Frontier announces LostWinds for WiiWare

by James Ransom-Wiley { Feb 20th 2008 at 3:45PM }

David Braben's Frontier Developments promises "the power of the wind" at the tip of your Wiimote in LostWinds, the indie studio's first pint-sized, WiiWare adventure. There's a wind spirit (that's you!), a boy with an odd cap, the evil Balasar and the magical land of Mistrails, where puzzles can be a breeze and enemies are blown away without bullets. "WiiWare offers a perfect extra outlet for that creativity, and I hope that LostWinds is the first of many games that will follow this process," said Braben.

Gallery: LostWinds

Tags: frontier, lostwinds, wiiware

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

JayVe @ Feb 20th 2008 4:07PM

Stylish and clean. I like the idea of a game that can be played by one player, or by two players helping each other. Hopefully we'll see a lot more inventive and pretty titles for Wii Ware as time goes on.

Nicholas Sulikowski @ Feb 20th 2008 3:52PM

It's a bit concerning that this game looks to be more innovative than most of the third party shovelware found on the Wii for RETAIL. EA, take note.

samfish @ Feb 20th 2008 3:52PM

Kinda sad that this little downloadable title looks better than 90% of most Wii games.

...that sadly includes Mario Kart, judging by avalanche of screen shots today.

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 3:56PM

I was that images... but don't worry. Those images are the same scans from the Famitsu magazine, only amplified.

According to Gamespot (or IGN, I don't remember) it looks a lot better than Double Dash, with very nice effect (explosions, water, smoke)... and Double Dash looks very nice, very clean, with nice textures and great character modeling).

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 3:56PM

*I saw...

Jhongerkong @ Feb 20th 2008 4:52PM

What are you talking about? DD's character models were crap. They were blocky and they didnt have fingers. Plus, it looks like they kept the same crappy models for the wii version. The DS version also wasnt that good. Compare the mario from MK and the mario from 3-on-3 and you'll see what im talking about. Im a nintendo fanboy also.

Fatass of Kickassness @ Feb 20th 2008 5:36PM

Just take one look at, say, Bowser, and you'll notice a marked improvement between Mk Wii and DD. Plus, MKWii has much better lighting and textures from what I've seen so far, plus it looks great in Widescreen.

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 3:53PM

Really... fanboyism apart... WiiWare is shaping pretty good. It's nice to see that WiiWare developers are putting more creativity than Ninjabread-like shitty developers.

This game is looking good, World of Goo, Eternity's Child, Final Fantasy, Star Soldier R, Butterfly Garden, Gravitronix...

And now Sam & Max devs are making a WiiWare title: http://wii.ign.com/articles/853/853419p1.html

And almost every game at $5 dlls... =)

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 4:01PM

*World of Goo (with images):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_of_Goo

*Eternity's Child dev new interview and new images:

http://www.destructoid.com/pre-gdc-destructoid-interview-eternity-s-child-s-luc-bernard-and-sean-beeson-70594.phtml

deaftly @ Feb 20th 2008 4:07PM

Was it announced that you can save these wiiware games to an sd card? Because if not, this will be a total failure.

Mr Khan @ Feb 20th 2008 4:11PM

Save them there? Sure, you can save anything there

RUN them from there, then you're out of luck. However, the writing's on the wall, Nintendo knows who is buying the bulk of the VC Titles, and who will be buying the bulk of the Wii Ware stuff

They have to offer a solution eventually, but it'll get worse before it gets better

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 4:13PM

Plattchen seems fun... good graphics too.

http://n-europe.com/news.php?nid=10997

@deaftly

Nintendo needs to do something regarding the storage issue. Anything will be good... play directly from an SD card, USB flash memory or USB External HDD... WiiWare will not survive if Nintendo do nothing regarding this issue. I'm 100% sure this will be fixed.

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 4:16PM

*Plattchen in game image:

http://www.n-europe.com//featuresgfx/plattchen/plattchen_wallpaper_1680x1050.jpg

Noshino @ Feb 20th 2008 5:10PM

Sorry Fernando, but with Nintendo, you really don't know...

