Developer Motion Twin
Publisher Motion Twin, Kepler Ghost
Format PC
Origin France
Release TBA
An age-old question for any creative with an unexpected hit on their hands: Where next? Dead Cells was developed as something of a last hope for Motion Twin, the French studio which had been making games for the best part of two decades by that point. As Gwenaël Massé once told us, for E352’s Studio Profile, the game was conceived as a “blaze of glory”, going out making the kinds of games the developers loved, rather than “something that we were just historically lumped with” by the company’s previous output. Of course, Dead Cells was such a success that it not only kept the studio alive but led to the creation of another, Evil Empire, to take over the game’s many updates and expansions from 2019 onwards. So, in the five years between that handoff and Windblown’s own arrival in early access this month, what has Motion Twin been doing?
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/3097773340.jpg]
First off, an awful lot of prototyping. The team spent April to December 2019 in essentially one long game jam, Massé tells us, during which they tried everything “from 2D platforming and puzzle games to a third-person shooter action game, even an arcade aeroplane prototype. One of those ideas was a multiplayer couch game with no fighting, à la Mario Party.” The latter was the first seed of Windblown, Massé adds – though it doesn’t sound much like the game before us today. “Minigames were very expensive to produce if you wanted to avoid [them being] repetitive and boring,” he says. Besides, Motion Twin still wanted to make something with “fast action gameplay”, with minigames serving as a way to “keep runs fresh and very different from one to another” – so, as the latter element fell away, the developer was left with the game at its core, which turns out to look and feel rather like a 3D reimagining of Dead Cells.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/7370573372.jpg]
Windfall is an action Roguelike in which you’re armed with two main weapons, mixed and matched from a growing arsenal of swords, bows, shields and projectiles. Each is assigned to a single face button, so it’s easy to alternate between the hacks of one and the slashes of the other, while peppering in the occasional back-pocket ‘trinket’ (grenades, traps, etc) that wait on a cooldown timer. Rounding out your basic actions are a limited supply of Estus-style health flasks and a lightning-fast ‘pulsor’ dash manoeuvre that essentially doubles as dodge and jump. After an early-game upgrade, these dashes can be chained together without letting go of the button, carving a route through enemies and dodging any encounters you don’t fancy in an incredible rush of forward momentum.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/3777320077.jpg]
It’s every bit as fleet-footed as its predecessor, then. And we’ll admit here to a slight sense of relief, given that half of the six people credited on Dead Cells’ original release have left in the meantime. Not to mention that Motion Twin’s working in a different engine – Unity rather than its homebrewed Haxe – and with an entire extra dimension. But within moments of getting your hands on the controller, it’s clear the studio as it exists in 2024 still has those old action-game chops, and the flair for weapon design that kept Dead Cells’ armoury so well stocked. Early favourites here include throwable kunai which stack up Curse on their target, detonated with a long press, and the Beatbolt, a crossbow that’s more powerful if you time the shots just right. But it’s not only in the moment-tomoment business that this team is building on Motion Twin’s previous work.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/5705931351.jpg]
Remember, Dead Cells helped to pioneer the modern Roguelike structure, softening the harder edges of permadeath with persistent progression between runs; the structure of Windblown continues that trajectory. You still shape a bespoke build over the course of each run, out of the weapons and trinkets you find along the way, and the upgrades chosen from ‘Gift’ menus of three. But at the same time, you’re always working towards the next run, and the one after that, even if – when – you die prematurely.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/7123330307.jpg]
Where previously you were required to bank your upgrade-buying Cells at the end of each level if you wanted to hold onto them, here death causes you to shed just one of the game’s three currencies. You’ll drop all your Shells, which you’re able to spend in shops during a run, but keep the Cogs, Memonite dust and ‘Encrypted Memory’ blueprints that contribute towards permanent unlocks. It’s a friction-light approach that tracks with the Roguelike’s evolution over the past five years, but surely risks taking some of the necessary sting out of death. It’s...
