Line #35 VideoGame/AValleyWithoutWind


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/valleywind_5904.jpg]]
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3	Something bad happened: [[EarthShatteringKaboom reality shattered]], and different places from different times, ranging from the bronze age to the {{Magitek}}-reliant ice age to the land when robots reign supreme, now stand side by side. Overlords now rule the world, windstorms and monsters terrorize the survivors.
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5	In this world called Environ, you control a glyphbearer, those who are granted power by Ilari to be able to safely venture out into the wilds not protected by Ilari's powers. Your job is to try to improve the world somehow, but don't expect this to be easy: the life of a glyphbearer is short, and death is not the matter of ''if'', but ''when''.
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7	''A Valley Without Wind'' is a {{Metroidvania}}-ish adventure game with elements of city-building game made by Arcen Games, the creators of ''VideoGame/AIWarFleetCommand'', but with the maps being [[ProceduralGeneration procedurally generated]] instead of being fixed like most Metroidvania games. Your goal is to gather materials to improve your city and spell list, upgrading your characters, and take down [[BigBad the overlords]] of each continent. Since death in this game is expected, you can change characters around with those in your city, or if you die, then you'll be given a replacement characters (without character upgrades), and the dead character will become a vengeful ghost that can be fought.
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9	The game has no end. [[EndlessGame When a continent is cleared, you can move on to the next]].
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11	The game also contains co-op mode, which you can join other people's world.
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13	A sequel was released in February 2013 and during the beta period, anyone who owned the first game got the second game absolutely free (and vice-versa)! [[Videogame/AValleyWithoutWind2 The sequel's page can be found here.]]
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15	!!This game provides examples of:
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17	* AIIsACrapshoot: Averted, despite all the skelebots running around (including GiantMook boss variants) nothing Ice Age natives say suggested they ever acted up before the Cataclysm. The playable skelebot characters do tend to act superior, but [[TimeyWimeyBall from their perspective]], [[JustifiedTrope humanity went extinct centuries ago]].
18	* AllOfTimeAtOnce: The setting, a PatchworkWorld of time periods.
19	* AnachronismStew: Starts off bad ("contemporary" time periods have bipedal mecha as a standard enemy) and gets progressively worse as the continent tier increases and enemies can roam further from their native habitat. Taken further in the "Fix Anachronism" missions which require you to eliminate enemies that don't belong in the environment, resulting in sea-snakes in a desert dungeon.
20	%%* ApocalypseHow
21	* BagOfSpilling: Going to a new continent will keep all statistics and tools you have for the currently-used character, but spells are lost.
22	%%* CrapsackWorld: Combined with AnachronismStew and PatchworkWorld.
23	* DeathFromAbove: The missions which involve protecting piles of supplies from meteor showers. Also pirate barges, which will constantly bombard any outdoor reigon in range.
24	* DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist: Well, not for the character -- they bite the dust permanently. Everything else transfers over to a new character along with the Glyph, though, so you're only a pile of upgrade stones away from where you were. Even moreso after upgrade stones are out of the game -- you now don't lose any progress at all, you just have to reroll your stats and the two individual character traits. The only real "cost" is that you've now got a ghost wherever you died (and skelebots don't even do that).
25	* DoubleUnlock: Mysteries. First you have to meet their unlock conditions, then get lucky and find the room they're hidden in, then solve a puzzle to receive the precious scrap of backstory. This was later changed to simply be tacked on to secret mission rewards once unlocked.
26	* EldritchLocation:
27	** Most of the buildings qualify; due to reality being torn apart rooms can be shaped like anchors and have stairways that lead up by descending them.
28	** [[spoiler:The Deep is a previously medieval area horribly disfigured by the dark Ilari living there, having tentacles and entropy elementals.]]
29	* EndlessGame: After you defeat the overlord on a continent, you move on to the next. The world is infinite in size, and so is the number of continents.
30	* EmbeddedPrecursor: Inverted; anyone who owns the first game gets the sequel for free. Though it's also played straight because it works the other way around, too.
31	* TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt: Subverted in that after the EarthShatteringKaboom, [[PatchworkWorld the fragments of the planet were put back together]].
32	%%* EvilOverlord: Defeating these guys is the point of the game.%%What guys?
33	* FantasticRacism: The otherwise friendly Guardian Ilari ''hate'' skelebots, openly insulting and threatening even ones allied with humanity. The allied skelebots aren't exactly fond of humans, either, and humans -- while not as openly hostile as the Guardian Ilari -- are wary as well.
34	* GlassCannon: Adventurers from the Time of Magic always have enough MP to spam high-tier spells like they were party favors--but thanks to attributes being pooled that comes at the expense of the health and/or damage multiplier stats.
35	* HumongousMecha: Whenever the Skelebots appear as a boss.
36	* JigsawPuzzlePlot: Hints to what the heck has actually happened and what's going on now are found by solving "mysteries" scattered throughout the world.