I wouldn't put my bets on an HDD since they already stated that there wouldn't be one comming...

...but in the other hand, they said the same about the DS redesign (Lite) and then the next day they announced it....

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 20th 2008 5:39PM

I'm just waiting for the custom firmware that will enable all this shit that we want the wii to do.

Its only a matter of time.

Kilraven @ Feb 20th 2008 4:04PM

Did anyone else think of Pollen Sonata after seeing those images?

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 4:07PM

First thing I notices is that it looks like Kirby's Canvas Course for the DS... but it's not a bad thing. Canvas Course is great, very original.

Mr Khan @ Feb 20th 2008 7:56PM

Spaceman Spiff!

Jerk Face @ Feb 20th 2008 4:06PM

Ooh... neat.

The Sound @ Feb 20th 2008 4:08PM

Ugh, David B. After what he did to the once good RCT franchise, I don't think it's possible to enjoy a game made by him.

I mean, if you do enjoy buggy, unsupported, laggy, 'you're not playing it right' games, then have fun.

Mr Khan @ Feb 20th 2008 4:09PM

Wii Ware is where Western developers seem to finally grasp what the Wii should be for. The Japanese developers have only just started getting on appropriate original content, and these kind of Wii Ware offerings sit right where they should be: Accessible, but not dumbed down, a balance that Westerners have yet to get

Bad Mojo @ Feb 20th 2008 4:12PM

WiiWare looks great and all that, but how the heck are we supposed to store all these games, plus the Virtual Console stuff, plus game data?

Really love the Wii, but Nintendo is seeming a little shortsighted and antiquated with this part of it.

Martez @ Feb 20th 2008 4:18PM

Activision has said they are gonna do downloadable tracks for Guitar Hero 3 as well. I can only assume a larger storage solution is in the works.

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 4:30PM

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2007/12/10/wii_guitar_hero_3_getting_dlc_fixed_sound/1

Martez is right... a solution is coming.

Mike @ Feb 20th 2008 4:19PM

Yet another game that proves that stylized graphics are the way to go on the Wii.

Fatass of Kickassness @ Feb 20th 2008 4:31PM

My opinion is that stylized graphics are the way to go, period.

Ihar `Philips` Filipau @ Feb 20th 2008 4:51PM

I wish they stop announcing and start releasing already.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Feb 20th 2008 5:40PM

May 19th I think.

Just_a_guy @ Feb 20th 2008 4:56PM

um.... but this kind of sounds like windwaker

DomoBraden @ Feb 20th 2008 5:41PM

I'm confused by how this is meant to be played...is that just me? A gameplay video would be helpful, so hopefully we'll get one by the end of GDC.

Anyway, it looks neat...the overall look of the game kinda reminds me of LittleBigPlanet, I'm not sure why.

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 5:50PM

Its like Kirbys Canvas Course or Yoshis Touched for the DS...

In both games, Kirby or Luigi walk alone, you dont control them, with the stylus you draw lines and the character walk in the lines and attack enemies. This is similar, with the IR Pointer you will be drawing lines. This is an example:

Kirbys:

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/5934.html

Yoshi's (the clouds are drawed with the stylus)

http://www.gametrailers.com/player/5087.html

Fernando Rocker @ Feb 20th 2008 5:55PM

*Kirby or Yoshi

And also, if you tap the screen instead of draw lines, Yohi will throw and egg in tht direction, and if you do a circle with the stylus in an enemy, the enemy get trapped in a bubble.

DomoBraden @ Feb 20th 2008 6:19PM

Ah I see. I kinda figured it would by Canvas Curse, but I wasn't really sure.

mr mobius @ Feb 20th 2008 7:17PM

Just me or does this character look like a mix between Zack (i think so, anyway the pirate kid from Zack & Wiki) and Midna (from Twilight Princess)?

ThornedVenom (Ludwig Defense Force) @ Feb 21st 2008 2:23AM

Wiiware is proving to be awesome!

Since it's all about making the best out of limited capacity, when stuff like this blows the pants out of full-versioned developers, it's going to force them to actually INVEST MINIMAL EFFORT into the quality of their games. =D