Frontier unveils LostWinds for WiiWare

via Eurogamer


Frontier Developments has unveiled its first title for Nintendo's WiiWare service - platform adventure game LostWinds. You can check out screenshots o'er yonder.

Promising innovative use of the Wii controller, LostWinds puts players in control of young boy Toku, with the Nunchuk, while the Wiimote is used for a wind elemental called Enril.

By wafting the Wiimote, players can lift characters off the ground with wind, or make circling motions to trap enemies in a vortex, amongst other wind-related shenanigans.

"The really novel thing about it is the control mechanism because you're controlling two characters - one with the Nunchuk and one with the Wiimote," Frontier's David Walsh told Eurogamer.

"There's the duality of Toku who's vulnerable and sort of useless on his own, but he's a connection to the physical world. And the other character, the wind spirit Enril, doesn't have a connection to the world so you have to work co-operatively with the two characters."

Seeing the game in motion at GDC in San Francisco, it's a tactile control method that seems to make perfect sense. Sweeping a current of air under Toku to lift him onto a platform, or swirling around an enemy to send him tumbling base-over-apex looks fluid and intuitive.

The magic graphical style will be enhanced, Frontier boss David Braben told Eurogamer, by sound effects conducted by the players movement on the Wiimote, as wind passes objects in the environment.

"There are wind stones around the place that make a noise as you brush the wind over them. The wind is very musical so it makes these musical noises as you do, the beauty is not intended to just come from the visuals.

"What we're trying to do is a very tight and very beautiful world that's very consistent," said Braben.

With 22 levels, replayability via new skills rewarded to the player for finishing the game, and multiple ways to complete tasks, it sounds like a chunky little debut for Nintendo's much anticipated digital delivery service.

Nintendo has yet to announce solid dates for WiiWare, but we're expecting a big reveal sometime later this week, and will be providing LiveText coverage of its Wii hardware speech at 9am PST / 5pm GMT on Friday in case anything good happens.

We know we hadn't told you that before, but we have now. Rejoice. We thought you'd want a Nintendo one too.