37	* JustOneMoreTurn: The game is a HUGE time sink, with thoughts of "Okay, I'll just upgrade this one spell and stop" spiraling out of control when each spell component needs to be unlocked, with each unlock condition having prerequisites... The developer is completely aware of it, too. The button to confirm quitting the game is labeled "Yeah, I should probably go eat or sleep or something."
38	* {{Magitek}}: Most people on the planet can use magic, and technology in the world, especially during the Ice Age, is powered by magic.
39	%%* {{Metroidvania}}: The game has large elements of this.%%Like?
40	* MightyGlacier: Skelebot characters are relatively slow and can't jump as high as everybody else (or use double-jump or slow-fall enchants), and most have abysmal mana, but they come with important defensive items/enchants built-in (acid water immunity, heatsuit/coldsuit, fall damage immunity) and are always generated with most of their character points dumped in the health slot, some exceeding a thousand HP with a moderate health upgrade.
41	** Draconians are even slower and worse jumpers (easily less than half the mobility of characters whose time period ''doesn't'' offer mobility bonuses), but have excellent health AND attack power, and get bonus stats to go around.
42	* MookFaceTurn: Skelebots were initially standard enemies, but an update added playable Skelebots that have allied themselves with humanity and the Ilari...though the latter two, ''especially'' the Ilari, aren't exactly keen on the idea of being aided by previously murderous robots.
43	%%* NewGamePlus
44	%%* NoEnding
45	* NonIndicativeTitle: Subverted. Wind is a fairly major motif in it's ''excess'', but the title actually refers to what you're trying to do -- wind storms hurt you while buffing monsters, and you build shelters to quell them.
46	* OrcusOnHisThrone: Despite the Guardians' insistence that your settlement will be destroyed if the continent's overlord remains unopposed, overlords don't really do much other than sitting there, waiting to be defeated.
47	* PassingTheTorch: Back and forth and can be done repeatedly. After all, there is only one glyph (or few in co-op mode), but many people.
48	* PatchworkMap: Justified, since something really bad happened and now reality is shattered and is randomly patched back together.
49	* PatchworkWorld: As above, different piece of reality have been haphazardly stitched together and conventional physics is now more of a strongly-worded suggestion.
50	* PointBuildSystem: Sort of, and applied twice over. At creation characters have "points" divided randomly between max health, max mana and the damage multiplier on their attack, weighted depending on their time period (time of magic have massive mana at the expense of health, robots and draconians rob their mana stat to pour more into health and for the latter damage, etc). A few time periods get bonuses stat points to go around. At the same time, you can select "upgrade" enchantments that apply a multiplier to one of those three stats (and a mana regen boost as a bonus for the mana upgrade), but only with values totaling 10 (12 for Contemporary characters), and with diminishing returns if you try to spend it all on one stat. Each character also has two random unique bonuses and some time-period based bonuses.
51	* RandomNumberGod: Determines mission rewards, which can inhibit spell creation or settlement development if you're unlucky. Critical supplies and basic powers can be bought from the settlement, however; prices are exorbitant, but it provides an option if the RNG just hates you.
52	%%* ReplacementMooks: Your characters.
53	* ShoutOut: Half of the IdiosyncraticDifficultyLevels for the platforming difficulty are variants on ''VideoGame/IWannaBeTheGuy''. Another one of them is a reference to ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros''. The sequel's achievements contains considerable number of {{Shout Out}}s, such as: [[VideoGame/DwarfFortress Losing Is Fun!]], [[VideoGame/DungeonsOfDredmor Congratulations, You Have Died!]], [[VideoGame/RecettearAnItemShopsTale Capitalism, Ho!]].
54	* SuperDrowningSkills: Well, not actually drowning, but since all water is acidic after the cataclysm the constant damage has the same effect. An Acid Gills enchantment inverts this to SuperNotDrowningSkills. Better yet, most of the common ocean creatures are somewhat weak to either fire or water attacks. So you'll be using both while underwater and discover that they both function normally (as does lightning).
55	* TitleDrop: The broken world is irreparable, but some may build what all dream of: A Valley Without Wind.
56	* UnwinnableByDesign: The developers have not programmed any unwinnable game states, however they note an intentional feature can cause one: a dead character creates a vengeful ghost. If your next character dies, there's two ghosts, and so on. Too many ghosts in a mandatory place (say, the Overlord's chamber) and you're stuck.
57	* WeirdCurrency: All of the Consciousness Shards you find either lying around the world or by killing enemies are [[GrimDark lost shards of minds/souls left over from most of humanity being torn apart from the cataclysm.]]
58	* WideOpenSandbox: You can go anywhere once the tutorial is over. [[SchmuckBait You can even go straight to the]] [[BigBad Big Bad's]] [[TooDumbToLive lair right at the start of the game]].

Context VideoGame / AValleyWithoutWind