itch.io and have submitted your own entry. Anyone with an account can leave a comment.

Design Statement
The track began with this sound of inserting a cartridge or a cassette tape in so I thought “Retro”. Then I believe the track began with a Major chord and alternates to a minor chord. To me, that sounded melancholic yet hopeful— It gives the impression that a moment could be lamentable, but if we move forward with persistence everything will turn out for the better. So why not base the story off of the instrument that persisted against all odds in its history and eventually succeeded!

Game Instructions (launch steps, controls, and gameplay overview)
Move with A and D (or the arrow keys), and jump with Space, W or Up. Press S or Down to climb down or drop through a ledge. Walk up to people and objects and press E to talk or pick things up, and press B to open your bag. If you get stuck, R starts you again from your last checkpoint, and Esc opens the menu. In cutscenes, press Space or Enter, or click the arrow, to turn the page. You can also use the mouse in the menus and the bag. On phones and tablets, on-screen controls appear as soon as you touch the screen.

Gameplay walkthrough video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d_IYAmkIqg

Did your project use any AI tools or assets? If yes, please specify.
AI tooling, specifically Claude, was used for the programming, mainly to help write test cases for various browsers and resolve those errors. We did also use it help with the continuous integration, so that code changes will deploy to itch. and automatically test the code changes.

Leave a comment

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Comments

Submitted

The game was really good to look at, the ui was amazing honestly, I wish I can make UI as good as you, overall, the concept was amazing the movement felt good, the music was good too, however at some part the game felt a bit empty in game play and visual, overall, still amazing in the time constraints. Btw the name reminds me of where winds meet:)

Submitted(+1)

The visual style and execution was nice overall! The concept / cinematic art was cool, but the pixel art in particular was excellent. There was some weirdness with the vertical parallax of the backgrounds when ascending and descending which didn't cohere with my sense of the change of perspective. But that might be my only visual critique. The main character sprite was especially good! I wanted to do more with him!
The music was also nice. I'd have preferred a more realist rendering of some of the music, given the centrality of music to the concept of the game... but that's just my personal taste. As for implementation, there were several times on the path between the two towns where the music changed from one cue to another and then back again in a way which felt rapid and arbitrary. Is it mapped to vertical positioning? I think it was mostly a thing when going up and down the huge hills. That could be tuned more smoothly. I especially liked the music of Brasswind Town.
Most of my praise is definitely centered on the music and visuals, because all the back-and-forth between the two towns (which are quite distant from one another) strained my patience quickly. I feel the towns are way, way too far apart, especially because there is not really anything to do between them. So, the pigeons of Woodwind Town have nabbed the dude's sheet music, and I need to haul out all the way to Brasswind Town to find twigs? There are trees in the background the entire way there, so I feel the fetch item should have been something that more logically justified the journey. And then, the person in Brasswind Town will give me a pack of twigs, but only if I find their cat which is "on the road just outside Brasswind Town" but actually it's almost all the way back to Woodwind Town. I will say, the platforming handled quite well, and again, the aesthetic experience of the journey was pleasant overall (the jump and ledge-grab animations are wonderful!) but it just feels like there's nothing to do between these two places except fall onto spikes. I was hoping there was some fun to be had in the caves, but it seemed there was nothing going down there either (although they did look nice).
All of that said, you should all be proud of what you've done. We do this to learn and grow, and it is a commendable effort overall! Clearly a lot of love was put into this. I think you have a very charming package, and the concept is cute enough, but it would benefit enormously from a reimagining of level design; in particular, probably a shorter and more intentional journey between the two towns, and a better reason to lead the player from one town to the next.

Developer

Thanks for trying out the game!
Appreciate the time you took for your indepth feedback and I agree especially about the level design and some story aspects being a weak point in the submission. The vision originally had puzzles and a deeper story between areas, but alas our inexperience and time was short - such is a game jam! If we ever work on the game afterwards, then overhauling the areas between towns to have more purpose is definitely a high priority. Thanks for your great feedback

Submitted

I was excited to try your game. I get an error when I try to load it (I'm using firefox).

Developer

Yeah we were not able to finish that fix to resolve the Firefox bug, I recommend trying Chrome and will update the notes that we were not able to upload the fix for it.

Submitted(+2)

I really like the retro pixel look

Developer(+1)

Thank you! We appreciate you for entering our creative space today. We hope you had fun!