Publisher Motion Twin, Kepler Ghost
Format PC
Origin France
Release TBA
An age-old question for any creative with an unexpected hit on their hands: Where next? Dead Cells was developed as something of a last hope for Motion Twin, the French studio which had been making games for the best part of two decades by that point. As Gwenaël Massé once told us, for E352’s Studio Profile, the game was conceived as a “blaze of glory”, going out making the kinds of games the developers loved, rather than “something that we were just historically lumped with” by the company’s previous output. Of course, Dead Cells was such a success that it not only kept the studio alive but led to the creation of another, Evil Empire, to take over the game’s many updates and expansions from 2019 onwards. So, in the five years between that handoff and Windblown’s own arrival in early access this month, what has Motion Twin been doing?
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/3097773340.jpg]
First off, an awful lot of prototyping. The team spent April to December 2019 in essentially one long game jam, Massé tells us, during which they tried everything “from 2D platforming and puzzle games to a third-person shooter action game, even an arcade aeroplane prototype. One of those ideas was a multiplayer couch game with no fighting, à la Mario Party.” The latter was the first seed of Windblown, Massé adds – though it doesn’t sound much like the game before us today. “Minigames were very expensive to produce if you wanted to avoid [them being] repetitive and boring,” he says. Besides, Motion Twin still wanted to make something with “fast action gameplay”, with minigames serving as a way to “keep runs fresh and very different from one to another” – so, as the latter element fell away, the developer was left with the game at its core, which turns out to look and feel rather like a 3D reimagining of Dead Cells.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/7370573372.jpg]
Windfall is an action Roguelike in which you’re armed with two main weapons, mixed and matched from a growing arsenal of swords, bows, shields and projectiles. Each is assigned to a single face button, so it’s easy to alternate between the hacks of one and the slashes of the other, while peppering in the occasional back-pocket ‘trinket’ (grenades, traps, etc) that wait on a cooldown timer. Rounding out your basic actions are a limited supply of Estus-style health flasks and a lightning-fast ‘pulsor’ dash manoeuvre that essentially doubles as dodge and jump. After an early-game upgrade, these dashes can be chained together without letting go of the button, carving a route through enemies and dodging any encounters you don’t fancy in an incredible rush of forward momentum.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/3777320077.jpg]
It’s every bit as fleet-footed as its predecessor, then. And we’ll admit here to a slight sense of relief, given that half of the six people credited on Dead Cells’ original release have left in the meantime. Not to mention that Motion Twin’s working in a different engine – Unity rather than its homebrewed Haxe – and with an entire extra dimension. But within moments of getting your hands on the controller, it’s clear the studio as it exists in 2024 still has those old action-game chops, and the flair for weapon design that kept Dead Cells’ armoury so well stocked. Early favourites here include throwable kunai which stack up Curse on their target, detonated with a long press, and the Beatbolt, a crossbow that’s more powerful if you time the shots just right. But it’s not only in the moment-tomoment business that this team is building on Motion Twin’s previous work.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/5705931351.jpg]
Remember, Dead Cells helped to pioneer the modern Roguelike structure, softening the harder edges of permadeath with persistent progression between runs; the structure of Windblown continues that trajectory. You still shape a bespoke build over the course of each run, out of the weapons and trinkets you find along the way, and the upgrades chosen from ‘Gift’ menus of three. But at the same time, you’re always working towards the next run, and the one after that, even if – when – you die prematurely.
image [https://cdn.magzter.com/1387349800/1730374449/articles/prv3tPyeo1730457452789/7123330307.jpg]
Where previously you were required to bank your upgrade-buying Cells at the end of each level if you wanted to hold onto them, here death causes you to shed just one of the game’s three currencies. You’ll drop all your Shells, which you’re able to spend in shops during a run, but keep the Cogs, Memonite dust and ‘Encrypted Memory’ blueprints that contribute towards permanent unlocks. It’s a friction-light approach that tracks with the Roguelike’s evolution over the past five years, but surely risks taking some of the necessary sting out of death. It’s...
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Edge Uk (Digital) - 1 Issue, Christmas 2024