After building grass and bamboo boats for hours, it's exciting to finally find the key ingredient needed to craft an axe and gain the ability to chop down trees. In typical survival game fashion, as you find new materials you unlock access to new recipes. It's also difficult to see a tower until you're very close to it, so instead of seeing a point on the horizon and sailing to it, you're frequently sailing to the horizon and hoping that a point materializes.ДЄs much as I disliked the act of sailing, I did enjoy the process of building a sturdy boat. Both options feel pretty counterintuitive, and I came to dread sailing between islands. It seems like you're supposed to sail at a diagonal or slalom back and forth. You're supposed to loosen your sails when the wind is at your back and tighten them when you're moving against it, but sailing against the wind never really feels natural. But, once you do that, it becomes very difficult to sail against the wind. So you'll want to craft a mast which allows you to harness the wind. It's straightforward, but it will take you a long time to get anywhere. Your stamina gauge depletes much more slowly on Storyteller, so most of your time will be spent in the water, searching for towers-an act that becomes painfully tedious as the game stretches on.ДЄ lot of that tedium stems from how difficult it is to steer your ship. Searching for food to shore up your stamina gives structure to the Survivalist mode, and that's missing on the easier setting. I can't fully recommend playing on Storyteller, either, though. Three hours of searching for towers would have gone down the drain in a blink of an eye. But all I could think about was how much effort I would have wasted if I had been playing on the more punishing Survivalist setting. I was playing on Storyteller, so I was able to begin again at the start of the level instead of at the start of the game. At one point, roughly three hours into a playthrough, a shark suddenly appeared and destroyed my boat, killing me instantly. I want to recommend the latter, because Windbound's sluggish pace is a poor match for a roguelike's structure. Windbound can be played as a roguelike with permadeath or as a more forgiving, level-based survival game. Well, at least that's what happens on the Survivalist difficulty. Finding the towers in the latter half of the game feels like searching for a needle in a haystack, except the needle's location is scrambled every time you die. There are always three towers to find but by the fifth level, the play space has expanded and the islands have become smaller and more numerous. By the end, what was once fun and interesting becomes rote and boring at best and deeply frustrating at worst. In fact, as the game progresses, all of these beats from the opening hour repeat four times. This moment is genuinely climactic and cool and had me on board for whatever came next.Д«ut, then it repeats, largely unchanged, four times. Hulking sea creatures breach the water as jaunty music, which threads the needle between sea shanty and battle theme, guides you along. Pass through the gate and you'll find your boat, waiting to take you on a river ride through a stone cavern. After finding all three, you search for a gate, carved into a massive outcropping of rock. You search for two more, each with a portion of the key you need to progress to the next level.

A tower in the distance, which tapers into a stony crab's claw, beckons. Turns out you can craft a grass boat with enough rope and some elbow grease.ДЇrom here, Windbound's waters open up. Locating this artifact will unlock some new crafting recipes. Eventually you'll find a shrine on the island where you'll receive an oar, which is, in some way, legendarily significant. Deplete it and you'll wake up on the beach, back where you started. Okay, you have grass, but what can you do with grass? Okay, you crafted a grass rope, but what can you do with a grass rope? You may try to wade into the water in hopes of swimming to the closest island, but your stamina gauge will quickly dash those hopes. You'll stumble around early on, unable to do much of anything. But as welcoming as it can look, the red and yellow gauges at the top of the screen are a constant reminder that this world isn't friendly. The monsters are memorably designed, and even the most imposing are at least a little cute. The art style charmingly stakes out a familiar middle ground: cartoonish gloss, realistic proportions. The sunny skies and gorgeous ocean are inviting.

You would be forgiven for being lulled into a false sense of security. It's just a shame that it's a poor archipelago.ДЇor my first few hours with the new roguelike survival game from Five Lives Studios, I walked a knife's edge-blissful relaxation on one side, speedily encroaching anxiety on the other.

Windbound recipes