daWindci Deluxe Review

daWindci Deluxe is a remake of a puzzle game that has players controlling a hot air balloon by swiping to generate wind and push it around. Although this is a clever premise for a puzzle game, and the game actually makes efforts to introduce new and interesting wind-based mechanics, the game itself controls poorly, which detracts from the experience considerably.

daWindci Deluxe provides players with a top down view of a hot air balloon floating over a landscape. The goal of the game is to swipe and produce wind currents to guide the balloon to a predetermined goal. At first, this involves a few basic maneuvers involving avoiding basic obstacles, but the game gradually introduces new level gimmicks and layers them on top of each other so that players will find themselves having to use wind commands to open doors, avoid spikes, go through trees, and more.

Although some of the ways commands are implemented in the game are clever, like swiping in a circle to create a tornado and having wind activated switches, daWindci Deluxe just doesn’t really control very well. The game accurately imitates the physics of blowing a hot air balloon around using wind, but this unfortunately means that daWindci Deluxe feels very floaty and unresponsive. For the record, upon trying the original daWindci, the controls seem to be much improved. That being said though, the game still maintains an overly floaty nature that can become really frustrating.

In terms of improvements to the original, daWindci Deluxe sports a nice and vibrant art style that stands out when compared to its predecessor’s muddy greens and browns. Moving around the environments in daWindci Deluxe is now a much more pleasurable experience because everything has a sort of papercraft art style and reacts to player input in some clever ways. In the end though, the improved visuals do not quite make it worth revisiting.

daWindci Deluxe would be an above average puzzle experience if it weren’t marred by its controls. The design of the games puzzles is interesting, and it’s pretty clear to see that a lot of thought went into the game’s level design. That being said, the way daWindci Deluxe controls makes exploring that world feel equal parts frustrating or not worth it.