I don’t like reporting on bad news. The good kind is much better because they’re the cause of excitement and cheerfulness! But alas, here we go: two days ago, the developer of Windward announced that he lacks the motivation to keep working on it. Darn shame.
In this post on the Tasharen Entertainment website, he mentions quite a few reasons for this, including one related to feedback/press coverage: As it turns out, while the initial press coverage his game got was very positive, at least it was off to a good start. But… when a second email was sent to those same sites, in which he highlighted the addition of multiplayer, only a single site replied at all (wait, what?!). This doesn’t make sense – Windward was going places, so why skip reporting on a major update like that? I may not have written about that particular update, but I did cover the ‘fog of war patch’ in August of 2012, and if I can do that then why can’t other (especially bigger) sites at least write a few words about something as big as a multiplayer update? For shame.
But that was then, this is now, and he’s made his choice: Windward development will not continue. Even though I’ve never dabbled in game development, I’m not blind to how a total lack of attention for a project you’ve invested a lot of time and money in can be extremely demotivating. This is hardly the first unfinished game to be shelved for that very reason, after all…
Alright, enough bad news. This piece needs something positive too, and here it is: Since he’s no longer working on Windward, the game is free (for now)! Sure, there are bound to be bugs in the current build that will likely never be fixed now, but I’d still highly recommend heading over to the official website, signing up as a ship captain and heading out to sea, in search of adventure and treasure.
