I thought I’d break the dry spell of gaming reviews (or conversely, the flood of coding posts) with a game I just finished.I thought I’d give a holiday present in the form of a long overdue game review. Lost Winds was originally written for the Wii, but has received an iOS port. I was not aware of this at first and most of my frustration with the game was with the controls. Otherwise, the game is nice and short, easy to play in short periods of time, aesthetically pleasing, and is worth giving a try.

Lost Winds is the first of two games. You play as the character Toku, a kid who befriends a wind spirit, Enril. The larger backstory is the rather typical harmony to chaos story. The world was once inhabited by many spirits in harmony until one decided he wanted more, thus plunging the world into chaos and causing the spirits to flee. It isn’t very story-heavy, so this is ultimately what stuck in my memory and could be a bit flawed.

The game itself consists of a series of simple puzzles that remind me a little bit of Legend of Zelda, but more basic and toned down. For example, there are floor switches to stand on to open doors, objects (boulders) to move around, torches to light, and chests to open.

Movement consists of tapping on the screen where you went Toku to go. Through the course of the game, as you gain more “power” with Enril, you can gust around (including the equivalent of jumping), glide, and “fly” (I use quotes because it’s really limited). What’s kind of fun about using the swipe and drag gestures is the wind that results from that movement. It is reflected in Toku as well as the trees, bushes, fire, and even the townspeople. I was a little disappointed there wasn’t much more reaction from the tertiary objects, especially if you keep causing a breeze around one character, but it’s a good start.

These gestures are also used to smite down your foes which all share a base of black blobs (blorbs). One additional power with Enril that’s separate from movement gestures is the pinch gesture, which causes a vortex to form. Enemies caught in the vortex spin in place for a few seconds before dropping. You can combine the vortex movement, wait until the enemy reaches its peak spinning momentum, then gust it into oblivion.

Simple physics, right? Max rotational speed plus a linear velocity results in more force (or something along those lines, it’s been a while since I took physics). Well. It would be more helpful if there were an easier way of telling when an object has reached its peak spinning velocity. Lines that sort of converge on a point isn’t quite indicative enough.

It took many trial and errors to finally get an object to do what I wanted it to do. Part of it was because of the controls. The way the pinch control is programmed is you can create multiple vortices at once–there isn’t a delay between vortex generation. This means if you have nails and your nails just manage to touch the screen at the end of one pinch motion, you create two vortices. Which one is your object in? Doesn’t matter, fling it. Nope, try again. Wait, Toku, stop. I don’t want you to move. And so on.

Another control problem I had was trying to access the map, which is in the top left corner. It is also only accessible when you are at a complete stop. In my haste, I’d often tap the top right corner, trying to get the map, only to make my character move when I didn’t want him to.

A similar control problem is touching the very left or right edge of the screen will cause Toku to auto-run in that direction, but not always. It is also very difficult to get him to stop. Tapping is supposed to stop him, but also recall that tapping will send Toku to that location. The result? A bit of confusion and I stopped using autorun altogether. (Eventually it was just faster moving Toku with gestures than tapping.)

The drag control creates a slipstream which objects (like boulders) can “float” on for a short time. You can also use slipstreams to draw paths for fire from a torch to follow. Unfortunately, unless your slipstream has a curve, your object is going to follow a straight line that might not necessarily end where you’d expect it to. The straight swiping gesture apparently only has a few select angles and by stroke of luck (or something), oftentimes the desired path from a torch to an overgrown bush is just between two of those select angles. I won’t go into how many times I kept swiping, ending right in the middle of an overgrown bush, and the fire kept going above or to the ground below it.

I could go on for a few more points, but I think my issue with the controls is fairly clear. In fact, if the game had not been as short as it was, I wouldn’t have finished. This is an example of one of those odd cases where the length of the game is just right for a failure in one of the key areas of games. After all, if the controls are just lacking, how can players enjoy it? But the controls are “good enough” for enjoying this short game.

The art in the game is very vibrant and stylized in its own way. It’s possible if the game were around 15 years ago and someone were to look over my shoulder, they’d ask me why I was playing such a kiddie game. But, given the proliferation of games these days, especially with mobile devices, it’s more acceptable to play these almost cartoony-looking games.

I had the sound turned on low, but I couldn’t hear anything so I ended up turning off sound altogether. I can’t comment on the audio aspect of the game and whether or not it would add to the experience of playing it. Often, I had holiday music playing or a TV show in the background.

Overall, I would give this game a try. It’s short enough to give it a chance all the way through, but if you find yourself getting frustrated, it’s also okay to put down. You’re not missing out on anything large by doing so (except maybe insanity). It’s a good game to play in short bursts, but I imagine someone dedicated enough could finish it in one sitting if they so desired.