Experience a single village through the eyes of several characters
Moral Anxiety’sWindy Meadow- which actually dates back to before development of Roadwarden, but has been substantially remastered since the latter’s release - essentially narrows the focus to one of those villages. Out today, it’s a quietly gorgeous visual novel in which you follow several characters in different timeframes, building up a layered understanding of one and the same setting, with scene transitions plotted on a beautiful pixelart map screen.Windy Meadow - A Roadwarden Tale | Release TrailerWatch on YouTube
There are life-or-death questions to reckon with - do you try to help your father rescue somebody from a burning forest, or obey his instruction to head back to town? - and a few scenes of gruesome bloodshed. Running themes include the lure of the Big City, a few days travel away, and the importance of not over-depleting the forests nearby, lest the woodland creatures rise up and stamp the settlement flat. But Windy Meadow often seems less interested in these grand dramatic stakes than in cultivating smaller, inter-personal dynamics.
How do you want to handle your sister’s back-biting - in silence or with harsh words of your own? Should you indulge in small-talk with a candle-maker you’re helping out, or ask more personal questions that might offend him? And then there are conversations that offer windows on the game’s wider setting, Viaticum. I’m especially enjoying learning to be a bard. What kinds of story do I want to tell, as a professional lore peddler, and where should I seek them out?
The new version of Windy Meadow isavailable now on Steam. There’s a demo, if your curiosity has been piqued.
